Plibersek’s 70GL water tender: More than 1000 irrigators lodge offers

More than 1000 irrigators have offered to sell water to the Albanese government. But there are doubts on how much will be delivered.

Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek has been overwhelmed with responses to the government’s 70GL water purchasing tender.

Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek says the governments’ latest 70 gigalitre water purchasing tender has received an “overwhelming” response from more than 1000 irrigators across the southern Murray-Darling Basin, far exceeding the volume required.

Yet Minister Plibersek made almost the exact same claim in October last year, when she stated the Albanese Government’s first bridging the gap water purchasing tender received about 250 tender responses across the Basin, saying it totalled “more than double” the 44.3GL the government sought.

But by June this year Ms Plibersek’s departmental bureaucrats had only been able to lock in contracts for 25.6GL.

Federal Opposition water spokeswoman Perin Davey said Ms Plibersek’s latest claim of being overwhelmed with offers was yet another example of her “counting chickens before they hatched”.

Senator Davey said the minister also needed to consider the market impacts of her statements, given irrigators and water investors were in the midst of lodging expressions of interest in selling water to the Commonwealth next year.

In responding to the Minister’s latest announcement, National Irrigators Council chief executive Zara Lowien said “we’ve seen this before”.

“We won’t know for six months what she decides to take out of this (1000 offers), which is after the (next federal) election,” Ms Lowien said.

The Albanese Government plans to spend at least $613.4 million in the hope of buying 100 gigalitres of water entitlements out of Murray Darling Basin irrigation communities in 2024-25.

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water’s 2024-25 portfolio budget statement details (on pages 76 & 77) its annual water recovery targets as:

•100GL in 2024-25

•100GL in 2025-26

•100GL in 2026-27

•150GL in the first six months of 2027-28.