Thursday 29 November 2012

Greens' last ditch basin move rejected


WEEKLY TIMES
NATIONALS Senator Barnaby Joyce says the Greens just want to demolish towns by trying to disallow the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
Environment Minister Tony Burke tabled the final version of the landmark water reform laws on Monday.

Senator Joyce slammed the Greens, and Senator Hanson-Young in particular, for what he called their divide and destroy mentality on the basin.

"It is great frustration that in trying to defend the people who live in the basin and it goes beyond the irrigators, just the townspeople . . . are put at risk because of a nihilist philosophy that wants no more than to destroy things and then has the hide to not have to live with their decisions," Senator Joyce told the chamber.

He said Senator Hanson could show "real empathy" by moving her office from Adelaide to the basin.

"You can say some wonderful things, some marvellous gestures, the faux empathy, the grimace, the emotive pause but it is not fair dinkum," Senator Joyce said.

Senator Hanson-Young said she would prefer celebrating the passage of a plan that would set the river up for a living future.

"(To) set the river over the next 20 years to be a system that is healthy and could sustain itself, and of course the communities and the eco-systems that rely on it," she said.

"The plan tabled by the minister earlier this week does not do that."

She said the plan appeased those who didn't want to return as much water as they have been "greedily taking".

Parliamentary secretary for Defence David Feeney said the Greens were committed to conservation "at any cost".

"They judge success on what they stop, not on what they protect," Senator Feeney said.

Greens leader Christine Milne asked what was the point of spending $11 billion if it failed to save the river by returning enough water to maintain its eco-system.

"This is policy where you have brought in a political fix," she said.

"The money flows but the water doesn't get restored to the river system until 2019."

Independent senator Nick Xenophon said he wasn't prepared to go down this risky path.

"As imperfect as the plan is, my concern is . . . what happens if this plan is disallowed and the version that comes back is worse than the one we have now," he said.

The disallowance of the Basin Plan 2012 was defeated 44 to nine yesterday.

Irrigator challenge to Basin Plan goes before High Court


The High Court will today hear from an irrigators' group attempting to have the Murray-Darling Basin plan declared unconstitutional.
Murray Valley United represents about 500 irrigators from Victoria, NSW and South Australia.
At a directions hearing in Canberra today, the group's legal team will argue the Water Act, which underpins the Basin Plan, breaches their constitutional rights.
Murray Valley United president Greg Milner says the legal fight has the potential to derail the entire Murray-Darling process.
"Doesn't matter what they do in the parliament, the constitution overrides any laws or regulations that are made in the parliament, and they can make what laws they like," he said.
"If it's deemed to be that we are right, then all the laws that they do are, will be invalid."

Now the Murray Darling Basin Plan has to find 3200GL


SHARMAN STONE
November 29, 2012

The Water Amendment (Water for the Environment Special Account) Bill 2012 is about to become law.
 
Federal Member for Murray Dr Sharman Stone described the Bill as another ill-conceived, poorly drafted and slapdash piece of legislation that had been rushed into the house. She opposed it; however last night after a division was called, the Bill was passed.
 
Despite 2750GL being the long debated last remaining volume to be found for the environment through the Murray Darling Basin Plan, South Australia and the Greens insisted on another 450GL, which is now added to the 2750GL still to be found.
 
Last night this new figure was amended from being just an aspiration to now become a fixed requirement. According to this new law the requirement is to keep the mouth of the Murray open 95% of the time without dredging.  This is not a natural situation” Sharman Stone said.
 
“Sand bars at the mouth are natural, and before the barrages were built over 70 years ago, they were affected by wave action and the sea.
 
“This bill calls for $1.77 billion to be committed for the acquisition of the additional 450 gigalitres of water for the environment by removing the natural constraints that exist in the river system, and by investing in more on farm measures. Unfortunately, general buy-backs are not ruled out.
 
“The constraints identified include things like bridges, roads and railway lines. This extra water will cause flooding on the Goulburn and Murray. Now we have the loss of irrigation water, as well as deliberate regular flooding.
 
“The new law’s requirements see flooding from Yarrawonga down, with the delivery of 40,000 megalitres a day at McCoy Bridge for at least for 4 days every 2.5 years. The Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority’s environmental flow hydraulic study has found pushing that much water under McCoy Bridge would flood 100 buildings, 250 kilometres of road, 8,000 hectares of dry-land agriculture and 1,000 hectares of irrigated agriculture.
 
