General News
6 November, 2022
Buyback risk to region
THE water industry in northern Victoria would become unviable if the Federal Government pushed ahead with new buyback plans. That’s the warning of Fernihurst irrigator Ken Pattison after last week’s Budget allocated an unspecified amount to meet...
THE water industry in northern Victoria would become unviable if the Federal Government pushed ahead with new buyback plans.
That’s the warning of Fernihurst irrigator Ken Pattison after last week’s Budget allocated an unspecified amount to meet the environmental water targets in the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
Mr Pattison said expected water buybacks would be a triple whammy for farmers.
“Our farms still have to be viable ... we’re seeing increased costs for gas and electricity and now water needed for productive irrigated agriculture is under threat,” he said.
“They are destroying productive irrigated agriculture in northern Victoria.
“It’s not very smart. Stupidity is reigning supreme.”
Mr Pattison said Goulburn Murray Water was once the largest water business in Australia but had become the smallest.
“They’re losing three per cent of high-security water (available) a year and the water industry in northern Victoria will become unviable.
“The viability of agriculture businesses is being ruined,” he said.
Water ministers from Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT and South Australia – met with federal minister Tanya Plibersek last month with Victoria and NSW saying they would fail to meet their water savings commitments by 2024.
Murray Darling Basin Authority said the meeting decided “as a matter of priority, the Commonwealth will work with relevant communities and basin states on options to bridge the remaining gap in water recovery, including through strategic purchase, and to consider carefully opportunities to achieve the 450 GL (of environmental flows).
“It was noted that the Australian Government was carefully and consultatively considering all options to meet the water recovery targets. Ministers noted the Australian Government’s early engagement with industry on opportunities for improved water use efficiency.”
A spokesperson for Ms Plibersek has said all options were on the table to deliver the plan, not just voluntary water buybacks.
The Albanese Government’s first budget showed funding for environmental water-saving targets.
But the figure was not released “due to commercial sensitivities”.
Mr Pattison said: “The buyback is not precise. Plibersek has said everything is on the table and the’ve set aside an undisclosed amount of money.”
He fears there could be a repeat of the Millennium drought “willing sellers” if the Government plans are not stopped.
“We saw ‘willing sellers’ with a knife in their backs from the banks during the Millennium drought and this time, it could tragically as a result of floods across so much of northern Victoria,” he said. “It will be local farmers and local communities who are going to lose.
“People elsewhere will not wake up until they are hungry.”
Mr Pattison said he believed high-security water right buybacks would be targeted under the Budget’s undisclosed allocation.
Since the Murray Darling Basin Plan was legislated in 2012, there’s been 1,200 gigalitres of water reallocated from farming to the environment.