March 31, 2008
Glenn Milne argues in The Australian that the $1 billion paid to the Victorian Government to bring it to the table is neither new nor extra money---it is simply part of Howard's original $10 billion national water funding with the irrigation upgrades in northern Victoria being one of the projects to be considered under the $10 billion. All the rhetoric about that extra $1 billion was spin by the Brumby Government that was tacitly supported by Rudd + Co.
Spooner
So we have this kind of spin rather than a serious attempt to find extra water for a dying Murray River by buying back the over allocated water licences issued by the basin states beholden to the irrigation industry.There is not much water water in the lower lakes---Alexandrina and Albert---and what is there is too salty for stock to tolerate and is not even suitable to use on olive trees.
The River Murray will remain in crisis until a sustainable regime of water management can be put in place. Under the Memorandum of Understanding signed at CoAG in Adelaide the Commonwealth Minister will have the power to determine the cap. However, the as-yet- unspecified cap on water extraction from the river system for irrigation will not become fully operational for more than a decade. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority will not produce a plan until 2011. The state's existing water resource plans will remain in place until they expire . For SA this is 2012, 2014 for NSW and Queensland and 2019 for Victoria. Under the agreement the states maintain control of the water in their territory.
Though the Commonwealth is committed to spending $50 million on buying back irrigated water allocations this is a fraction of what is required to improve the River Murray. Little is being said about increasing this by any Government ministers, even though it has been known since 1997 that too much water was being taken out of the river. That is why a basin cap was put in place, yet Queensland is still refusing to put a cap in place for its rivers.
I am not convinced that Howard's basin plan that Rudd has now put in place is the right one---too much emphasis is placed on subsidizing irrigators. There is not enough emphasis placed on buying back the over-allocated water entitlements and on winding back irrigation in unsuitable areas---those with unsuitable soils, have rising or saline ground water---and practices---flood irrigation for cotton, rice and dairy farms.
|
Gary,
Victoria continually claims that it's irrigation practices are the most efficient in the nation, yet many Victorian farmers irrigate their dairy pastures by dumping water on them. And they are not willing to change.
Victoria's food bowl irrigation system is still government owned and it is an old crumbling system. Why patch up an old, outdated and inefficient system when there is less water flowing into the system?
That was the argument of Peter Cullen before he died. Mike Young makes a similar argument.