“The extra water released down the Goulburn is calculated to flood over 200 houses. Land values and rate values will suffer, and insurance premiums will continue to go through the roof”, Sharman Stone said.
 
“These floods please the Greens, but there can be little expectation that the environment would benefit. In fact, water lying on our flood plain can do a lot of damage.
 
“I know that opposing the overall Murray Darling Basin Plan is the right thing to do” Dr Stone said. “This new move now makes my formal opposition to the Plan even more important”.

Wednesday 28 November 2012

The Water Amendment (Water for the Environment Special Account) Bill 2012


SHARMAN STONE
21:36 The Water Amendment (Water for the Environment Special Account) Bill 2012 is another ill-conceived, poorly drafted, slapdash piece of legislation rushed into the House. If this was simply some administrative measure for some obscure practice it would not matter so much. But this is about the Murray-Darling Basin. It is going to be a critical part of a plan that has been now lodged as law in this House but is subject to disallowance.
This particular piece of legislation is critical to the future of the more than two million people who raise families, grow food and fibre, play, recreate, and wish to have generation after generation working hard there for Australia. The business of this bill underpins the economy of the basin communities and it is about the environment. The explanatory memorandum for this bill does not faithfully echo or mirror the contents. In his second reading speech the minister tried to outline the contents of the bill but what he said was quite different, when you compare it with the bill.
I am a supplementary member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia when it deals with Murray-Darling Basin issues, and in reviewing the bill last week and this week we had to ask the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities to interpret key parts of the bill for us so we knew exactly what it was driving at—the matters were so obscure and so badly drafted.
So what is this bill all about? What is it attempting to do? Why is it with us? Why has it been rushed into the House? Why did it suddenly appear after the announcement by the Prime Minister at Goolwa in South Australia just a couple of weeks ago? On 29 June 2012, the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council commissioned the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to respond to the calls by the South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill to:
… complete a ‘relaxed-constraints’ model scenario with a Basin-wide reduction in diversions of 3200 GL/y. The purpose of this scenario is to explore the flow regime changes and potential environmental benefits that would result if some major existing river operating constraints in the southern connected system were relaxed.
That quote was from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority hydrological modelling paper of October 2012. This bill is a consequence of that modelling undertaken at the request of the South Australian Premier. In fact, this bill provides the funding for the acquisition of the additional 450 gigalitres of water the Premier asked for. It is meant to achieve certain outcomes by the removal of the natural constraints that exist in the river.
What are these constraints? They include things like the naturally narrow parts of the river, low bridges, levies, dams and storages of fixed volumes. There are roads, railway lines, towns and private farmland. There are all sorts of constraints, and this bill is all about how they can be removed in order to get that extra water pushed down the river supposedly to help with the environmental condition of some environmental assets which are listed amongst examples in the bill itself. That is quite an unusual situation.
I am not surprised at all that the previous speaker on this bill—the member for Makin; a South Australian member—was so excited about this bill, because it is all about South Australia. I love South Australia. I am sure everyone in Australia appreciates some of the good things that happen there, but the fact is that the basin includes Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT. There are ecosystem assets, Ramsar listed sites and other wetlands throughout that basin. This has to be about more than keeping the mouth of the Murray open nine years out of 10. It hasto be about more than increasing the depth of water at the mouth of the River Murray. It is about more than increasing the depth of water in the lower lakes. But we are told that these are why the extra 450 gigalitres of water has to be pushed down the rivers—the Murray in particular and the other major tributaries that are interconnected in the southern part of the basin.
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority was nervous about this, and they make it clear in their paper on the hydrological modelling of the relaxation of operational constraints. They say:
The removal of some of these constraints may lead to increased flow peaks further downstream, which may create nuisance flooding on privately held land. If this were to be pursued in reality (rather than in modelled scenarios), it is likely that governments would approach this by negotiation of easements. Assessing the downstream implications of managing higher flow rates from a flooding perspective will require detailed hydrodynamic modelling of the river system, and was not within the scope of this work.
So I am afraid we do not have detailed hydrological modelling of what this massive increase in the volume of water would do to the communities and ecosystems that would be flooded deliberately and in a calculated way. So despite that statement—that pleading statement—from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, here we are with this bill being debated tonight. We are to add another 450 gigalitres on top of the 2,750 remaining gigalitres to be found for the environment, according to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
What are we going to do about this? It is incredible that despite the absence of detailed hydrological modelling we are supposed to simply suck it up. It is quite unrealistic to expect that the $1.7 billion—the additional money—which is to be appropriated, will cover the costs of the range of projects including acquisition of flood easements, provision of access works—for example raising bridges and culverts—changing watering regimes and increased outlet capacity on major dams and storages. That is what that money is supposed to do. It is also supposed to compensate all of those who will find themselves in the pathway of these man-made and additional floods.
We had a hearing in the Senate on Friday on the impacts of this bill and there were pleadings from those in the southern part of the basin in particular who will be flooded as a consequence of these extra gigalitres. Mrs Jan Beer, who lives around Seymour on the upper Goulburn said, under the sworn conditions of a parliamentary hearing:
