Barnaby Joyce (Image: AAP)

Crikey readers had a huge weekend in the comments section. First there was a great deal of rallying against the environmental mismanagement of the Murray-Darling Basin (and of the country at large), with readers pointing the finger squarely at a certain National MP. Elsewhere, former MUP CEO Louise Adler got some further support following last week’s board resignation stoush, and readers went in to bat against multinational tax rorts, responding to an article by Wayne Swan.

On the Murray-Darling rort

Marcus Hicks writes: It goes even deeper than a bog standard rort. Barnaby admitted that he dealt with water allocations in a way he knew would piss off “the greenies”.

Peter Wileman writes: When Barnaby’s fingerprints are on it, it’s dodgy or inept. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and allow that he is, and always has been a useless, self serving bludger. The reef, the river and the country have all suffered greatly under the rule of representatives of my generation. I can only apologise to younger Australians, but I wonder that they are not marching on Canberra.

David Howe writes: Not only has the commons been plundered for profit but those profits have been enhanced by generous government handouts, effectively doubling the cost to the state.

On the ongoing MUP board scandal

Jackie French, AM writes: Louise Adler and her board have added enormously to Australian intellectual debate and cultural richness. Publishing a commercially successful book means the publishing house can afford to bring out more academic or niche texts, not fewer. MUP have done so. May I suggest that those academics who cannot see this do Logic 101  so they can recognise a fallacious argument? Or possibly Ethics 101 if they know that their argument is fallacious but use it to substantiate an entirely different agenda of power and censorship.
We are all the poorer for the loss of what  had been a  superb publishing board.

Note: I have never been published by MUP, nor by Louise Adler. My publishers’ books compete with hers. But a rich, diverse and enticing literary scene benefits every publishing house and author.

On the need for multinational tax overhaul

Judy Harden-Holden writes: For years inequality of outcomes has stared us in the face as the basis for the growing tsunami of global problems: environmental, social, economic. To have Wayne Swan strongly identify inequality as the main driver of these problems is a step in the right direction. Sustainability was supposed to be about economic, social and environmental outcomes (in that order I fear). Economic outcomes always trumped the other two.

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