Food prices to increase, say farmers, after Murray Darling Basin plan passes parliament

Farmers say food prices will surge after Labor’s Murray Darling Basin overhaul passed parliament, as they accuse the Albanese government of turning its back on the bush.

Farmers have accused the Albanese government of turning its back on regional communities.

Farmers have accused the Albanese government of turning its back on regional communities and warned food prices will surge after Labor’s Murray Darling Basin plan overhaul passed parliament on Thursday.

National Farmers Federation president David Jochinke said the bill’s passage will be “felt by all Australians at the supermarket checkout” and that farmers were furious with the government for failing to listen to impacted communities.

“The Basin’s heart has been broken by a Government that has ignored communities and hasn’t even bothered to visit those who will be impacted by this dreadful backroom deal,” Mr Jochinke said.

Labor’s bill to remove a cap on buybacks to enable delivery of 450 gigalitres of environmental water back in the basin passed on Thursday with support from the Greens and the crossbench.

Earlier this week, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek revealed she had secured support from the Greens, Liberal defector David Van and ACT Senator David Pocock.

The deal included beefed-up transparency measures, $100m to help First Nations people participate in the water market and a legislated deadline to return environmental water by December 31 2027. Ms Plibersek also committed $30m in a contingency reserve for the Murrumbidgee river as well as $20m for science and monitoring in exchange for Senator Pocock’s vote.

Tasmanian Senators Jacqui Lambie and Tammy Tyrell, and Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe also voted in support of the amendments.

An aerial view of a portion in New South Wales of the Murray-Darling basin.

Ms Plibersek said the passage of the bill was “historic” as she accused the Coalition of standing in the way of water recovery.

“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,” Ms Plibersek said.

“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.”

Nationals deputy leader Perin Davey accused Labor of spending $150m to secure crossbench support for the bill yet the final cost to the taxpayer remained “shrouded in secrecy”.

The attacks came after the Parliamentary Budget Office told Senator Davey it was unable to cost the water recovery process after it came to the view that there was “no existing analytical models that the PBO would be able to rely on to cost this proposal”.

“At a time when Australians are suffering from cost-of-living pressures, they are now being forced to fund a massive job destroying policy which will decrease the nation’s productivity, drive up the cost of living, see more imported food on our supermarket shelves whilst diverting billions of dollars of taxpayers funding from health, education, roads and housing,” Senator Davey said.

Earlier this week, some of Australia’s largest food manufacturers urged the upper house to block the Albanese government’s proposed basin overhaul amid concern the changes would lead to job losses and business closures.

Major organisations including SPC and Kagome signed an open letter demanding Senators vote against the bill warning the push to restart controversial water buybacks will place “significant pressure on our supply chains, operations and workforces”.

The manufacturing bosses said the impact of the bill was “not well understood by the government and has not been adequately considered in the drafting of the bill”.