I am very concerned that federal politicians are about to vote on a bill allowing increased environmental flows, with no constraints, down the Goulburn River system, when absolutely no studies or investigations of any consequence have taken place to know whether this is even possible without flooding freehold landowners and businesses on a very regular basis.
That flooding would occur every 2½ years or every four years out of 10. This would create far-reaching implications such as changing the natural flooding region of the Goulburn tributaries. I believe that Prime Minister Gillard and Minister Burke are dreaming. They are in fantasy land. The proposal to send increased environmental flows down the Goulburn River under the relaxed constraints policy—to deliver 40,000 megalitres a day at McCoys bridge for an average duration of four days every 2½ years—and not exceed minor flood level, simply cannot be done. I repeat: it cannot be done without creating floods well in excess of minor flood levels.
Flooding is not just a problem of loss of livestock, loss of livelihood, loss of housing and loss of infrastructure. In our very flat part of the world, particularly in my electorate of Murray, flooding lies on and in the landscape for months if not years. The floods that occurred naturally some two years ago are still seen in our landscape in the form of low-lying areas under inundation. That causes salinity problems, it causes significant issues with blue-green algae and, ultimately, it is a problem for weeds and a problem for loss of biodiversity. Red gums in particular and box trees do not like their feet wet for long periods of time. So this is also an environmental hazard. It is serious a problem for us if this bill was in fact carried through as it proposes.
The practical implication of constraints removal are real and come with various costs. They are demonstrated, for example, at McCoy Bridge. This was evidence given by the Victorian Farmers Federation at another Senate inquiry just recently. They say:
… it is nonsense to say that you can push 40,000 mega litres a day passed McCoy Bridge—
that is one of the outcomes we are told to expect—
without causing serious flooding of not only public property but also private property.
Senator Bridget McKenzie, a senator for Victoria, quoted the Victorian Minister for Water, Minister Walsh, when she said:
If you look at the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority's environmental flow hydraulic study, it says that if you had that much water at McCoy Bridge—
as this bill proposes—
you would flood 100 buildings, you would flood 250 kilometres of road, you would flood 8,000 hectares of dryland agriculture and you would flood 1,000 hectares of irrigated agriculture.
This is a serious business. What democratically elected government of a developed country would deliberately set about flooding farmland, infrastructure and towns, causing environmental damage, for an outcome that they refer to in the act as 'greater depth of the channel of the flow of the water out to sea at the end of the Murray' and for deeper water in some lower lakes?
We all know about the myths and legends to do with not touching any of the engineered barrages and other infrastructure that currently does not allow the estuarine conditions to influence the mouth of the Murray in South Australia. We know that this is a sacred cow. We are not supposed to talk about it out loud. The realties are if you actually apply engineering common sense to support the Lower Lakes, to let the natural Murray River flood flows into them, then you achieve better outcomes without having to flood the upper reaches or the middle reaches of the Murray-Darling Basin.
The coalition amendments, which our shadow minister pre-empted at the beginning of this debate, stressed that the bill also fails to make it absolutely clear that any water found would not simply come from non-strategic general water buybacks. We know from Minister Burke's remarks that he now understands the damage done, first by Minister Penny Wong and then from his own time as minister, with non-strategic water buybacks. We now have stranded assets and we have higher costs for irrigators tipping some of them out of the business. This bill, we are told, is not meant to take more water for this environmental flow out of irrigators' pockets, but it is not clear in the bill at all. The amendments of the coalition would try to make that clear.
Let me make something else absolutely clear. As far as the people of northern Victoria are concerned, the source of the 450 extra gigalitres is a problem, but it is the impacts of the deliberate, calculated, man-made flooding that will wipe out their futures. That extra water will also not add to the environmental amenity or the sustainability of the Murray River, the Goulburn River, the Murrumbidgee River and the other tributaries that are to be given much greater flows in order to push that extra water down the river. I could quote many more local people, like Mr Ian Lobban, who also gave evidence last Friday to a Senate committee. He said:
We have employed a certified practising valuer to look at the impact that this will have on properties. The figures to hand so far have indicated quite clearly that properties are already devalued by one-third, and that is a considerable loss of asset value. In a lot of cases it is people's superannuation. In our vicinity of the river we estimate that the compensation would be in the vicinity of $53 million.
He is talking about the compensation if those man-made floods were made to occur at the timing that the bill implies. This is a serious problem for our Murray-Darling Basin. It is bad enough that we have the Murray-Darling Basin Plan now as law if we cannot have it disallowed. That bill is deeply flawed. It is a bill that does not rest on decent modelling. It does not rest on good science. It is not a bill that has a triple bottom line principle attached to it. It does not deliver environmental, social, community or economic outcomes in equal measure. The plan is deeply flawed.
As most people know in this place, I intend to try to disallow the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. I also object to this bill. This bill is a nonsense. It is an absurdity. It destroys the environment at the same time as it absolutely destroys the futures of people who have to, anticipate every couple of years a man-made flood pushed down the river with their bridges raised so the water can get under them. What is the point of raising the bridges if the land all around is inundated, with dams and storages apparently made bigger so that more water can be captured and pushed down the streams so that the mouth of the Murray is deeper. It is a nonsense. This bill is another example of a government that is incompetent or simply does not care.
 

