Top scientists lash ‘superficial’ ABC over Four Corners’ Murray-Darling report

A group of water experts criticise the ABC’s coverage of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

The Darling River between Bourke and Louth in NSW in April. Picture: Leanne Davis

A group of the nation’s leading water experts has criticised the ABC for its recent coverage of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, saying­ a Four Corners episode propagated myths and misrepresented the science of the plan.

The Four Corners program, which aired on July 8, branded the multi-billion-dollar plan to save the nation’s most threatened river system a “failure and a farce”.

“Reports like this amplify superficial and sensationalist ­stories running in the media since the critical reporting of the SA Royal Commission into the ­Murray-Darling Basin,” says the open letter, issued today by a group of hydrologists and ecologists with ties to universities across the country.

“These stories have invoked the name of science to justify claims of the plan’s failures, lending an air of credibility to calls by various interests to ‘pause the plan’ or, worse, scrap it altogether and conduct a witch hunt to embarrass public officials involved in the water reforms.”

Rob Vertessy, a hydrologist, former chief executive of the ­Bureau of Meteorology and a co-author of the letter, said it stemmed from a “growing frustration” among experts that there was a “widening gap between the broader public perception of the basin and what is actually happenin­g on the ground”.

“Especially when we see a prestigious media platform like Four Corners in a sense aid and abet that rather dismal discourse, we felt frustrated and thought maybe it’s time we should speak up and moderate the debate a bit,” Professor Vertessy said.

“We challenge the assertion the basin plan is a failure and, even worse, the suggestion it’s a farce. The Four Corners program, along with other media coverage on the topic, has been oversimplified and superficial with blatant inaccuracies.”

PDF: The scientists’ open letter

An ABC spokesman said last night that the program had drawn on “a wide cross-section of people with knowledge and experience of the operation of the water subsid­y scheme”.

“Those interviewed included farmers, irrigators, scientists, economists and the CEO of Murrum­bidgee Irrigation,” he said. “The ABC stands by the integrit­y of the program, the facts presented and the scrutiny placed on a $5.6 billion scheme.”

The letter, published today by the Melbourne School of Engineering at the University of Melbour­ne, expresses concerns that, through such negative report­ing, the basin plan and the institutions implementing it are being “unfairly maligned”, which is leading to an erosion of public support for the initiative.

“Four Corners argued that they consulted ‘experts at the coalface of water management’ (for the Cash Splash episode),” the letter reads. “We are such a group. Our collective skills are in hydrologic analysis, riverine ecology, irrigatio­n engineering, water quality, climate change and socio­-economics, crafted through many years of working in the Murray-Darling Basin and elsewhere. It troubles us that some in the community imagine that most scientists regard the basin plan as a mess.

“We worry that negative populist rhetoric may hold sway and derail the basin water reform process entirely.”

Professor Vertessy said the group “fundamentally rejects” the notion there was something better on offer than the current plan. “Everyone in the water secto­r thinks the basin plan has a lot of flaws but there’s nothing we can conceive of that’s going to do a better job,” he said.

“The idea these populists have that the basin can become some sort of positive oasis is just ­ridiculous.

“ We think the basin plan is a pretty sensible middle ground taking us all forward.

“Rather than trying to trash the plan, let’s focus on thinking it through properly and trying to improve on what we have.”

The open letter delves into three “myths” the experts believe have been propagated by media reporting on the basin plan.

“First, the emergence of new irrigation developments in the basin does not mean irri­gators are extracting more water than they did before the plan. Water extract­ions in the basin are capped … and new enterprises can only be established if they purchase existing water entitlements from others.

“Second, assertions that water efficiency projects funded by the federal government are yielding little or no water savings are not supported by available evidence.

“Third, suggestions the basin plan is of no environmental ­benefit are false.”

The Cash Splash episode of Four Corners had been branded as “one-sided and biased” by farming lobby groups, including the National Farmers Federation.

The episode was also criticised by the ABC’s Media Watch, with host Paul Barry saying: “Four Corners … should not ignore inconveni­ent evidence or fail to present one side of the argument, and we reckon it did.”

The university disclosed that many of the experts who contributed to the letter have been paid by one or more basin governments for participation in advisory committees and/or received research grants from one or more basin governments.