Over the years I’ve become accustomed to reading and /or hearing inaccurate and misleading statements from politicians. The letter by Stewart McArthur, MP, Member for Geelong Province (GA Your Say 17/8) is just another example.

Mr McArthur criticises Simon Birrell for not producing any evidence to prove that logging of the Otways has any detrimental effect on our drinking water and the Barwon River in general but then goes on to say that it’s not his or Barwon Water’s responsibility to prove otherwise.

I would like to remind Mr McArthur that he is an elected representative of the public and that Barwon Water is paid by the public to supply sufficient and quality water for their everyday needs.

As Geelong has had neither sufficient nor quality water for two years, I put it to Mr McArthur whose responsibility is it?

As for proof, any fourth year primary student knows that forests encourage rainfall and even the Comprehensive Regional Assessment (recently published by the Commonwealth and Victorian Regional Forest Agreement Steering Committee) states that the Grampians and the Otway forests have the dominant influence on weather within Western Victoria.