Four Corners investigation questions Murray-Darling ‘Cash Splash’
Billions have been allocated to help the Murray-Darling Basin, however a new investigation questions whether the plan is a massive waste of taxpayer funds.
A multi-billion dollar taxpayer funded scheme to boost water levels in the Murray-Darling Basin has been slammed as a misguided ‘rort’ that’s pouring millions into huge companies instead, a new investigation has found.
Monday night’s episode of the ABC’s Four Cornersprogram looked at where the billions allocated for the environmental scheme have been spent.
The scheme is meant to help to restore the fragile river system, which has experienced severe drought and mass fish kills in recent years, but it’s instead helping companies to boost their irrigation and access large amounts of water.
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The investigation found taxpayers have given more than $40 million to one corporation alone.
It’s reported Webster Limited, one of Australia’s largest irrigated farming producers, received $41 million from the scheme to expand operations in southwest NSW.
The company is Australia’s largest producer of walnuts, which requires a lot of water, and is said to be expanding its nut business.
Webster hasn’t revealed how it has changed its water usage since receiving the funding, but told Four Corners it had led to a decrease in water per hectare.
A former director at the Murray-Darling Basin Authority slammed the government’s plan as doing the opposite to what it was intended for.
“That program was supposed to reduce the amount of water that was going to irrigation, when it’s actually increased the opportunities for irrigation … all subsidised by taxpayers,” Maryanne Slattery told the program.
Former government officials shockingly claimed to Four Corners that no government authorities check whether work paid for by the water infrastructure scheme delivered results on water savings.
Farmers tell the government an estimate on how much water their proposed infrastructure will save, but if they’re successful in securing Commonwealth funding their claims are never checked for validity.
“Governments are very motivated to get the savings on paper, and they’ve got deep pockets … you’d have to expect that some of the savings aren’t real, and that money has gone to projects that haven’t yielded what they were supposed to,” Ms Slattery claimed.
Farmers have also questioned the scheme, some claiming the government overpaid them for water.
One couple claimed they were paid $100,000 for earthworks to reduce water run off from their farmland.
However, they said the work they were paid for was something they had planned to do anyway.
The Four Corners program has caused anger among farming groups, who claim it is a “disgusting” misrepresentation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and plan to put in a formal complaint.
The National Farmers’ Federation will file the complaint to the broadcaster alongside the National Irrigators Council, Cotton Australia, NSW Farmers, NSW Irrigators, and AgForce Queensland, The Daily Telegraph reports.
The NFF believes Four Corners did not explain the amount of water farmers have returned to the river system and that returning water is a condition of farmers wanting to access the Murray-Darling plan’s infrastructure.
Four Corners investigation ‘Cash Splash’ can be watched on the ABC’s iview