Canberra’s dirty little secret has spilled into view again.

A burst main on Constitution Avenue has sent discoloured water gushing into Lake Burley Griffin — but for locals across Murray, this looks all too familiar. Behind the capital’s polished image lies a long-running hypocrisy: Canberra’s own sewage system has repeatedly leaked waste into the very rivers that feed the Murray–Darling Basin — the same system that sustains our farms, our fish, and our families downstream.

While the Albanese Government lectures country communities on how to manage our water, its own backyard continues to dump pollution into the Basin. The Lower Molonglo Water Quality Control Centre — Canberra’s main treatment plant — released partially treated sewage into waterways three times in just three months during 2021, and again in 2022. Each time, the flows carried contaminants through the Molonglo, down the Murrumbidgee, and straight into our Murray.

It’s time for accountability. We need an independent investigation into how Canberra’s unnaturally high phosphate discharges are fuelling toxic blue-green algae outbreaks across the Basin. The double standards from the capital — and the silence from the Albanese Government — can’t be ignored any longer.