Murray Darling Basin

For the people and the environments that rely on the Murray-Darling Basin, how water is recovered, and where from, are as important as how much is recovered. I visited family farms in Victoria along the Murray and chatted with locals about the water situation. The farmers and community spoke with a mixture of frustration and sorrow about the uncertainty that looms over their future, due to water management policies. I'm a passionate advocate for delivering the Basin Plan in a way that protects regional economies and delivers positive outcomes for communities and the environment and increases traditional owners' involvement. The limited detail on how this will occur is deeply concerning, and we heard that in estimates only recently.

The farmers and communities who rely on the basin deserve to know how water recovery will be managed to minimise negative impacts. Open-tender buybacks cannot provide this certainty. Strategic, targeted water recovery, using a range of mechanisms like leasing, can provide security and sustainability that create benefits for everyone. Open-tender buybacks only benefit individuals and lead to an imbalanced market and ongoing maintenance costs for underutilised infrastructure. Past untargeted water-purchase programs in northern Victoria have created a Swiss-cheese effect, a patchwork of reduced irrigation that fails to reduce infrastructure costs and that harms local communities. Open-tender water purchases result in significant economic harm to our agricultural sector as well as to the communities that rely on it.

The government need to clarify whether they will use strategic buybacks or rely on the open market. Will leasing be a viable option before buybacks begin? The 450-gigalitre target should not overshadow the positive outcomes for the basin and its communities.