General News
25 August, 2024
Environmental returns ‘more than buyback target’
THE Federal Government should not be proceeding with Murray Darling Basin water buybacks while the quietly released evidence shows farmers have returned environmental water by many times more than the buyback target, the Member for Mallee Dr Anne...
THE Federal Government should not be proceeding with Murray Darling Basin water buybacks while the quietly released evidence shows farmers have returned environmental water by many times more than the buyback target, the Member for Mallee Dr Anne Webster said.
She claimed the Murray Darling Basin Authority had quietly released its 2022-2023 report into water take in the basin six months late “which lays waste to Labor’s claims in a $14 million advertising campaign that water is being overused.
The 2022–23 Sustainable Diversion Limit Accounts Registers of take and interim registers of take, March 2024 report shows that consumptive water use across the Basin is well below allowed levels.
The report found that every valley in the basin used less water than was permitted in 2022-2023, continuing a trend across multiple valleys ever since accounting commenced in 2019.
Across the Basin, 1568.8 gigalitres less was taken than irrigators were entitled to use.
Dr Webster said the report did not back Government claims on the need for buybacks.