'Make bad plan better'


National Irrigators’ Council is heartened by news that some Federal politicians are prepared to put their communities first in the Murray Darling Basin Plan debate.
NIC chief executive officer, Tom Chesson said the Murray River "doesn’t care how water is recovered" and said that capping water buy-backs in legislation will go a long way to delivering a better basin plan.
Mr Chesson welcomed the fact that some Members of Parliament were prepared to put their communities first.
 Mr Chesson said the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott had told a crowd of 15,000 people in Griffith that the Coalition would not support a ‘bad’ Basin Plan. 
“Some Members of both the Liberal Party and the National Party believe that the Basin Plan is bad for the environment, bad for the economy and bad for their local communities.
“The Opposition now has the opportunity to make a bad Basin Plan better by promising a Coalition Government would legislate to cap water buy-backs at 1500 GL and to guarantee that water recovered for the environment will be done in a way that is socially and economically neutral,” he said.
Mr Chesson said he had no doubt the Government will be tempted to exploit the geographical split in the Coalition.
“However, they should remember that Coalition Members who are supporting the disallowance represent communities which are genuinely concerned about their futures and the environmental impact of the Basin Plan.
“The failure of the Government to actively communicate with communities which are doing and have done all the heavy lifting to implement the Basin Plan is causing enormous angst in these communities.
“For example the Prime Minister has visited Adelaide to discuss the Murray Darling Basin Plan but has not visited communities in the Basin in other States to hear from them directly about their concerns.
“The Governments’ default position if the 650 GL/y of environmental works and measures do not materialise is that communities bear the brunt of water-buy backs to make up any shortfall.
“Similarly the Water Amendment Bill before the Parliament specifically allows further water buy-backs despite the Government saying the extra 450 GL of water would be recovered through infrastructure.
“Both the Prime Minister and her Water Minister have made it very clear that there are social and economic ‘downsides’ to communities with water buy-backs,” he said.
“If the Government is confident that the processes they have implemented to recover water will work as stated, then they should not have any problems legislating to ensure there is a cap on buy-backs,” he said.
Mr Chesson said both the Government and the Coalition now have the opportunity to make a bad Basin Plan better.

Plan still falls short: MI



MURRUMBIDGEE Irrigation (MI) has acknowledged the final basin plan is a political compromise and a result of more than two years of engagement and hard work by irrigation and community groups.
"The basin plan is still predicated around a 'number' rather than outcomes for the environment and for the communities of the Murray-Darling Basin," she said.MI chairwoman Gillian Kirkup said after two years, four drafts and countless meetings, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority appears to have addressed some of the concerns raised by regional communities, but said the plan still falls short of good public policy.
"This plan does not outline why 2750 gigalitres per year needs to be taken out of productive use, what the environment actually needs or how the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder will use the water they already own."
Mrs Kirkup said the plan and government policy had come a long way since the release of the guide, but believes it still has the potential to cause social and economic harm.
In total, MI has been awarded around $200 million in government funding through the Private Irrigation Infrastructure Operators Program (PIIOP) to undertake modernisation projects."If water is recovered from the Murrumbidgee Valley through buyback, the impact on our business will be vastly different than if the water is recovered through irrigation infrastructure upgrades and works to deliver environmental water more efficiently," she said.
However, to date, the company has been unable to accept the bulk of this funding due to potential income and capital gains tax implications.

