Murray Darling Basin native fish recovery: funding pool runs dry

Funding for Murray Darling Basin native fish recovery has dried up, as federal and state governments bicker over cost sharing.

Just $5 million has been spent on the Murray Darling Basin’s native fish recovery strategy since 2019, with the federal and state governments failing to agree on future funding.

The Murray Darling Basin Authority native fish recovery strategy has been left floundering, as federal and state governments bicker over funding.

Work on building more fishways, restocking endangered species, modifying large dam outlets to curb cold-water pollution, riparian revegetation and other measures to improve water quality have all been neglected, say NSW and Victorian fisheries staff.

Even the MDBA’s own website states just $5 million has been invested in the strategy (since 2019), which “needs significant, long-term investment to achieve its vision of recovering native fish for future generations”.

Fisheries researchers say critical work on effectiveness of the carp-killing koi herpes virus and double-checking it does not infect native perch and trout have progressed at a snail’s pace on the back of just $3.5m in funding.

Meanwhile Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek has already spent $55.5m buying irrigators’ water with plans to spend billions more on to strip up to 700 gigalitres out of the consumptive pool to boost environmental flows, on top of the 2107GL already recovered.

One leading fisheries researcher said the political philosophy of “just add water” to revive the basin was flawed, given there were about 5000 barriers to fish passage along NSW waterways alone.

Past research has also shown large dam outlets, which currently draw cold water from deep in each reservoir, are pushing plumes of cold water pollution for up to 250kms downstream, killing off native fish eggs and larvae and giving cold tolerant carp, trout and redfin a huge advantage.

Cold water pollution, which is stopping native fish breeding along 2700kms of river reaches below large dams, could be solved by investing a few million dollars in modifying dam outlets.

Yet calls back in 2016 to invest as little as $3 million in a “thermal curtain” around the dam’s outlet to warm the water have been ignored.

It even appears that federal and state governments cannot even agree on future funding for native fish recovery.

A copy of the agenda for the June 2023 meeting of the Basin Officials Committee, on which the top federal and state water bureaucrats sit, shows their political masters have failed to reach agreement on delivering significant native fish recovery funding.

The BOC agenda from June last year stated: “jurisdictions did not agree to the Commonwealth-MDBA proposal at JVBPC (Joint Venture Budget and Performance Committee) on 18 May 2023 to extend funding for the Native Fish Recovery Strategy”.

The strategy has been left to run on what state fisheries staff say is the “the smell of an oily rag” and which the BOC agenda states is “a limited extension of the Strategy, to ensure that foundational activities can continue in 2023-24”.

An MDBA spokesman said that foundation funding amounted to $2.42 million to extend the strategy and “develop a business case for future funding”, which is due to run out on June 30.

Opposition water spokeswoman Perin Davey said: “Confirmation that the native fish recovery strategy has failed to get support from the jurisdictions, despite ongoing fish kills, raises serious concerns about the commitment of all agencies towards delivering measurable outcomes”.

“Unfortunately, the Albanese Government’s solution is to do the only thing they can do in water management without assistance from the states and that is lazy water buybacks ignoring all the reports identifying solutions such as complementary measures that will see outcomes.”

The MDBA reports recreational fishing in the Basin contributes an estimated $403 million to Australia’s gross domestic product each year, through direct expenditure of around $1.352 billion, supporting nearly 11,000 jobs.