Murray Darling Basin Plan all about SA, leaves NSW and Victoria to do heavy lifting

Federal Water Minister Keith Pitt is being accused of demanding NSW and Victoria deliver on impossible deadlines to quench South Australia’s thirst.

About 3000 Victorian and NSW landholders must accept flooding of their land to meet the Basin Plan goal of getting up to 80 gigalitres a day across the South Australian border.

The Federal Government stands accused of offering “sweeteners” to keep South Australian Senators on side, while demanding NSW and Victoria deliver the bulk of 605 gigalitres in Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment Measures by 2024.

Newly appointed Victorian Farmers Federation’s water council chairman Andrew Leahy said Federal Water Minister Keith Pitt recently offered SA $40 million towards the Coorong and Lower Lakes, plus tabling another $60 million for on-farm projects.

“We have fallen victim to a political process where Governments are reliant on the senate crossbench to get any legislation through Parliament,” Mr Leahy said.

He said the Coalition Government and its Labor predecessors kept demanding Victoria and NSW governments do all the heavy lifting, while offering sweeteners to SA.

Last week Mr Pitt told The Weekly Times he would not budge on his demand that Victorian and NSW Governments deliver the bulk of 605 gigalitres in Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment Measures by 2024.

Mr Pitt said he did “not want the states sitting around for the next three to four years” saying what could not be done.

“I need the states to focus on what they can deliver,” he said.

Mr Pitt also ruled out amending the Basin Plan to allow new projects to be put forward by the states.

NSW and Victorian Governments have repeatedly told Mr Pitt and his predecessors they cannot deliver 605GL by the 2024 deadline, a message they are sure to repeat at tomorrow’s meeting of federal and state water ministers.

NSW Water Minister Melinda Pavey has already warned the biggest of her state’s SDLAM projects — the Menindee Lakes reconfiguration — cannot be delivered by 2024, due to the original project assuming a drought reserve of just 80GL could be left in the system to maintain Lower Darling River’s flows.

Since the project was first proposed almost a decade ago, two major fish kills have led the NSW Government and some of the nation’s leading scientists to recommend a reserve of closet to 400GL be maintained in the lakes to protect the Lower Darling.

“We have made it clear we cannot deliver the Menindee Lakes project under the current timeline, reiterated by an independent report into the Basin Plan, which means without an amendment to the Basin Plan, NSW will be required to withdraw this and other SLAM projects,” Ms Pavey said.

The warnings from NSW and Victoria are backed by the VFF and Murray Darling Basin’s Authority analysis, which shows only about 375GL of the 605GL can be delivered by 2024.

One of the major goals of Basin Plan and SLAM projects is to remove constraints on delivering peak flows of 80GL a day across the SA border.

However the VFF has warned this could only occur by gaining the approval almost 3000 landholders’ to flood their properties along the Goulburn and Murray Rivers.

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