MP fights 'bad' basin plan



THE Riverina’s federal member has delivered on his promise to stand up for irrigation communities, filing a disallowance motion just hours after the government tried to push the Murray-Darling Basin Plan through parliament.
But with only two days of parliament remaining this year, the government is not expected to call the vote until at least February.Murray MP Sharman Stone seconded the motion yesterday, a move that will take the controversial plan to a vote.
While the Coalition is yet to reveal its position on the plan, its leader Tony Abbott told a party room meeting yesterday he would limit  buyback of irrigators’ water to 1500 gigalitres if elected as prime minister in 2013.
With water already recovered, there would be only 249 gigalitres left to purchase basin-wide.
Riverina MP Michael McCormack said he had placed the disallowance motion without any confirmation his party would back him up, but knew he had done the right thing.
“I can’t say I won’t support a bad plan, and then when a bad plan is put to parliament, just go with it,” Mr McCormack said.
“You have to have the courage of your convictions in order to best represent the people who elected you.
“There will be people who say that this plan took 100 years to be created and cost $11 billion and I shouldn’t be fighting against it, but I don’t believe it will serve the interests of the Riverina.”  
Yesterday the Opposition also tabled an amendment to the water bill that would see an additional 450 gigalitres delivered to South Australia. 
“It is expected to be dealt with today.
“All I want to see is a fairer deal for all of the communities that rely on the economy of the Murray-Darling Basin,” Mr McCormack said.
“I just can’t sit there stony-faced and allow the basin plan to go through after looking 11,000 people in the eyes at last year’s Griffith rally and knowing they wanted me to oppose this.” “One of the things that struck me hard when I was in Griffith last week was a lady who told me she had lost $75,000 on her house price due to the plan and now she can’t sell.
The Greens have also filed a disallowance motion against the plan in the Senate.

Coalition MPs break ranks on Murray plan


TWO Coalition MPs are breaking ranks with their party and moving to disallow the $12 billion Murray-Darling Basin Plan in the lower house, as the Greens move to scuttle it in the Senate.
The split within opposition ranks on the issue came as NSW Water Minister Katrina Hodgkinson warned "there is every chance" the largest basin state will not sign on to the intergovernmental agreement that will underpin the rollout of the historic reform.
THE AUSTRALIAN
Riverina Nationals MP Michael McCormack has issued an intention to move the disallowance motion, seconded by his Liberal colleague Sharman Stone.
Mr McCormack, whose NSW electorate takes in the irrigation stronghold of Coleambally and Griffith, said the plan to return 2750 billion litres of surface water to the environment by 2019 would hurt his region.
"When you get elected to parliament you have to have the courage of your convictions, and when 11,000 people turn up to a meeting in Griffith and look you in the eye and say we need you to best represent us when this bill comes to the parliament -- if you then turnaround and support a bad plan then you are really not worthy of their support," Mr McCormack told The Australian.
Water Minister Tony Burke issued a warning to all MPs about the consequences of torpedoing the basin plan. "Once disallowed, the plan looses all force of law immediately, it can be reintroduced six months later but only in an identical form, which would then mean that if disallowance were successful in either house, the entire process, which has been going on since the last election, would need to recommence from scratch," Mr Burke said. "We would be looking at a situation where the reform, long awaited and built on over decades, would effectively come to nothing."
Tony Abbott yesterday confirmed the Coalition would support the plan but would push amendments to neutralise the socio-economic consequences and cap buybacks at 1500GL.
The NSW government meanwhile confirmed it would impose its own limits on water buybacks to 3 per cent if Mr Burke did not move to do so in the intergovernmental agreement.

Moves won't stop Plan



THE Murray Darling Basin Plan is likely to go ahead as planned despite two federal Coalition MPs breaking ranks with leader Tony Abbott to oppose it.
Nationals MP for Riverina Michael McCormack moved a motion to disallow the Basin Plan on Tuesday, saying he needed to stick up for his constituents.
Within his electorate is the town of Griffith, where copies of initial water reform proposals were burnt during fiery protests two years ago by locals who feared their community would suffer from reductions in water for agriculture.
Mr McCormack is supported by Liberal MP Sharman Stone, from the seat of Murray in Victoria.
Mr Abbott told the Coalition party-room meeting on Tuesday that the Coalition would not seek to disallow the Basin Plan but a future Coalition government would impose a 1500 gigalitre cap on irrigation licence buybacks, leaving just 249 gigalitres still to be recovered.
Mr Abbott discussed Mr McCormack's concerns with him on Monday night but failed to convince him to abandon his disallowance motion.
Meanwhile, the Greens want to torpedo the Basin Plan in the Senate but argue there should be more water for the environment and more buybacks.


