New Year water rush: Canberra set to wade into water market

Canberra’s bureaucrats are rushing to buy water in the New Year, stripping Murray Darling Basin communities of their most precious resource.

The Federal Government is consulting irrigators on stripping more water out of the consumptive pool for the Murray Darling Basin environment.

The Federal government is rushing to roll out its draft water recovery strategy before Christmas, as it prepares to strip Murray Darling Basin communities of Australia’s most precious resource.

Irrigators have already handed over more than 2000 gigalitres of water to the environment, under the Murray Darling Basin Plan, equal to 20 per cent of their entitlements in Victoria and 17 per cent in southern NSW.

But National Irrigators Council chairman Jeremy Morton said federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water bureaucrats were rushing to complete their draft water recovery strategy so they were ready to wade into the market in the New Year.

Mr Morton said he feared the department would pursue the “cheap and nasty” option of just running open tenders, snapping up what they needed in each catchment, which would be “disastrous” for irrigation communities.

Floods over the years have been marked by this tree in Loxton. Picture: Murray River Pix

In negotiating with irrigators, bureaucrats, led by head of water reform Rachel Connell, have told the NIC the government wanted to engage in “strategic purchases” that delivered value for money, while minimising third-party impacts.

DCCEEW has confirmed voluntary strategic purchases are on the table, with a spokesman stating “the Australian Government will make sure that the Murray Darling Plan doesn’t have negative socio-economic impacts on communities, the environmental benefits are clear and the purchases are value for money”.

But Victorian Farmers Federation water council chairman Andrew Leahy said it was “impossible to take water out of the consumptive pool without third-party impacts — pushing up prices and increasing costs for irrigators left on the network”.

NSW Irrigators Council chief executive Claire Miller said “the industry is wary of the term ‘strategic buyback’, as buybacks in any form mean even less water at even higher prices to grow food and fibre”.

“We’ve learnt a lot about what works and what doesn’t over the last 10 years,” Ms Miller said.

“If the Water Minister (Tanya Plibersek) is genuine about working with communities to learn from that experience and avoid further hardship, then it’s going to take time – longer than 18 months.”

True strategic buyouts, which retire parts of an irrigation network — such as the Goulburn Murray Connections Project — take a decade or more to complete.

The last time Labor was in power, from 2007 to 2013, it spent $2.36 billion buying out 1138GL of irrigator’s water entitlement from the consumptive pool, under its Restoring the Balance program, overseen by former Water Ministers Penny Wong and Tony Burke.

When the Liberal–Nationals came to power in late 2013, they initiated a cap of 1500GL on purchases and focused instead on efficiency measures to deliver water, lifting the volume recovered to date to 2107GL.

At this stage the buyout is focused on recovering 46GL or surface water from NSW and the ACT, 10GL of which will be bought out of the Murray River system.

But the recovery draft recovery strategy being rolled out in the next fortnight is likely to set the foundations for much larger water purchases in the future.

As The Weekly Times first reported in August, Australia’s top state and federal water bureaucrats warned the Murray Darling Basin Plan would fall short of its delivery target by up to 340 gigalitres, triggering a Commonwealth entitlement buyout and “a reduction in water available for consumptive use”.

The documents prepared for Basin Official Committee’s July meeting state “the Commonwealth may seek to recover further water through purchases of up to the 271GL remaining under the (1500GL) cap on buybacks”.

MDBA chief executive Andrew McConville told the National Rural Press Club last month the SDLAM shortfall had narrowed to between 190GL and 315GL.

The red book briefing that DCCEEW bureaucrats gave incoming Labor Water Minister Tanya Plibersek in May call for “accelerating water recovery using remaining $1.3 billion in the WESA (Water for the Environment Special Account) to recover 450 GL”, including:

NEGOTIATING with states to remove or loosen the requirement for water recovery initiatives to have a positive or neutral socio-economic impact

DEVELOPING a new water recovery program that may include funding for on-farm efficiency projects and targeted water purchases.