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February 27, 2008
It hit me when I flew into a lush and green Brisbane on Monday. The heavy coastal rains that have fallen on eastern Australia have fallen outside the Murray-Darling Basin catchment. Though there has been some rain in the catchment, it is not enough to alleviate the chronic water shortages. Climate change needs to shift to the top of the agenda for managing the Murray-Darling Basin.
Since the future is one of significantly less water, and a drying of the southern rivers, the old issue of the over allocation of water entitlements--especially in NSW--- remains to be addressed. A new regime is needed.
Howard's old water plan for the Murray-Darling Basin was biased to assisting irrigators to improve the efficiency of existing irrigation infrastructure, whilst the buying back of water entitlements was more or less an afterthought that was never acted upon. That irrigator friendly plan, based on unfettered irrigation, was all about protecting the regional power base of the Nationals in Victoria and NSW.
The emphasis needs to be reversed. The buy-back process must be the core of any water plan. It must target the dairy farmers in the Goulbourn and Murray River catchments and give the environment an equally secure share of the water.
So it is good to see that Mike Young, the water economist, advocating that the 10-year Howard plan to hand out nearly $6 billion to irrigators for efficiency improvements should be scrapped. He proposes that $5 billion of this would be spent during the first term of the Rudd Government to compensate the 15,500 irrigators in the basin for the permanent restructuring, and in most cases cutting of their permanent water entitlements. About $1 billion would be spent on efficiency upgrades but only after the reallocation of water to deliver equal property rights to irrigators, the environment and all other direct and indirect users of water in the system.
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As a “CONSTITUTIONALIST” I wonder if anyone ever considered what is constitutionally appropriate?
If I were to purchase a piece of land along the Murray then no State Government let alone a Federal Government could deny me “reasonable usage” of water as long as the “reasonable usage” does not interfere with navigation.
Buying up water entitlements may be beyond constitutional powers of the Federal Government!
In my various books in the INSPECTOR-RIKATI® series I have canvassed this already extensively. It is within Section 101 of the (Federal) Constitution Inter-State Commission’s power to deal with the issue where it relates to trade, etc. not for the Federal Government or for that matter a State Government to interfere with.