Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek has scheduled an hour-long online meeting of the states’ water ministers, and water lobby groups believe she will use the meeting to promote a flawed compensation package meant to placate rural communities worried about losing water through buybacks for the Murray-Darling Basin.
The VFF believes the online meeting, scheduled for this week, is way too short to get any meaningful progress.
This view is backed up by the Goulburn Murray Irrigation District Water Leadership Group, which is pressing Victorian Water Minister Harriet Shing to seek a more in-depth look at the impact of water buybacks under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
VFF Water Council chair Andrew Leahy said the time committed for the upcoming meeting of Commonwealth and state water ministers reflected the Albanese Government’s attitude to the impacts of water recovery.
“The Commonwealth is barging ahead with their plan to take water away from food production through buybacks and changes to the basin plan made just last year,” Mr Leahy said.
“This will have devastating impacts on regional communities.
“Disappointingly, the gathering of ministers is scheduled for a one-hour online meeting. It has been 16 months since the Ministerial Council last met. You’d think they’d have a lot to talk about.
“A one-hour meeting is grossly inadequate for the detailed strategic discussions needed to fix the mess created by the Commonwealth.”
The GMID Water Leadership Group is urging Ms Shing to seek a face-to-face Ministerial Council with a full agenda.
GMID Water Leadership Group co-chair David McKenzie said any decisions taken at the June MinCo will be tainted by the abbreviated and remote structure of the meeting.
“Decisions of intergenerational consequence cannot be taken in such a disrespectful forum without adequate time for robust debate,” Mr McKenzie said.
The group is also encouraging other state ministers to support northern Victoria in getting a better transition package under the buybacks.
Mr McKenzie said their silence on this policy of intergenerational consequence has been profound and disappointing.
Both the VFF and the leadership group have been angered by the ABARES report which they say has underestimated the impact of buybacks and which they believe will be used by Ms Plibersek to limit compensation to regional communities.
Mr McKenzie said the ABARES report, titled Impacts of Further Water Recovery in the Southern MDB, was only a limited assessment of farm gate production losses.
“Our region is heavily dependent on the multiplier effect of dairy production through our economy,” he said.
“The report reveals an alarming lack of insight into the impact of buybacks on the dairy sector.”
Mr Leahy said the Commonwealth was undermining the collaborative approach needed to address the impact.
“The Commonwealth’s actions are rapidly destroying the cooperative arrangements that have been in place for over a century to manage the shared water resources of the Murray River,”he said.
“Tanya Plibersek will buy water from struggling irrigators because she can without any care of the consequence.
“These bullying tactics are not the actions of a trusted partner working with the states for the environment, the economy and rural communities.
“If Tanya Plibersek was committed to working collaboratively, she would be prepared to commit more time and hold face-to-face meetings with her state colleagues.”
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