The Federal Member for Farrer Sussan Ley last month delivered her strongest criticism yet of water buybacks in the basin, saying they would engender a “serious threat of economic and social ruin” to communities.
Ms Ley also described the recently completed consultation process along the Murray River as a “sham consultation”.
“They need to return to the bipartisan policy we had prior to (this government) which ensured water recovered could not cause social or economic hurt to local communities,” she said.
The Federal Government plans to recover 450 gigalitres by 2027, largely through buybacks, to meet environmental water targets. Ms Ley said the reduced agricultural output would also add to the price of food and fibre at the checkout.
Local irrigators say there are other ways to deliver on the plan, such as building more dams to ensure environmental flows and irrigation modernisation projects.
Local vegetable farmer and large irrigator Leo Kelly spoke openly about the basin plan which he described as a plan that is “not good for Australia”.
“In my view, we need to hold more water in storage by building more dams for environment flows,” Mr Kelly said.
“Instead of spending all this money on buy backs and insurance claims from floods we could be storing excess water in dams ready for environmental flows.”
Mr Kelly also expressed his frustration at the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) decision makers in Canberra about the questionable management of water flows.
“In the past few weeks, we have had very low levels in the river below the Yarrawonga Weir.
“They were letting out around seven thousand megalitres a day from the weir, it is normally around nine this time of year, this has caused pumping issues.”
Mr Kelly said he had spoken to local Goulburn Murray Water representatives who understand the need for higher river levels for local irrigators to effectively access their water allocations.
“It seems as though they (MDBA) are not taking the local advice in Canberra, and are just doing what they want,” he said.
Savernake rice, canola and winter cereals grower Sam Nixon said southern basin irrigators seemed to be picking up the slack for environmental flow failures in the northern part of the system.
“We are just the whipping boy from what’s going on up north; NSW Murray seems to be picking up the slack and they look to them first for all these projects and probably shouldn’t be,” he said.
Mr Nixon said irrigation modernisation projects were a more expensive way to deliver water savings to the river – $4000-$6000 per megalitre instead of around $2000 for buybacks – but were an investment in struggling communities.
“Government should really be looking at supporting projects that are saving water, a pipe can supply water to farmers and the community gets a benefit whereas a direct water buyback is all negatives,” he said.
“It also allows more water-intensive industries to be established here instead of downstream, and we’re seeing how those high water flows downstream have caused a lot of problems with the Barmah Choke.”
Ms Ley’s Coalition counterpart, Member for Nicholls Sam Birrell said earlier last month regional communities would be impacted by the “destructive” water buybacks.
“Labor’s new plan for water will increase costs for producers and manufacturers, impact jobs and the economic prosperity of Murray Darling Basin communities,” Mr Birrell said.
Mr Nixon, who is also deputy chair of the West Courigan Private Irrigation District, said buybacks would also unsettle an already volatile water market.
“Reliability in the general security market has been eroded away to the point where people aren’t able to do jobs,” he said.
“Water was at $130 dollars a megalitre in September and now it’s $15-$20 - you can’t make cropping decisions in that sort of volatile market.
“There’s less water in the consumptive pool, so there’s a lot of pressure on the temporary water market – and it’s become unaffordable for most unless you’re growing those high value crops like almonds.”
Under legislation passed late last year, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek recommitted to the Murray Darling Basin Plan’s objective to recover 450GL of environmental water, albeit at the later date of end-2027, saying the Coalition had saved just 2GL of water savings in nine years of government.
“I said from day one that I was determined to deliver the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in full, including the 450GL of water for the environment. That’s what I’ve done,” she said in November.
“The Liberals and Nationals spent a decade waging a guerrilla war against the Plan. They never intended to deliver the Plan, in fact they actively undermined it at every turn, and they lied to communities about it.
“In contrast, we’ve worked with people across the Parliament to strengthen this legislation and make it law.”
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