States at war over Murray-Darling ‘water grab’

Victoria has slammed its northern neighbours for allowing farmers to harvest Murray-Darling floodplain waters.

Victorian Water Minister Lisa Neville. Picture: AAP

A water war that has included the use of covert satellite surveillance has escalated in the ­Murray-­Darling Basin over de­cisions by Queensland and NSW to let their irrigators take water from newly flowing rivers rather than let it flow downstream.

As revealed by The Aust­ralian, so concerned was the NSW government about the practice to its north that it recently secretly analysed satellite images of water storages and rivers in southern Queensland to track it, but has since allowed its own farmers to do the same.

On Wednesday, Victorian Water Minister Lisa Neville ­attacked both states to her north.

Ms Neville has written to federal­ Water Minister Keith Pitt asking for the interim inspect­or-general of Murray-Darling Basin Water Resources, former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty, and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to examine the harvesting of floodplain waters.

“We need consistent applic­ation of rules across the basin to get fair outcomes — this includes for irrigators, communities and the environment,” Ms Neville said. “The plan is supposed to protect drinking water for towns and improve the health of rivers like the Goulburn. I expect all jurisdictions to do the right thing.”

Her NSW counterpart, Melinda Pavey, defended the lifting of embargoes on pumping from “first flows”, saying it had to be done for practical purposes to mitigate flood damage by letting farmers take water into storage.

“The department made the decision to remove embargoes on a small area of the system for a short period when they received calls from property owners their properties were under threat from flash flooding,” she said, adding that the rest of the embargoe­s remained in place.

Queensland Minister for Natural Resources Anthony Lynham said his government had an approved water plan with “rules that are built around the dry and wet cycles that naturally occur in these northern river systems­”. “The southern states seem to have reverted to the old game plan of blaming the north to diver­t attention from their own local water issues,’’ he said.