Community wins fight to keep town's River Murray ferry

Vanguard July 2012 p. 12
Ned K. 

The township of Cadell is a sleepy hollow on the River Murray in South Australia between Waikerie and Morgan, dependent on tourist movement across the town’s ferry and the local citrus fruit orchards and vineyards prosperity for its existence. The small community recently made front page headlines in the Adelaide press. Why?

The Cadell community had become a victim of recent state government budget cuts. The cuts came in the form of scrapping the town’s ferry which connects a road that not only provides a transport link to locals who live and/or work either side of the Murray, but also a route to the west of South Australia and the northern Flinders Ranges.

The scrapping of the ferry would have only saved the government the relatively small amount of $400,000 per year, a pittance when compared to the amounts of taxpayer money to support multinational companies such as Holdens, BHP Billiton and the “defence” industry in SA.

Included in the savings was the income of five ferry operators who would have been out of work. That’s five more “consumers” that capitalism is telling to consume more to help “economic recovery” who would have been forced to cut back on the goods they buy and the services they need.

No Consultation With The People

What made the local community even more irate was that the government’s announcement to scrap the ferry came without any consultation with the community. Even the Minister responsible for the decision admitted the government “failed to do enough consultation with the local community.”

This was an embarrassment to new Premier Weatherill who promised to engage with community before making decisions that affected their lives.

The community held protest meetings and created online petitions to urge the reversal of the ferry decision.  Local school kids put a song about the ferry on Youtube. The support for the Cadell community spread along the Murray River towns and reached in to the Adelaide suburbs through main stream media.

What also was a blunder by the state government was putting the Riverland community off-side at a time when it wants that same community to trust its handling of the issue of water allocation in the Murray Darling Basin.

Community wins struggle

The Cadell community’s campaign forced the Premier to reverse the decision to close the ferry.

This shows that even in the smallest of country communities, a united campaign can have an effect on city decision-makers.

The people of Cadell have inspired communities everywhere to stand up for themselves in the face of austerity measures and to fight for their own interests.