VICTORIAN river councils are being left behind in the dust, with federal and state governmental changes proposed for our regions surrounding water and its future availability to farmers and communities.
In a recent review of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan implementation by the Productivity Commission, their findings categorised floodplain landholders as a small problematic group, holding the plan up from completion, referencing our Central Murray Environmental Floodplains Group 153-page submission.
Within a fortnight, the Restoring our Rivers Bill was passed in Parliament, effectively taking 450 gigalitres of water away from the three million people living in river communities and placing it in the environmental water account. A process has already started, and study convened to work out how to rehabilitate the floodplain.
Why did Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek push the Bill in Parliament?
Because under previous legislation she couldn’t get more high reliability water out of Victoria, and this is what she is so desperate for. We also know 93 per cent of the Murray-Darling Basin wetlands are on privately owned farmland and 86 per cent of land in our North Central catchment is privately owned.
Minister Plibersek wants 80,000 megalitres per day of water passing the SA border.
A hydrology report (Constraints Measures Project Feasibility Study) is presently sitting on the Victorian Water Minister’s table saying it can’t be delivered because of constraints which the Federal Water Minister is also desperate to relax so she can flood our region and send water downstream to SA.
Geographically water downstream of Torrumbarry Weir will have to head across land and the consequent flooding would be very similar to the 2011-2012 and 2022 flood events.
This would occur nine out of 10 years for the environments benefit according to environmentalists. I’m wondering why they don’t recognise farmland as part of the environment.
At the recent MDBA Summit in Sydney, a delegation of northern basin mayors unleashed a highly professional scathing attack on Victoria not pulling its weight with water recovery. NSW Government departments echoed in chorus.
They were extremely possessive of their ability to floodplain harvest, storing water in oversize turkey nest dams and holding onto their recent water entitlement gifts. The capacity of these on-farm storages increased by 142 per cent (or 2.4 times) between 1994 and 2020, from 574 GL in 1993/94, to 1395 GL in 2020.
The number of on-farm storages has increased from 400 in 1988, to 1833 in 2020. The taking of much of this water had been unlicenced and unlawful until mid-2022 when they received gifts from the NSW Government of 409 GL with 500 per cent carryover annually giving them the capacity to take 1878 GL in any one year. A far cry from the originally legislated Murray-Darling Basin Water Cap 1995 of 64 GL.
Victorian and NSW Murray farmers have already contributed 83 per cent of water recovered under the basin plan so we have more than done our share, and at a massive detriment to our communities.
Federally the pressure is mounting, and the Victorian Government has just released a prospectus document called Planning our Basin Future Together for public comment and can be found at engage.vic.gov.au/planning-our-basin-future-together.
You have until Sunday, June 16, to make comments on your future in irrigated agriculture. This document looks for options to remove up to another 108 GL out of our Goulburn Murray Irrigation District.
Our group knows before the plan was introduced Goulburn Murray Water (GMW) held 2200 GL of water (today just 730 GL), Torrumbarry 350GL (now about 120 GL), so where is 450 GL or even 108 GL going to come from?
Is Kerang, Cohuna and Koondrook going to be consistently flooded year in year out?
Yes, according to the minister’s position.
Will there be 175,000 visitors coming to the Gunbower Forest and our region each year, as quoted by Government, to inject tourism dollars?
No, because the region and forest will be constantly under flood.
The focus is now on the forthcoming MDBA Rivers Reflection Conference in Albury on June 19-20.
This may be our last and only opportunity left as southern basin communities to collectively voice our concerns in relation to what the government has inflicted on our families, businesses, and communities with their water reform throughout this region.
Geoff Kendell
Central Murray Environmental Floodplains Group
Chairman
