Murray-Darling Basin plan to be reviewed, NSW walkout averted
NSW has refused to commit any more environmental water to protect the River Murray during tense crisis talks, as the SA water minister says the Commonwealth must deliver the flows regardless.
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The hard-fought plan to protect the River Murray hangs on a knife edge, as NSW said it would pull the plug on its commitment to environmental water.
But SA Water and Environment Minister David Speirs says the Commonwealth is obliged to deliver the flows regardless.
Mr Speirs said this was required through the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, even if it meant forcing controversial water buybacks on regional communities.
NSW Water Minister Melinda Pavey said her state could not commit any more water to the 450GL of environmental flows earmarked for the Murray-Darling Basin, which are a cornerstone of the plan and fundamental to the health of the overall system.
Following the biannual Ministerial Council meeting in Brisbane, Ms Pavey told reporters NSW was facing its “most severe drought in living memory”. “We’ve made it clear we have no more water to give under the 450GL,” she said.
“We have simply run out of water we can give back because we have to put NSW first.”
Ms Pavey argued the allocation did not meet the social-economic neutrality test agreed to last year.
Mr Speirs was heavily criticised in the state-based royal commission last year for agreeing to the test. In return, the state received $70 million for the Coorong wetlands.
Basin states met amid a backdrop of calls from some interstate irrigators to abandon the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in the face of increasing hardship.
However, as the issue became increasingly politicised, Mr Speirs said the NSW Government’s decision to shelve its responsibility for environmental flows was raised after, and not during, the meeting.
“The formal outcome of the Ministerial Council meeting was very successful but the press conference by NSW would suggest otherwise,” he said.
Mr Speirs said SA had the most to lose if the 450GL was not recovered, but was confident it would still be secured. “The water we’ve got coming down the river at the moment is maintained, that agreement is locked in, that water continues to flow,” he said.
“If they (NSW) do walk away from the 450GL the Federal Government would have to step in and there would be forced buy backs across NSW communities and that water would still be delivered to South Australians. Forced buy backs hurt regional communities in a very direct way.”
Federal Water Minister David Littleproud said “no-one wants to go near buy-backs” and hoped water could be recovered through water-saving projects in urban communities.
“Everybody is still sitting at the table … because they know we can … recover the last 20 per cent with infrastructure projects,” he said.
Ms Pavey and NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro have repeatedly threatened to exit the basin unless their state did not have to contribute to the 450GL.
Meantime, all states except NSW have also refused to commit resources to Inspector-General Mick Keelty’s review of decades-old water sharing arrangements, saying they were already working.
Mr Speirs said SA had shown it was listening to farmers’ struggles by firing up its desalination plant to provide water for growing fodder upstream.
Mr Littleproud said Mr Keelty’s review would continue whether the states co-operated or not.
“If the state agencies are confident they’re doing everything right, there should be no problem shining a light to ensure everything is above board,” he said.
The states supported moves to investigate foreign water ownership, along with the implications of channel irrigation, which has been criticised for large amounts of associated evaporation.
Opposition environment spokeswoman Susan Close said NSW was relying on the controversial social-economic neutrality test deal struck last year among the states.
“One year after David Speirs did a deal that he claimed was a pathway to water, it has been proven to be a get-out clause for NSW,” she said.
Outside the Brisbane venue, Deniliquin irrigators Alan Wragge and Rowena Jackson said they had been on 0 per cent water allocations for the past two years. “We’re watching this water flow past and we just can’t touch it – crops are dying,” Ms Jackson said.
Mr Wragge – a fifth generation farmer – had planned to pass the business on to his son but he said that dream had been shattered.
“He said, ‘There’s no future in irrigation farming, Dad, I’m out’,” Mr Wragge said.
The couple were among irrigators who converged at Parliament House, Canberra, as part of a protest earlier this month, and they want the Murray-Darling Basin plan re-examined to direct more water to upstream irrigators.
“They’re sending fresh water down the Murray that goes all the way from New South Wales and Victoria out to sea, and starting up the desalination plant to turn what was fresh water, then became salty, back into freshwater again. It’s insane,” Mr Wragge said.