MURRAY Valley wine grape growers face “serious economic risks” from water buybacks, Member for Mallee Anne Webster told Federal Parliament this week.
“The looming threats of forced exits, water buybacks and widespread vineyard abandonment pose not only economic risks but also significant biosecurity hazards and mental health consequences for farmers,” Dr Webster told Parliament on Tuesday, as she spoke on a Coalition motion urging immediate support for wine grape growers amid a grape glut.
“What’s Labor’s solution for our farmers? Tax them more.
“The biosecurity levy before the parliament will hit these struggling wine grape growers with more of the cost of handling the biosecurity threat brought by foreign competitors sending their product into our country.
“The Nationals have pushed for a container levy to fund biosecurity, imposing the cost where the threat actually emerges, but, no, Labor wants to hit Aussie farmers for 10 per cent more than their 2020-21 levy contributions, kicking them while they’re down.”
Dr Webster condemned the federal government’s water buyback program.
“The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder has on average used only 70 per cent of the water it holds in any given year. Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek’s first Commonwealth water buybacks in the Basin since 2020 cost an estimated $205 million for more than 26GL of water,” she said.
“In the last reporting year, the CEWH carried more than half its water holdings over. Ms Plibersek is buying more water from so-called ‘willing sellers’ – more like distressed sellers.
“Some were paid as little as $120 a tonne for their grapes when production costs are $300 per tonne.
“Labor’s buybacks to ward off green votes in Adelaide come at the expense of our Murray-Darling Basin irrigation communities, who grow about 40 per cent of the country’s food and fibre.”
The Federal Government was contacted for comment.
