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August 14, 2008
It looks as if the calls for restoration of environmental flows to the River Murray through buying up properties along the Barwon-Darling River and releasing water stored in the Medindie Lakes will go unheeded, despite the growing political pressure about the years of inaction by state governments, who have been captured by irrigator interests in the Basin.
If it is true that 80% of the water released upstream would be lost to evaporation because conditions are so dry, then the finger can be pointed at state and federal governments for not buying back water licences to reduce the overallocation of water to irrigators. There has been a marked failure since the 1990s to restore environmental flows in the Murray-Darling river system.
Inaction has been the norm. Well, we do have a new new, independent Murray-Darling Basin Authority. Whoopie!. The stalling tactics adopted by irrigator interests,and they managed to ensure that the Murray-Darling Basin Commission bowed to these stalling tactics, as well as senior bureaucrats in state and federal governments.
As John Quiggin points out in todays Australian Financial Review:
The restoration of some environmental flows would not have prevented low flows in the current drought. But it would avoid the situation where low flows are the norm, and an extended drought is sufficient to push the whole system over the edge. At this point, calls for the compulsory purchase of irrigator's rights are growing louder. Unless there are are significant inflows of water soon, it is hard to see how the voluntary, market-based approach can be sustained.
Gross mismanagement in the past, and the continual refusal by the 'duck and weave' Rudd Government, to move on buyback has resulted in the current triage operation being applied to iconic sites of the Murray. If Queensland, NSW and Victoria are acting to ensure that South Australia will bear the brunt of the crisis, then the Rudd Government is not even working within the market since it is not even buying properties of irrigators will to sell up.
The Chowilla and Corrong wetlands along with the irrigators in the lower Murray are being sacrificed to protect Queensland, NSW and Victorian irrigators. It is unclear which vital ecosystems will be saved in the River Murray and it is unclear that the new Murray-Darling Basin Authority will be the power to do anything more than work towards another agreement to develop yet another plan to fix the Murray Darling Basin until 2011. After all, that is all that CoAG does, and so the state and federal bureaucrats are in no hurry to do anything more than develop another plan.
Update
The Rudd Government's latest cabinet meeting took place in Adelaide. After the meeting Rudd announced an independent audit of the water storage in the Basin; extended a buyback of water rights to include purchasing entire properties in northern NSW and Queensland and the federal Government would co-fund a doubling of the capacity of a planned desalination plant for South Australia.
They need to do something as Nick Xenophon has refused to rule out using the Murray River as a bargaining chip as the Government seeks to push contentious measures through the Senate. He has said:
Any government that doesn't do anything that can be done, that should be done, to save the Murray, to save irrigators, will stand condemned. South Australia shouldn't bear the brunt of environmental policy failures upstream. We shouldn't wear the brunt of failed policies, of failing to do things that should have been done many years ago. Water policy in this country has been an abject failure ... and now South Australia is seeing the sharp end of that. It's not just in South Australia's interest, it's in the national interest not to let an ecosystem die, not to allow one of the most water-efficient food bowls in the country, the Riverland, to wither and perish because we haven't got our act together.
So Rudd bowed to political pressure in South Australia and made some modest concessions. An audit only tells us how much water is there; it does not tell us what water is available to save the Corrong wetlands and lower lakes. Secondly, though buying farms and not just licences is a move in the right direction none will be bought in Victoria and nothing is being said or done about the illegal irrigation on the Paroo River in Queensland.
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Gary
On ABC Radio this morrningr Rudd talked up the Government's existing $3.1 billion water buy-back scheme, but did not appear receptive to fast-tracking the buy-back, or compulsorily buying water rights.
it's a joke. The buy-back is presently focusing on buying water rights, but with low or zero allocations, and so many purchases are making no difference. It's surreal.