station.

Mayor Mike Neville and the Griffith City Council, Our Future is Local chairman Paul Pierotti and local MP Adrian Piccoli have all thrown their weight behind a campaign to overturn the State Government’s decision to close the Hanwood facility and have urged residents to do the same.

Cr Neville labelled the Rees Government’s decision to shut-down the station, which provides vital information to the region’s farmers, as ridiculous and issued a stern “please explain” to the Minister for Local Government, Barbara Perry, when in Sydney last Friday.

“The State Government has to make a decision: do they want a fruit bowl in the MIA or do they want a dust bowl? It’s as simple as that,”

he said.

“I just don’t see the value in losing families from the community; I don’t see the value in today’s environment when governments and everyone are talking about climate change, best practice and innovation and they’re going to close centres that are actually researching that sort of assistance for local industries.

“I’m going to ask (Water Minister) Philip Costa, who’ll be in town on Thursday, and (local MLC) Tony Catanzariti to advocate on our behalf to the Government to try to bring them to their senses.”

Our Future is Local chairman Paul Pierotti said the announcement in last week’s mini-budget was a “grab from Griffith” that the city could ill-afford in this time of drought.

“The fact that they would scale something like this back in times like these when we’re being hit from every possible angle is really pathetic,” Mr Pierotti said.

“We’ve got global warming happening, a shortage of water and Australia has no choice but to radically change its entire agriculture practices and for them to

neglect the MIA like this is beyond belief.”

Mr Pierotti said with the Government on such shaky ground it might be possible to get the decision overturned, or at least delay the closure long enough to see the Rees Government ousted from power.

“I do believe if we rally hard enough on this we can make a difference,” he said. “They’re talking about this as a three-year program and I very much doubt that this

Government will be in power in three months let alone three years.”

Murrumbidgee MP Adrian Piccoli said in addition to losing the station’s valuable research, if the closure went ahead up to 18 families might be forced to move away from Griffith.