Another water battle is raging in rural NSW, as farmers say government has left them at the mercy of unaccountable private interests

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

It could not have been more clear when Scott Morrison laid out his philosophy, “a fair go for those who have a go”.

In much of the Coalition’s rhetoric – remember lifters not leaners – the Iresons could be the pin up family.

Matt and Sandra are fifth-generation Booligal graziers, in the NSW town made famous by Banjo Patterson. They have been tireless community workers and set up the Booligal sheep races, aimed at bringing people to the district.

Sandra was on the founding committee of Hay Inc, an agricultural training organisation designed to fill the area’s vocational gap and she won the NSW Rural woman of the year.

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Their predicament is symptomatic of the increasing suspicion of governments and big corporations in the Farrer electorate, held by the Liberal Sussan Ley, which is under threat from an independent, notwithstanding its 20% margin.

Their trust has been shattered by increasing allegations of water theft and special deals, not to mention water buybacks.

Now the Iresons and eight other families find themselves in another fight over water, specifically who benefits from a multimillion dollar taxpayer-funded private irrigation program.

“I feel like I’m in that movie, The Castle,” Ireson said. “We have lost control of our asset through government policy and that’s the problem. Other people are deciding what is best for our business.”

He and his fellow landholders have questioned the administration of the $917m Private Irrigators Infrastructure Operators program (PIIOP), which was designed to save water.

In the Wah Wah Stock and Domestic area, the money was provided to replace channels, which were used twice a year to fill farm dams, with pipes and troughs to stop evaporation loss.

The federal government handed over the program’s money to irrigation companies in commercially sensitive contracts not available to the public, including the farmers who are meant to benefit.

Murrumbidgee Irrigation is one of nine NSW irrigation companies that control the spending because they deliver and regulate water in their local districts. They also trade water.

To date, MI has received more than a third ($347m) of the public money to administer.

Ireson and fellow farm families, who call themselves the Alternative Supply Group, want to be funded directly to replace their channels to provide water for stock. The Iresons are not irrigators.

They accuse MI of withholding funding to some farmers in their local plan and have repeatedly called for the government to fight for them. To no avail.

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The dispute has dragged on for years. It has effectively stopped the water supply to their farm, unless they sign a contract which they say provides no recourse if the water is not delivered by MI.

They even tried the South Australian Murray-Darling basin royal commission. Their submission said the program was using public money to “build and enhance MI’s business financially”, at the expense of local landholders.

They told the commission that landholders were concerned valuable water delivery entitlements (the water used to deliver an allocation) were being “sold to corporations upstream”.

Forty farmers have signed the agreement with MI, but the ones who refuse have been provided with a 40mm pipe to their farm boundary but no way of getting the water to their animals. It has become a game of chicken.

Given some of these places are 10,000 hectares, a little pipe on a boundary without the infrastructure in a roaring drought is about as handy as tits on a bull.

MI’s chief executive, Brett Jones, rejects the accusations, saying the funding program was an “investment in the future of irrigation communities” by delivering filtered pressurised water and farm infrastructure.

Jones says all customers who have not moved to the new Gunbar Water private pipeline have retained their existing delivery rights.

But he maintains the old delivery method, through the channels, required much greater volumes of water because of losses caused primarily by evaporation.

“What they no longer have is access to unmetered water above their actual water entitlements,” Jones says.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cattle on Matt and Sandra Ireson’s property near Booligal, NSW. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

The Iresons are furious at what they say are shifting goalposts, a lack of transparency and the failure of government process to deal fairly with all parties.

It adds to the pressure on Ley, who told them she had raised the issue with the department of agriculture and water, and the office of the agriculture minister, David Littleproud, but said there was nothing more she could do.

An agriculture department spokesman said the dispute was a commercial matter between MI and their customers.

“The department has been working with both parties in good faith in an effort to develop a mutually agreeable solution to the matter,” the spokesman said.

Ireson said the ASG farmers only ever wanted a fair share of commonwealth funding to replicate infrastructure already on their farm.

“The responsibility should be on the government if they are handing over so much taxpayer money to fix this dispute,” Ireson said. “But government doesn’t have our back”.