Southern water wealth: Basin entitlement pool hits $30 billion

Murray-Darling Basin water entitlements values have soared to hit $30 billion — after the new Water Minister lashed the former government’s job on water.

Peter Hunt

@PHuntAgri

2 min read

August 10, 2022 - 3:56PM

The Weekly Times

The environment has gained 26 per cent of the entitlement held in the southern Murray Darling Basin, which is used to flood the Barmah and other forests.

The value of southern Murray-Darling Basin’s 7.7 million megalitres of water entitlements has tripled in five years to be worth more than $30 billion today, of which $7.8 billion is held by the environment.

The

The analysis undermines Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek’s claims on the Coalition’s poor performance on recovering water for the environment.

Ms Plibersek recently told Parliament “it’s those opposite (the Coalition) for almost a decade who have sabotaged the delivery of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan”.