November 17, 2010
I have to agree with Brian Toohey's argument in his Rethinking the Murray–Darling buybacks at Inside Story that what happens with irrigation water in the Murray-Darling Basin is one of the great public policy failures of recent Australian history. This failure is not just the past--it is also being continued by the Gillard Government.
His argument is that despite COAG agreeing in the 1990s that full cost recovery would apply to “all rural surface and groundwater based systems” except for some small community services that meet social and public health obligations, the Australian Government has no intention that the $5.8 billion public investment to upgrade commercial irrigation infrastructure will not be recovered.
In line with Rudd’s approach, Gillard has no intention of recovering a cent of this public spending from the irrigators who benefit. The $5.8 billion is meant to “save” water by reducing leaks and seepage from canals and pipes, with half the savings going to irrigators and half retained for the rivers. Much of the savings, however, would have found their way back to the rivers and groundwater systems as part of the basin’s normal hydrological processes.Apart from large-scale spending on off-farm engineering works of direct benefit to farmers, at least $720 million has been allocated to upgrade on-farm irrigation infrastructure. This spending gives an even bigger boost to the value of these farmers’ properties without any of the costs being returned to the public purse.
Toohey adds that the water minister, Tony Burke, proposes to spend more money on infrastructure, this time to create extra water for irrigators by diverting it from wetlands and other environmental assets intimately linked to the basin’s rivers. Again, farmers won’t pay a cent for the extra water.
It is a policy failure because it amount to a gigantic public subsidy for the irrigation industry, which regards the water flowing into the nation’s rivers or underground aquifers as belonging to them. They erroneously consider a water access entitlement as giving the irrigator the right to a guaranteed amount of water; and a right without any responsibility to use this water in a way that ensures the sustainability of the Murray-Darling Basin.
We still have the state subsidising water development, standing behind Big AG, and ensuring that the irrigation gets its water at the expense of the wetlands. So it is a surprise to find Graeme Batten in his A response to the Guide to the proposed Murray-Darling Basin Plan at Online Opinionthat a simple and rapid reduction in water allocations to irrigation communities is not acceptable unless the effects are countered by measures that lead to improved water delivery and utilization efficiencies.
Batten's argument that Irrigators deserve recognition for the gains in the more efficient use of water they have made already is fair enough, but his argument that an increase in the efficient utilization of the water available through public investment in infrastructure upgrades and funding research and development of water-efficient irrigation carefully avoids COAG's user-pays principle that was endorsed by the 2004 National Water Initiative.
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The para concerning Tony Burke says it all. What's gone on for decades has been put down to ignorance, but that excuse could not possibly retain validity in light of what's occurred during the first decade of this century, alone.