Basin communities short changed: local mayors


Regional Australia Minister Simon Crean released the Murray-Darling Basin Regional Economic Diversification Program on Thursday soon after Water Minister Tony Burke announced the Murray Darling Basin Plan had become law.A FEDERAL Government move to spend $100 million to give basin towns an economic boost pales in comparison to the economic damage the Murray Darling Basin Plan will cause, local mayors have said.
The stimulus funding will go towards "community-driven" projects in an effort to create jobs and grow regional economies.
Balranald Shire Council Mayor Steve O'Halloran said it was critical his council sought the funding.
But he said the $100 million wouldn't come close to making up for the damage done to the regional economies across four states."We need to find out exactly what's available… we need to get the fair share of it for our shire."
"Obviously it wouldn't even touch the edges," he said.
For more of this story see Wednesday's (November 28, 2012) Guardian.

McCormack defies party to go against Basin Plan



MEMBER for Riverina Michael McCormack has broken ranks with the Coalition party room and moved against the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in parliament.
A disallowance motion has also been moved in the Senate by Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young.Mr McCormack filed a disallowance motion against the Plan late on Monday night, which was seconded by fellow Coalition MP Sharman Stone, the member for Murray.
Mr McCormack concedes his decision is unlikely to win him any new friends in the party room, but he was unable to stand by and watch a bad plan rip the heart out of Riverina communities.
"When you go against your party's wishes, you are some sort of pariah," he said.
"The objections I might get here in Canberra I can live with, but I cannot in all honesty look an irrigation farmer in the eye and say, 'I did my best but we're going to have to live with it'," he said.
It appears the motion has little chance of succeeding, with the rest of the Coalition believed to be prepared to support the plan's passage through parliament with a view to amending the plan should it win government at next year's federal election.
"If it ends up with Sharman Stone and I on one side of the parliament, the Speaker (Anna Burke) in the chair and 147 members on the other side, so be it," he said.It's a reality not lost on Mr McCormack.
"At least the people in our electorates will know we voted on the right side and stood up for their best interests."

Basin jobs drain


DESPITE five years of consultation, Victorian farm leaders believe the final Murray Darling Basin Plan still risks draining thousands of jobs out of regional Australia. "Irrigators have battled for five years to try and get the least damaging deal on the basin plan," Victorian Farmers Federation president, Peter Tuohey said. "We have achieved the important goal of stopping the Basin plan just being a Federal Government buy-out of irrigation communities' water." VFF Water Council chairman, Richard Anderson said the federation had ensured the plan incorporated a mechanism to count works and measures that utilise environmental water more efficiently. "We've also lobbied the Federal Government to ensure it invested in water savings initiatives such as the northern Victorian Food Bowl project," Mr Anderson said. "We've been successful in lobbying for the development of a Sustainable Diversion Limit adjustment mechanism, to ensure that water savings from environmental works and measures and better management of the river system can reduce the volume that has to be recovered from irrigators. "I think we've done a good job, but that doesn't negate the fact that we face having to deliver the equivalent of 2750 billion litres of water to the environment. "However, we remain concerned that Mr Burke has an amendment to the Water Act waiting in the wings, which would effectively raise the basin plan target to 3200 billion litres." Mr Anderson said everyone needed to be reminded just how much water the environment was already getting. "It's the simple fact that the environment already gets two-thirds of the water flowing into the basin," he said. "Irrigated agriculture only diverts 10,903 billion litres, out of the 32,553 billion litres that flows into the Basin's rivers and wetlands on average each year." "Given the environment already gains such a huge share of the basin's water, it's been the VFF's goal to ensure that water is used more efficiently."

