FIVE years on from the once-in-200-year floods that devastated Benjeroop, farmer Lindsay Schultz says that community no longer exists.
The community – located on the banks of the Loddon River northwest of Murrabit – was one of the hardest hit by the 2011 floods.
However, it was a $21 million State Government initiative to purchase land and irrigation water in the area – and not the floods – that devastated the community.
“The district is gone, there’s no one here,” Mr Schultz said.
“We were thriving before but there is no Benjeroop community now.
“Thousands of acres and thousands of megalitres of water were bought up; I was the only one who rejected the buyback.”
A Swan Hill business owner has purchased close to 90 per cent of the land, which had conditions placed on its use specified during the buyback process.
Mr Schultz said almost all of the dozen or so families who accepted the buyback felt pressured to do so and regretted their decision, particularly because they were told that the channel system in the district would be shut down within two years, although it continues to operate five years on.
“They only had 30 days to make up their minds and the government was saying they couldn’t guarantee them irrigation water if they stay,” he said.
“This land is some of the best, fertile farm land in Australia but it’s useless without irrigation water.”
Mr Schultz said he was only in the position to reject the buyback because his irrigation water could be delivered independent of the channel system, thanks to a pump he installed on the Murray River more than 10 years ago.
He said he saw the buyback program as “opportunism by the government to get environmental water for the Murray-Darling Basin”.
“People here in Benjeroop that had land but didn’t own water weren’t part of the buyback because the government was interested in the water,” he said.
Mr Schultz said he had to get on with his life, but he would “never forgive the government”.
