- The Australian
- December 01, 2012
He has swum its rushing waters, fished its deepest pools and farmed its grassy flats with their ancient river red gums and meandering billabongs near Wodonga all his life, and would do almost anything to protect its natural beauty and river health from damage.
Despite the river being so close to his heart, Mr Lobban is angry that he and 120 other farming families living along its length between Albury and Yarrawonga will be the ones to pay the first and heaviest price of the new Murray Darling Basin rescue plan being put into practice.
Last-minute changes by federal Water Minister Tony Burke to the $12 billion plan to ensure it was passed this week by parliament - while delivering effective river health outcomes - will allow unprecedented water releases from the Hume Weir near Albury of a force and flow volume previously not permitted because of its negative impact on landholders downstream.
Mr Lobban fears the rich river flats feeding his renowned Angus cattle will be flooded, his grassy pastures destroyed, access to parts of his farm cut off, an his ability to make hay and silage curtailed. It may even m an his family has to abandon the farm they have run for three generations because its usable paddocks will have shrunk so much that the business will no longer be viable.For affected farmers such as Mr Lobban who wanly jest that they have been "sold down the river" by Mr Burke, the outcome appears driven more by political pragmatism and the need to get powerful green groups backing the plan, than any concern for their wellbeing or practical thought to how the extra water will reach its environmental targets.
Mr Lobban, president of the Murray River Action Group of local landowners, this week warned politicians in Canberra that land values of farms along the river would fall by one-third as a consequence of the major new water release surges and manipulated floods scheduled to begin in 2014.
A land valuer commissioned by the group has also calculated that the federal government will have to pay at least $53 million in compensation to farmers between Albury and Yarrawonga whose land will be flooded so frequently and for so long that it can rarely be used.
"Farming families are being held to ransom; the effect of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan being passed is that people's lives are now on hold," Mr Lobban said.
"Take an elderly couple wishing to sell their farm to fund their retirement; no one will buy it now or its real value will have fallen by so much because of the uncertainty hanging over it, that their income and future plans will be seriously affected.
"Then there are properties that will have to be acquired by the government as (the flooding risk and frequency) will make them unviable and unmanageable."
Mr Lobban said he knew of at least two farms for sale along the river where buyers had walked away after learning of the uncertainty surrounding their future.
Mr Burke adjusted the proposed plan last month, just before it was put to parliament, to allow for much bigger, faster and stronger releases of water from the Hume Weir than previously legally permitted.
Mr Burke said yesterday that this "relaxing" of river, weir and flow operating constraints enabled more and bigger environmental benefits from releasing the same amount of water but more gradually than now occurs.
The impact on farmers immediately downstream of Albury and stretching right through to Echuca will be more frequent and bigger floods across their properties, as well as the flooding of many council roads and bridges.
Mr Lobban believes the $200m set aside by the government to cover compensation costs as well as to build higher bridges and roads will prove grossly inadequate.
He also thinks there has been too much political and media focus on the amount of water to be returned to the river system to restore its health - 2750 gigalitres increasing to 3200GL by 2019 - and not enough on how the water can be delivered safely and practically to the wetlands and lakes in South Australia it is mainly designed to help.
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