No problem: Shing shrugs off risk of federal water buyouts in Victoria

The federal government may target NSW to buy water for the environment, but Victorian and NSW irrigators say everyone will suffer.

“It’s one water market”, so buying water out of the NSW Murray River irrigation system will affect all irrigators, says NIC chairman Jeremy Morton.

Victorian Water Minister Harriet Shing has shrugged off the threat of buyouts to the state’s irrigation communities, saying the Federal Government would target NSW instead.

But irrigators have warned any buyout would affect southern Murray Darling Basin communities, given they shared the same water markets.

Minister Shing said last month’s federal budget commitment to buyouts was “targeted at other jurisdictions who have not yet met these targets and will not include water recovery in Victoria”, towards the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

Ms Shing said Victoria had already recovered 826GL had now been recovered, “and we’re working hard to recover the remainder of Victoria’s 1,075GL target through sustainable diversion limit adjustment mechanism projects”.

Victoria has already delivered 175GL towards its 249GL SDLAM target, through its share of The Living Murray projects initiated by the Bracks-Brumby Labor Government in 2002.

It means Victoria has just 75GL to recover towards its Murray Darling bridging the gap target.

However NSW faces a bleak outlook on meeting its 238.6GL SDLAM target, the biggest of which is the reconfiguration of the Menindee Lakes storages to save 70GL towards its 238.6GL SDLAM recovery target.

Other NSW projects at risk include the removal of constraints on the Murrumbidgee, Murray and Lower Darling, which involves negotiating flood easements over at least 4000 landholders’ properties and delivering the Yanco Creek offtake.

Harriet Shing. Picture: Andrew Tauber

The nation’s top water bureaucrats warned their respective ministers in July they would fall short of the SDLAM target by up to 340GL.

Victorian Farmers Federation water council chairman Andrew Leahy said even if the federal government focused on buying water out of NSW, it would affect irrigators on both sides of the Murray River.

“We know from past experience that even if no water purchase occurs in Victoria, other states that did participate in buybacks purchased water from Victoria to top up what they had lost,” Mr Leahy said. “Buybacks kill rural communities.”

“The federal government should tell us which communities they want to close down, because that’s the effect buybacks will have,” Mr Leahy said.

National Irrigators Council chairman Jeremy Morton said “it’s one water market, and water recovery anywhere has an impact on irrigators everywhere.”