SUNRAYSIA irrigators and environment groups have slammed major changes to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan proposed by Victorian National Party members.
Two days after Barnaby Joyce returned as The Nationals’ leader on Monday, MPs introduced amendments to a government Bill on water compliance without notifying their Coalition colleagues, revealing they had been secretly working on it for “months”.
In a statement put out by Member for Mallee Anne Webster, Dr Webster said she and The Nationals’ Senate deputy leader Damian Drum “have been looking for an opportunity to amend both the Water Act and the Basin Plan Act” since last year.
The opportunity came during a debate on the Water Legislation Amendment (Inspector-General of Water Compliance and Other Measures) Bill 2021 — a Bill designed to split the Murray-Darling Basin Authority into two organisations to separately manage water and enforce compliance with water rules.
The amendments included a proposal to remove a requirement under the basin plan to save 450 gigalitres of water for the environment by 2024, to legislate to ban further water buybacks from irrigators and “no further water to be taken” when a new basin plan is drafted.
The Nationals are also proposing to amend the legislation to allow for new sustainable diversion limit adjustment mechanism (SDLAM) projects, to add to a total of 36 projects now proposed.
“For too long our basin communities have been hurting,” Senator Bridget McKenzie told reporters.
“The science is now telling us the approach adopted 12 years ago is outdated and the plan must change.”
However, CSIRO and Murray-Darling Basin Authority scientists warned this month climate change would lead to reduced stream flows in the Murray-Darling Basin and more water savings would be needed to ensure a healthy, functioning system.
The Nationals’ move was supported by irrigator groups, including the NSW Murray Irrigation Limited, but not all irrigators agreed.
Sunraysia irrigator Bill McClumpha said the proposed amendments were “a retrograde step”.
“It’s a flashback to the past,” he said.
Without environmental water savings, “irrigators and communities aren’t going to have a viable system that can sustain itself,” Mr McClumpha said.
“It is going to gradually die, and you will have the economic flow-on from that.
“Ultimately, over the medium to long term, water will have to be recovered.”
Nature Conservation Council community water campaigner and Wentworth Shire councillor Jane MacAllister said the amendments were “clearly not in the public interest”.
“The Nationals are pursuing growth at all costs,” she said.
“What they are trying to do is illegal. If water is not recovered by 2024, the government has no option but to buy it back.”
Member for Murray Helen Dalton said The Nationals were going back on a commitment they had made when they signed on to the basin plan.
“It’s strange that The Nationals are all of sudden kicking up a stink about the 450GL when they were part of the government that agreed to it in the first place,” Ms Dalton said.
“Adverse social or economic consequences on southern basin communities” were inevitable if water was taken away, she said, and the government should focus its attention on “thousands of gigalitres of water illegally taken through floodplain harvesting in the northern basin”.
South Australian Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham told the Senate on Wednesday the government would not support The Nationals’ amendments to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
“When those amendments come to a vote, I and government will be voting against those amendments,” he said.
“We are proud as a government to have ensured that billions and billions, thousands of billions of litres of additional water entitlements have been secured to support environmental flows across the Murray-Darling Basin.
“The government stands resolute in its support for the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, as we have said, in full and on time.”
Senator McKenzie suggested the party would push to have the position included in the new Coalition agreement if the Liberals blocked the move in the Senate.
“We hope the Liberals do come on board with these amendments because they’re sensible, they’re actually what the community has been asking for,” she said.
National Party members of Cabinet, including Water Minister Keith Pitt, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and Agriculture Minister David Littleproud, are required to publicly support all government decisions made in the Cabinet, which includes the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
