Tanya Plibersek confirms Labor will miss Murray Darling Basin Plan deadline

The federal government will return to pleading with the eastern states to give the River Murray the water it needs to survive after conceding it can’t meet its promise to SA.

Environmentalists and river experts have vented their frustration after Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek conceded it was now impossible to achieve legislated water-saving targets for the River Murray by June next year.

An alliance of national conservation groups have slammed the delay, saying it would “risk terrible damage to the environment during the next drought’’.

SA’s Commissioner for the River Murray Richard Beasley SC, in a column for The Advertiser today, says the plan has suffered from “years of neglect and unlawfulness’’ and said this was the federal government’s “last chance’’ to fulfil its 2022 election promise to deliver an extra 450GL to the southern basin, despite certain opposition from some states.

“Recent history tells us that some states will demonstrate an ongoing contempt for the environment,’’ Mr Beasley said.
READ MORE: Everyone’s a victim of Australia’s great Murray Darling Basin scam

Conservation Council of SA chief executive Craig Wilkins said delaying the plan risked terrible damage to the environment during the next drought.

“With the UN declaring an El Nino and Australia facing a dry spell, right now is the worst possible time to deprive wetlands and wildlife of the water they will need to survive tough times ahead,’’ he said.

Ms Plibersek said Tuesday she was now in talks with the states, including SA, to set a new deadline to secure an extra 450 gigalitres for environmental flows in the Murray.

The Advertiser reported last week that Ms Plibersek was seeking a three-year extension to the deadline. Yesterday, the Minister declined to put a specific time frame on the delay but said “we’re certainly not talking about five or 10 years’’.

Ms Plibersek’s announcement followed a statement from Murray Darling Basin Authority chair Angus Houston which advised “there is no possibility that under current settings full implementation of the Basin Plan can be achieved by 30 June, 2024’’.

Ms Plibersek accused the previous Morrison government of a “decade of deliberate sabotage’’ of the plan.

The Murray Darling Basin Plan was signed in 2012 and was to have returned 3200GL to the river. Ms Plibersek said it was likely the plan would fall 750GL short. Of the extra 450GL, negotiated for the southern basin, only 26GL has been returned.

A further progam to allow an extra 605GL to be extracted from the Murray in return for efficiency projects has also been a failure with the MDBA confirming it would fall between 190GL and 315GL short.

Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek in Hobart. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

SA deputy premier Susan Close welcomed Ms Plibersek’s decision to embrace more water buybacks as a cornerstone of achieving the 450GL target.

“Voluntary buybacks might be a mechanism that is a way to deliver the 450 and we want to see how much of it will be delivered that way,’’ she said.

Dr Close said while there was “urgency’’ in putting the plan back on track, she was less interested in deadlines than “a concrete plan that has credibility that delivers on the Murray Darling Basin Plan’’.

Opposition leader David Speirs called buybacks a “blunt instrument’’ but said it was a “clear example of Labor telling people what they want to hear to win an election’’.

Originally published as Tanya Plibersek confirms Labor will miss Murray Darling Basin Plan deadline