THE water market information session enabled by the Department for Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) in conjunction with the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF), and presented last week by water market expert Chris Olszak at the Alfred Deakin Centre, attracted a good crowd of people invested in irrigation

Chris delivered a credible overview of the confronting realities regarding water availability in the lead up to the 2019-20 irrigation season and outlined market options and strategies available to players in a dry outlook.

Water availability issues were presented on their merits without the politics and hype usually accompanying any discussion regarding water. Key takeaways were that water is scarce because of low rainfall and increasing demand rather than carry over rules, or because of so called water barons hoarding water, or because of the environment or South Australia ripping irrigators off.

As the session emphasised, irrigators must now look to the market in order to find their way through the challenges ahead. Irrigators depend on the water market, and some misgivings aside, have learned to accept that reality.

Given that, it was disturbing that at end of the session, VFF Water Council chair Richard Anderson flagged egregiously disrupting market stability by stating that he was advising Victorian Water Minister Lisa Neville to pursue the effective re-bundling of land and water.

This would be a bizarre and retrograde step on many grounds. 

Engendered by dairy lobby rent seeking and apparently countenanced by DELWP and the Minister, this is a maverick move by Richard in contradiction of VFF policy. This move spells disaster, entitlement holders look out.

Bill McClumpha, 

Red Cliffs