JULY 15 marked the launch of the first tender for the Voluntary Water Purchase Program as the federal government enacts policy to buy up 70 gigalitres of water entitlements across the Southern Basin.
Part of the revamped Murray-Darling Basin Plan, the trading strategy sets out the purchase program, how it will be conducted and which areas will be excluded.
However critics remained deeply concerned that impacted communities have not been listened to, with government failing to work meaningfully towards solutions and develop an understanding of regional challenges.
Irrigators along the Goulburn, Broken and Loddon are excluded from the tender, however irrigators within Lower Murray Water’s pump irrigation district are still able to sell their entitlements.
Federal Member for Nicholls, Sam Birrell has vehemently criticised the plan, stating he and his colleagues were previously given the impression government would concentrate on water buybacks from river diverters, not from the irrigation system.
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“Tender documents confirm the irrigation system is now being targeted,” Mr Birrell said.
“And regardless of exclusions - like along the Goulburn, Broken and Loddon - it will impact the entire region.
“Goulburn Murray Water has set up this huge irrigation system that channels water to different farms and outlets.
“That system requires a certain amount of through-put to operate and once you start taking water out, the system will struggle.
“When you remove a certain amount of water from one area it also affects the availability of temporary water in another area – it’s all in the same system.”
Mr Birrell warns the worst impacts will be felt during drier years, resulting in catchments that aren’t full.
The reduction in available water producers are able to use under allocation rights, along with the cost of temporary water becoming significantly more expensive will impact the viability of numerous farming enterprises.
“When the government buys water it doesn’t just distort the market, water gets taken out of agriculture and then effectively quarantined," he said.
“It’s supposed to be used for environmental purposes but in reality it sits in storage and whatever produce was grown doesn’t grow anymore.
“From the community’s perspective as long as the water is being used for irrigation and growing something then the region prospers through the associated employment and economic activity.
“Whether that is people working on the farm, transporting the goods to market, working in manufacturing facilities - water creates jobs.
"Take it away and there’s much less stuff being grown, and less people employed in the supply chain.”
City of Greater Shepparton mayor Cr Shane Sali along with council have vocally opposed the plan, highlighting the need to protect local jobs and livelihoods and safeguard the region’s ability to grow and manufacture its own produce.
“Australians want home grown clean, green produce,” Cr Sali said.
“We are the food bowl of Australia and we want to protect this status.
“Regardless of whether buybacks are targeting Greater Shepparton directly, they still impact this region.
“There is no evidence that social and economic impacts have been considered prior to forging ahead with this announcement to undertake water buybacks.
“Our community has voiced a desire to work with the Victorian and Federal Governments to ensure that the Murray Darling Basin Plan targets are met, but in a strategic way that does not decimate our community.
“Non-strategic buybacks destroy communities, push water prices and ultimately food prices up at a time when we are facing a cost of living crisis,” he said.
Jan Beer is a Yea-based farmer and spokesperson for the Upper Goulburn Rivers Catchment Association.
She has a long history advocating for policy that protects her region’s precious environment, while balancing the needs to grow the food and fibre on which Australia and the world relies.
Over the past two and a half years, she has been extremely frustrated at the lack of desire to develop best practice water management and policy from the federal government and Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek.
“Minister Plibersek appears to have prioritised environmental ideologies from city-based activists who do not understand the intricacies of water management," Mrs Beer said.
"And unfortunately she refuses to engage in meaningful discussions with many of us who have lived experience and want to help her develop best-practice solutions."
Richard Sargood, the chair of Murray River Action Group representing riparian landholders from Hume to Yarrawonga, agreed with Mrs Beer.
“Numerous organisations have encouraged Minister Plibersek to visit our region and learn more about her policies, in particular flaws in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and the alternatives that can improve its implementation.”
Berrigan Shire is a local government area in the southern Riverina region lying on the New South Wales State border with Victoria formed by the Murray River.
The north of the shire is predominantly agricultural with dry and irrigated farming ranging from grain, beef, sheep, orchards and vegetable crops, dairy and vineyards.
The council has invited Ms Plibersek to the region to discuss firsthand the impacts of water buybacks.
They are yet to receive a response.
"It’s what we have come to expect,” said Mr Sargood.
Mr Sargood called on Victorian and New South Wales leaders to unite and encourage Prime Minister Albanese to appoint a new leader in the water space.
“Perhaps Ms Plibersek will make a strong commitment to another portfolio," Mr Sargood said.
"Even former Labor water ministers Tony Burke and Penny Wong were prepared to visit our region and listen to local concerns.
"But that just seems too difficult for the Sydney-based Ms Plibersek."
Both Mrs Beer and Mr Sargood highlighted that their organisations want to work collaboratively with all governments and their bureaucracies to deliver the most effective water policy, with the importance of maximising the use of this precious resource never more important.
“But it’s hard to do that with a minister who will not effectively engage with us,” Mrs Beer said.
“Numerous organisations continue to provide alternatives, other than water buybacks, that will deliver Basin Plan outcomes without devastating rural communities, but the current minister will not listen.
“She refuses to accept the indisputable fact that storing more water will increase our flood risk, or that it’s physically impossible to deliver the proposed Basin Plan volumes.
“We desperately need a new water minister who will work with communities, listen to alternatives and have a genuine desire to deliver a Basin Plan that future Australians will look back on with pride,” Mrs Beer said.
