Murray Darling Basin Plan failure: ACT fails to deliver one drop of water

Basin states have delivered 2107 gigalitres to boost the Murray Darling Basin’s flows, but the ACT is yet to deliver a drop.

Farming communities have borne the brunt of federal government water buyouts, while the Australian Capital Territory’s government has delivered nothing.

Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek is buying 41.1 gigalitre of NSW and Queensland irrigators’ entitlements surface water towards the Murray Darling Basin Plan, while the Australian Capital Territory delivers nothing.

Since the former Rudd-Gillard Government first began buying up irrigators’ entitlements in 2007-08 and investing in efficiency savings it has recovered 127.2GL from Queensland, 1012.7GL from NSW, 826.5GL from South Australia.

But the latest MDB Authority’s progress on water recovery report shows the ACT has not delivered a drop on its Basin Plan contribution of 4.9GL to the Murrumbidgee River’s environmental flows.

In 2019 the ACT received $50m in federal funding to deliver its share of water for the environment, but so far has spent the money on consultants to develop business cases on storm water harvesting and other infrastructure projects.

A federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water spokesman said “the water required to Bridge the Gap in the ACT was held by a retail operator owned by the ACT Government”.

But National Irrigators Council chairman Jeremy Morton said trying to argue it was difficult to source water from the nation’s capital because water was owned by the ACT government was nonsense.

Mr Morton questioned why the ACT was being given “a free ride”, while other state governments, water corporations and irrigators had handed over 2107GL of their water entitlements to the environment under the Basin Plan.

“Maybe they (the ACT government) need to drain Lake Burley Griffin,” Mr Morton said.

Federal Opposition water spokeswoman Perin Davey asked “Why the special treatment?’ for the ACT.

But the DCCEEW spokesman said “we strongly reject the inference that the ACT is being given special treatment”.

In announcing the 41.1GL buyout last month Minister Plibersek said the federal government would not be buying water out of the ACT, but instead work with it “to identify, plan and deliver cost-effective efficiency projects to bridge the remaining gap of 4.9 GL of surface water in this catchment”.