Friday 23 November 2012

Water tax changes now needed: McCormack


The Federal Government, having signed into law its controversial Murray-Darling Basin Plan, must now ensure the taxation provisions are such that irrigation companies are not penalised for putting in place projects to recover water for the environment.
This was Nationals' Member for Riverina Michael McCormack's first reaction to Water Minister Tony Burke's announcement of the Government's water reform today.
"The Government has promised to restore what it continually calls an ailing system yet at the moment many river red gums are drowning through too much water due to the floods and all the environmental flows," Mr McCormack said.
"At any rate this Government has to make tax changes to enable organisations such as Murrumbidgee Irrigation the ability to implement infrastructure upgrades.
"The Government said it would do this in February 2011 but nothing has yet been put in place to ensure this occurs and important measures which have been allocated funding and which could save considerable volumes of water have been mothballed."
Mr McCormack said he was surprised the Minister did not believe the 2750 billion litres the Basin Plan demanded was "ambitious enough" when an environmental watering plan had still not been made public.
"Add the 450 billion litres of additional water for South Australia which will be debated in Parliament next week and it remains to be seen just why that amount of water is needed, how it will be delivered to the supposed water icon sites for which it is intended and just how long-lying farms and riverbank towns such as Darlington Point will cope, especially in wet times and when water in upstream dams needs discharging."
Mr McCormack said it would be interesting to see how the Government approaches next week's tabling of the Basin Plan in Parliament.
"It is a legislative instrument so if there is no disallowance motion, and there are 15 sitting days for that to occur, it could just go through.
"It will be up to the Minister if MPs are given the opportunity to speak on it and if he wants to push a vote on it."
Mr McCormack said Mr Burke's comment Australia had been "putting this off for more than a century" and "that needs to end, that ends today" would be considered an insult to western Riverina farmers in a year which marks the centenary of irrigation in the local area.
"A hundred years ago, in the first Australian Parliament, it was considered a crowning achievement to be able to put in place the infrastructure to enable farming in places where it had not been previously possible," Mr McCormack said.
"Now in 2012, with the growing need to feed people being the greatest moral and economic challenge of our times, the Australian Government is overseeing the demise of the same irrigation system and the regional communities our pioneers worked so hard to build."

Screws turned on Abbott as Coalition seats at risk




LOCAL stakeholders have demanded Opposition Leader Tony Abbott make his position clear on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan after the federal water minister turned his back on irrigation communities yesterday.
The fate of the long-awaited plan will be placed in the hands of the Coalition when it is presented to parliament next week.Minister Tony Burke failed to eliminate the single biggest threat to communities water buyback in the final plan, ignoring an ultimatum from the NSW government to limit the removal of water from the state.
Throughout the Griffith community's two-year battle for a balanced plan, Mr Abbott has maintained he would "not support a bad plan", but refused to commit to a position until the document was finalised.
Local water campaigner Paul Pierotti said the Coalition should not overlook the danger of losing its Nationals seats throughout the basin over the sensitive issue of water availability.
"Without a cap on buyback this is clearly and obviously a bad plan," Mr Pierotti said.
"Both (prime minister) Julia Gillard and Tony Burke have admitted buyback is extremely damaging to communities.
"Tony Abbott needs to be put on notice that any Coalition member who does not stand against this bad plan will be remembered in the upcoming election."
While the Coalition holds the key to the success or failure of the basin plan, there is one more hurdle for Mr Burke to overcome the state governments.
Last week, the NSW government declared it would put its own cap on buyback if the water minister did not include restrictions in the plan.
If the plan does pass through parliament, that promise will be the Griffith community's last hope.
"Because it has become a political plan, we need to align ourselves very closely with the state government and make sure they do the right thing to support communities," Wine Grapes Marketing Board CEO Brian Simpson said.
"If they can block buyback, that will be a good outcome for us all.
The plan has been billed as the legislation that will bring an end to a 100-year argument over water reform."Our other chance here is something we haven't talked about yet people power through rallies and that sort of thing. We could get to the point where we need to take that step."
Mr Burke is expected to present it to parliament next Thursday.

