Extract from The Guardian
The amendment to the Murray-Darling basin plan would have compounded the inequality that already exists
Threats by the New South Wales and Victorian governments to now walk awayfrom the Basin plan only serve to underline their failure to put in place the reforms they agreed to in 2012.
If the proposed changes to the basin plan had been passed, it would have allowed irrigators in southern Queensland and northern NSW to deny even more water to communities who live further downstream.
What the Senate has asked for is that all states guarantee that when water is acquired (at great expense to taxpayers) to improve the health of the river system, it isn’t then taken by irrigators when it flows past their pumps. Is that so unreasonable?
Changing habits formed over more than 50 years is a daunting prospect. But, the Murray-Darling basin plan initially achieved just that – major changes in what has been decades of over-extraction of water.
Recently, however, the return of water to the river system has slowed to a trickle as pressure has been exerted on governments to halt the necessary purchases of water to sustain the river system and unwind water recovery targets.
Only one-quarter of the water recovered has been acquired since the basin plan was adopted by state and federal governments in 2012, while the cost of water recovery has doubled.
While many individual irrigators have benefited from the reforms, governments have failed to support communities in many districts along the river system to adapt to the changes.
Less than 1% of the $13bn allocated to deliver the basin plan was made available to assist communities impacted by the reforms to adapt to a future with less water.
Instead of focusing on opportunities to help communities adjust, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority put forward a proposal to lower the return of water to the river by 70 billion litres.
Further, the authority’s proposal included allowing a massive increase of 160 billion litres per year of groundwater to be taken from the poorly-studied aquifers across the region.
The Wentworth Group has had serious concerns about the assumptions used to try and justify the proposal.
The proposed decrease in water for the river system was not supported by the science, despite what the NSW and Victorian governments maintain. The basin plan as it stands achieves less than half the scientific targets set by the Murray Darling Basin Authority, and these amendments would have reduced them even further.
If the proposal had been passed, it would have diminished the prospects of transparent and trustworthy management of water in the Darling River system, which feeds into the Murray River.
Further, the NSW government did not take any credible steps to ensure that water intended to sustain the river system – much of it purchased with taxpayer money – would not simply be pumped out of the river by a few irrigators upstream.
Not even the Murray-Darling Basin Authority knows how much water is being pumped out of the river. More than two-thirds of the water used by irrigators in Queensland is unmetered, and more than a third of water use is unmetered in NSW.
The amendment would have compounded the inequality that exists on the Murray-Darling river system.
A case in point: the Barwon-Darling River, in the northern basin, is the location of the alleged water theft extensively reported by news media in 2017.
The NSW government has taken steps to improve its future capacity to enforce its own laws, but this will not happen overnight. However, the NSW government has not reversed regulations that it adopted in 2012 which allow irrigators to extract water when the Darling and tributary rivers have low flows.
This is made possible by regulations to allow irrigators to accumulate unused water allocations from year to year, extract up to 300% of water under some water licences, and remove limits on pumping capacity. Consequently, pastoralists and towns like Wilcannia, and the environment downstream along the Darling River are suffering from less water.
Given the NSW government’s maladministration of water management, could anyone really trust that the basin plan provisions will be implemented fairly?
The proposed amendments to the basin plan lacked scientific justification, discriminated against downstream farmers and towns, and would have rewarded the poor behaviour of a number of irrigators and state governments. Disallowance was the only appropriate response.
The Wentworth Group supports review and improvements of the basin plan on the basis of targeted and efficient monitoring, new science and knowledge of the opportunities and risks that may affect that future.
Father of water reform, the late Professor Peter Cullen, predicted that irrigators would have to produce twice as much crop with half the water. As a nation, it is vital that we pursue water reforms that secure the environmental, social and economic future of the Murray-Darling Basin as a whole.
- Dr Jamie Pittock is a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists and an associate professor at the Australian National University
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