Water Minister Tanya Plibersek under fire from prominent Griffith irrigator

A Griffith citrus grower has taken aim at the Water Minister over her government’s approach, which he says “targets” irrigators.

A prominent Griffith irrigator has taken aim at Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek over her government’s commitment to the Murray Darling Basin Plan’s commitment to recover 450GL of water for the environment.

Third-generation citrus grower and Griffith and District Citrus Growers Association chair Vito Mancini told The Daily Telegraph’s Bush Summit on Friday basin irrigators were being unfairly targeted and made to feel like criminals in the federal government’s quest to recover more water for the environment.

Tanya Plibersek MP, Kevin Anderson MP, Vito Mancini, GDCGA and Laurie Arthur, SunRice at The Daily Telegraph Bush Summit 2022 held in Griffith. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Mr Mancini called on the Minister to be more “adaptive” to the needs of the 7300 irrigators along the river system, and upfront about how the water would be recovered.

“I’m sorry to try and politicise this, but Tanya mentioned the federation drought and losing half our livestock. There was a royal commission after that drought. They didn’t go out there and say ‘let’s take water off the irrigators because it’s been over issued’. They built infrastructure, dams, weirs and lochs, everything to make these systems work as efficiently as possible,” he said.

“Today’s plan seems to be quite the reverse. It seems like we’re trying to take as much water away because productive water is inefficient water to the environment. And I think that language and the concrete nature of the plan makes a lot of us uncertain … we’re not these criminals, we feel like we’re being targeted.

“We have been adapting with the environment for decades in this region. And we need the MDBP to be as adaptive as we are to make these regions as viable as possible.”

Ms Plibersek said while the federal government was committed to the plan, “we’re not zealots about how we’re going to get there. We’ll be creative and consultative”.

At the summit, Ms Plibersek announced $2.4 million to upgrade irrigation channels at the privately owned Nap Nap Station under off-farm water efficiency measures funding.

The upgrades, which will return 150 megalitres of water to the environment, will cost $16,000 per megalitre to deliver.

The announcement comes after the government committed funding to the Marion Water Efficiency Project at a cost of $21,428 per megalitre and the Lower Murray Water Efficiency Project at a cost of $15,160 per megalitre in July.

Water and environment advocates say voluntary buybacks offer better value for taxpayers money than government-funded efficiency measures.

Nature Conservation Council water campaigner Melissa Gray said $16,000 per megalitre was “unreasonably expensive water”.

$16,000 is six times the most recent price paid for the permanent trade of general security access to water on the open market in the Murrumbidgee.

Ms Gray said voluntary, open-tender buybacks offered good value for money for taxpayers and a cash injection for irrigators looking to sell water, and shouldn’t be “demonised”.