Riverina MP will cross floor for MDB




NATIONALS Riverina MP Michael McCormack says he's prepared to cross the floor and vote against the Murray-Darling Basin Plan if it takes away 2750 gigalitres from primary production for environmental purposes.
Rural communities and farming stakeholder groups have demanded a final Basin Plan that balances economic and social outcomes in equal consideration with environmental concerns.
Communities like Griffith in Mr McCormack's electorate fear unjustifiably large volumes of water may be stripped from primary production, but only achieve marginal or superficial environmental gains.
They warn that loss of water would cause devastating impacts for secondary community businesses reliant on that income for survival.
The Griffith community expressed that fear and angst like no other in the Basin, by fronting up with the largest attendances at two highly emotional public meetings during the two rounds of public consultation in the planning process, over the past two years.
With the basin planning process now at the pointy end of negotiations - and Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Water Minister Tony Burke declaring with confidence it will pass through parliament this year - tensions have again escalated.
Ms Gillard and Mr Burke visited the Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray mouth region in South Australia last week to announce the federal government would provide $1.77 billion over ten years, from 2014, to relax key operating constraints and allow an additional 450GL of environmental water.
They said the additional 450GL would be obtained through various projects to ensure there is "no social and economic downside for communities".
The 450GL is in addition to the 2750GL already proposed in the plan.
Mr McCormack said last week's announcement by Ms Gillard was "a political stunt rather than a political statement", and unfair.
"People in Griffith were livid last Friday and that went from the Mayor all the way through the community," he said.
Mr McCormack said secondary businesses like bakeries, motels, hairdressers and newsagents were all in the plan's firing line, as they relied on farmers to grow produce with the water and sell that product then spend that money in town.
Mr McCormack said the government was "throwing out policies they know they'll never have to deliver".
"I certainly won't be approving or voting in favour of 2750GL and if it means I'll have to sit on the other side of the chamber on my own then I will," he said.
"I won't be voting in favour of 2750GL coming out of the (Murray-Darling Basin) system, given the amount of water that's already been bought out of the system.
"I won't be abstaining - I'll be voting against it."

Basin Plan fails NSW




THE final Murray-Darling Basin Plan marks years of hard work “wasted”, say NSW Deputy Premier and Nationals Leader Andrew Stoner and Minister for Primary Industries Katrina Hodgkinson.
In a statement issued yesterday, Mr Stoner and Minister Hodgkinson said NSW Basin communities had been sacrificed for South Australian Labor votes, resulting in hard work, good faith and millions of dollars wasted.
NSW Farmers president Fiona Simson was also reluctant to support the final Murray-Darling Basin Plan, signed into law by federal Water Minister Tony Burke yesterday morning.
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) presented the final Basin Plan to Mr Burke this week after legislation to allow the 450GL adjustment mechanism passed the Senate. Mr Burke addressed the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday, confirming the final plan would achieve a water savings target of 2750 gigalitres.
“Our initial reaction is that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is not acceptable to NSW,” Mr Stoner said.
The Deputy Premier reminded the Commonwealth Government that it needs the support of NSW to execute the plan.
“John Howard was spot on when he said ‘rivers do not recognise those lines on the map that we call state borders’, but we also want to recognise our Basin centres and towns as the vibrant communities they are now for many years to come after any Murray-Darling Basin Plan is in place,” he said.
“With the final Plan failing to include a cap on water buybacks at 3 per cent per valley per decade as required by NSW, the federal Water Minister today claimed NSW believes there are sufficient projects to achieve 650GL in Sustainable Diversion Limit (SDL) offsets.
“Mr Burke is verballing NSW because, as we have stated on many occasions, we are a long way from being confident that the SDL adjustment mechanism will deliver up to 650GL in offsets against this target.
“We have called for a binding cap which would force the Commonwealth government to focus on infrastructure projects, rather than falling back to lazy and destructive buybacks.
Mr Stoner said the NSW government may seek to implement its own cap in the absence of one set by the federal government.
Minister Hodgkinson acknowledged the hard work already undertaken by NSW farmers and irrigators to increase on-farm water use efficiency.
“NSW comprises 56 per cent of the Murray-Darling Basin and our communities live, work and breathe the implications of a healthy river system every day.
“Today the hard working Basin communities of NSW have been passed over in the Commonwealth’s haste to pander to South Australian politics.
“While the NSW government has managed to secure a number of improvements from previous Plans, including that water recovery must be equitably shared between all Basin states, this plan does not represent a good deal for our communities.
“We will strongly scrutinise the Intergovernmental Agreement when it is presented, however the entire NSW government stands side-by-side with our Basin communities as we seek an equitable and sustainable future for Australia’s great food and fibre basin.”
Ms Simson said it was important to acknowledge how far the plan had progressed in the five years the issue had been debated, but “unless our key expectations have been met, it is unlikely that the plan will have our support”.
“It would pain me to oppose a plan that had the potential to deliver so much for basin communities,” she said.
“Our members live and work in the Basin and we all proudly contribute to its health.
“Whether we can support the plan or not will come down to whether the federal government values our contribution to the social, economic and environmental future of the basin as highly as satisfying the South Australian government.
“We have been buoyed by the Deputy Premier’s commitment that if the federal government will not commit to a cap on buybacks, the NSW government will.
“We are in this for the long run. The fight is far from over.”