Farmer has some water advice for ministers

WATER Minister Tony Burke has sought legal advice on whether the Water Act puts the needs of the environment ahead of the wellbeing of farmers.

Farmer Mike Carberry, who opposes water allocation cuts, in his wheat fields at Narrabri, northern NSW, yesterday. Picture: Vanessa Hunter

WATER Minister Tony Burke has sought legal advice on whether the Water Act puts the needs of the environment ahead of the wellbeing of farmers.

But if the minister asked Narrabri cotton farmer Mike Carberry for his advice, the answer would be clear.

"For us, this (water cuts) is 'put the hand grenade in your mouth and pull the pin'," Mr Carberry said yesterday before yet another tense meeting to consult local farmers about the details of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority guide recommending cuts to water allocations across the basin.

Mr Burke's decision to seek legal advice follows days of bitter debate about the parameters of the Water Act, passed in 2007 under the Howard government, and whether it failed to give the independent MDBA enough scope to consider the socio-economic impact of recommending a 27 to 37 per cent cut to water allocations across the basin.

Speaking at the National Press Club yesterday, National Farmers Federation chief executive Ben Fargher said the trust of farmers and irrigators across the basin had been shattered since the release of the guide to the Murray-Darling plan almost two weeks ago. Criticising the MDBA for a lack of consultation with basin residents, Mr Fargher said: "The last two weeks have gone so badly that we actually threaten the entire water reform agenda . . . at the moment the trust in our communities in regional Australia is threadbare."

For wheat and cotton growers who attended yesterday's standing-room-only consultation meeting in the 800-seat Narrabri theatre, political trust wore thin long ago.

Wee Waa businessman Kerry Watts told the meeting: "Just because both sides agreed to it doesn't make it right."

Narrabri was the first in a series of consultations to be held by the authority throughout the high-irrigation, broadacre cotton district that straddles the NSW and Queensland border, west of the Great Dividing Range.

Growers said the percentage of water taken from the Darling River system for agriculture had been overstated and not enough attention had been paid to cutbacks already imposed by the NSW government.

NSW irrigators blamed poor water management in South Australia for the severity of the proposed water cuts and claimed growers in the Darling River system could do little to fix it.

"This (Murray-Darling Basin) plan is flat-out communism," Mr Carberry, a third-generation cotton grower, said before the meeting. "What's happened to our society when you make somebody else responsible? You have got the situation here where people who are performing badly with their actions down there (South Australia) are looking to blame someone else."

The political charms of former Nationals leader Ian Sinclair, who moderated the meeting, were not enough to turn Mr Carberry's mind. His verdict after the meeting? "F . . king hopeless, mate."

The Prime Minister yesterday accused the opposition of fear-mongering and restated the government's position on reforming water allocation in the troubled river system. Ms Gillard said her government would pursue the reforms, "under the relevant legislation, guided by the MDBA".

Mr Burke announced during question time that he had approached his department last week for clarification about what that legislation actually stipulated for the MDBA.

"There has been a level of concern and angst, both in the parliament and in the community more generally, around whether the act in its current form delivers on those three outcomes (of a healthy river, food production and strong regional communities)," the Water Minister said.

His announcement followed comments by MDBA chief executive Rob Freeman in a Senate estimates committee hearing on Tuesday that if the new socio-economic impact study announced by the authority on Sunday found that cuts at the lowest end of the scale still had too harsh an impact on regional towns, the MDBA would be forced under the act to recommend those cuts unless extra water could be returned to the system through engineering efficiencies.

Mr Burke told parliament: "We need to determine whether or not (the triple bottom line) is reflected in the act as I think most members of parliament believed it was when the Water Act was implemented."

The opposition's spokesman on the Murray-Darling, Simon Birmingham, agreed with Mr Burke that both sides of politics had believed the act was designed to balance social and economic factors with environmental outcomes.