Irrigators Welcome Push By Dalton Around Water Buybacks

Southern Riverina Irrigators have welcomed the push by Independent Member for Murray Helen Dalton to ensure the neutrality test remains in place when it comes to buybacks and the Basin Plan.

Key stakeholders have reported the Federal government was pushing ahead to recover additional water and would alter the law to remove a requirement for a socio-economic impact test.

Chair of SRI Chris Brooks said buybacks had already decimated our communities while threatening the future of staple food production and ultimately the cost of living.

“Under the basin plan Murray Irrigation have already lost 30 per cent of the productive water through the system, further losses threaten a genuine $7 billion output and viability of our region,” Mr Brooks said.

He said South Australia and Victoria oppose buybacks in their respective states and the biggest concern remained NSW Murray and Murrumbidgee being targeted due to their storage capacity.

“We commend the member for Murray for bringing forward a private members bill to protect our communities,” Mr Brooks said.

According to Mr Brooks, government should target over-allocated and illegal floodplain harvesting licences in northern NSW which would ensure water flowed down the Darling-Barka River and achieve one of the key principles of the basin plan.

The bill will ensure no more water can be transferred to the Government without a socio-economic impact review which demonstrates neutral to positive outcomes.

Mr Brooks said we already knew what happened to our towns when you took water away.

“Look what happened to Wakool - 97GL was brought back and half the jobs were lost,” Mr Brooks said.

“Fast forward another decade and the dairy industry has been decimated, the local school has gone from fifty students to eight, the tennis, football and basketball clubs have all folded while the local pub operates under restricted hours - bbuybacks have ripped the heart out of a once vibrant community.”

He also said increasing volumes of water held in upstream storages increased flood risk.

“The MDBA already report the Murray River is over-recovered any more water just compounds flooding issues,” Mr Brooks said.

“Last years unprecedented flooding caused billions of dollars of infrastructure and productivity losses and this could be our new reality if this bill is not passed.“

He said there was already over 4600GL in held environmental water accounts.

"The CEWH stated they can only use 78 per cent of the water they currently have and we know sending more water downstream will only exacerbate environmental damage upstream.

“Buybacks have nothing to do with environmental outcomes, make no mistake it’s political and to the detriment of every single one of us who live here in the Riverina – from farmers to business owners to families, no one is spared,” he said.

• Topics:

• Agriculture & Farming
• Water
• Politics