Water buyouts to ease Murray River anger

THE Government will offer to buy out the water entitlements of entire irrigation communities as Kevin Rudd moved yesterday to appease growing outrage at the plight of the lower Murray River.

THE Government will offer to buy out the water entitlements of entire irrigation communities as Kevin Rudd moved yesterday to appease growing outrage at the plight of the lower Murray River.

The Prime Minister also caved in to demands for an external audit of water remaining in the drought-ravaged Murray-Darling Basin that spans Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia.

Federal cabinet, meeting in Adelaide, a centre of the unfolding crisis, signed off on $50million in additional spending to accelerate the buyback of water rights, which has so far had minimal impact.

But the Opposition dismissed the package as "paper money", while South Australia's balance-of-power senator Nick Xenophon said it did not go far enough.

Under the deal, the federal Government will work with the states to acquire irrigation properties with large-scale water entitlements, especially in the upper reaches of the basin in NSW and Queensland.

This would build on a program trialed successfully in NSW, a spokeswoman for Water Minister Penny Wong said.

As well, Mr Rudd said the commonweath was willing to acquire the water entitlements of whole communities. But there was "no magic solution" to the emergency engulfing the lower Murray in South Australia, he warned. "I am not going to provide false promises, I am not going to provide false guarantees about there being some simple solution here," he said.

"I am trying to turn around a situation which has evolved over many years ... and we are dealing with the real consequences of climate change." Describing the river system as "very stressed", Mr Rudd said the Government was taking practical measures to accelerate and increase the buyback of water entitlements, which had been grossly over-allocated outside South Australia.

Central to the plan is expansion of a $350million offer for water rights in southern Queensland, where the headwaters of the Murray-Darling system are located. The $50million in additional funding approved by cabinet yesterday will take the program to $400million and extend it through NSW to the Menindee lakes, near Broken Hill, a back-up reservoir of drinking water for that town as well as Adelaide.

Mr Rudd played down the prospect of compulsory acquisition of water rights, saying "we are working within the market".

The effectiveness of the existing water buyback scheme was sharply drawn into question last week, when The Australian reported that it would return barely 10 megalitres to the river this year - the equivalent of 10 Olympic swimming pools.

Senator Wong's office said last night expenditure of the allocated funds would depend on the take-up of offers by irrigators and communities willing to cash in their water rights.

At the same time, pressure on the lower Murray would be eased by Mr Rudd's offer to co-fund with South Australia an expansion of Adelaide's new water desalination plant. The project, currently costed at $1.1 billion, is to provide 50 gigalitres of drinking water annually to Adelaide, about a quarter of the city's needs.

Mr Rudd said the commonwealth would partner the South Australian Government to increase the plant's capacity to up to 100 gigalitres.

Premier Mike Rann did not immediately commit to the expansion. His office said last night the state Government was considering the proposal, though Mr Rann noted yesterday there was provision in the design to accommodate it.

Mr Rudd said he wanted to end debate over whether there were untapped water reserves in the Murray-Darling Basin, which could be reallocated to top up the lower lakes at the mouth of the Murray. The two waterways, Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert, could become acidic within months unless inflows drastically increase.

Last week, the Murray-Darling Basin Commission backed up Senator Wong's grim assessment that there was not enough water in the river system to provide volumes required to fill the lower lakes.

The river management agency reported that publicly controlled reserves of water had fallen to 4800 gigalitres, just a fifth of stored capacity across the basin.

This has been challenged in South Australia by communities on the lower lakes and by some water experts, who dispute the accuracy of data supplied to the commission.

Mr Rudd said estimates of publicly and privately owned water reserves in the basin would be checked by private auditors. Updates would be released quarterly.

Senator Xenophon, whose vote is needed by the Government to pass legislation opposed by the Coalition, yesterday backed a proposal by the Greens to hold a Senate inquiry into the issue.

"I've got real concerns about what is being proposed," he said. "What we need is an independent forensic audit which details where the water is, who controls it and what the best use of the water is."

Opposition climate change and environment spokesman Greg Hunt accused Mr Rudd of "running up Penny Wong's white flag" on the lower lakes.

The latest Murray package was "paper money" which would not deliver results, he said.

Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists director Peter Cosier said Mr Rudd had recognised the magnitude of the crisis.

Inland Rivers Network coordinator Amy Hankinson said the additional money was a good sign but more was needed to arrest the decline of the Murray-Darling Basin.

Mr Rudd said federal cabinet had agreed to back the flooding of the lower lakes with seawater as a last-ditch measure to stave off acidification. The South Australian Government has begun site preparation for a weir, upstream of the lakes, to implement the measure.