Protesters to drive tractors and trucks into the centre of Albury-Wodonga amid rising anger about water allocations

Farmers' protest is a sign water politics is about to go into hyperdrive

Water politics is about to go into hyperdrive in rural Australia and you need to know why.

On Tuesday morning, southern farmers, irrigators and fellow residents will drive tractors and trucks into the centre of Albury-Wodonga to protest about water.

Also imminent is the report into fish kills by a government-appointed expert panel, headed by Robert Vertessy, whose interim work suggested that without more inflows more fish kills could be expected.

With an eye to the rising anger, the government has announced a Murray-Darling Basin-wide study to assess social and economic conditions in river communities, reporting in December.

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While you will hear some government members say we just need rain, the Albury protest is about so much more than that.

It is not farmer versus the environment, though some farmers clearly rail about the environmental take.

Farmers largely accept there needs to be environmental water. The rub is that once that water is taken out, southern irrigators believe it is not allocated fairly according to the government’s own rules.

That is, they argue big operators in northern New South Wales, Queensland and in South Australia get priority over the average farmer because of the political imperatives of marginal seats and big corporate lobbyists.

And that is before you even come to the price of water, which has skyrocketed in a free market in drought, leaving them to compete with Bourke and Pitt street investors as well as foreign countries.

It is a primal scream by those who believe they are not getting treated fairly under the Murray-Darling Basin plan and who are angry about actions of huge irrigators, some of whom have been accused of water theft and fraud.

They are angry about the water-buying power of very large agribusiness companies such as Australia’s biggest walnut grower, Webster’s, which is run by former Patrick’s boss Chris Corrigan. Some are also concerned at the conflicts within irrigation companies, which deliver water, regulate water and privately trade in water. (Since land and water rights were disconnected a decade ago, water trading has been a lucrative business.)

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In broad terms, the protest is about wholesale deregulation across agribusiness over decades, at the time largely supported by farmer advocate groups, but has now translated into market distortions which have been detrimental to industries like dairy.

Now the chickens are coming home to roost. The middle is missing out and the anger has the potential to resonate more broadly.

Today’s protest will also highlight a campaign by the independent candidate and Albury mayor Kevin Mack against the Coalition government minister Sussan Ley in the federal seat of Farrer. With a notional margin of 20%, Ley should be safe but these are disrupted times so the Coalition is jittery.

Protestors are equally angry at Labor’s environment shadow Tony Burke who has promised to lift the cap on water buybacks.

Carly Marriott, an irrigator and one of the key organisers, recently vented her frustration on Facebook.

“Not only does South Australia demand a fixed amount of water every year regardless of rainfall or inflows into our catchment,” wrote Marriott.

“But now they are growing water-thirsty permanent crops like almonds, grapes and avocados. They are also passionate recreational boaters who demand permanent water supply into their shallow, once salty lakes.

“Oh and because the Northern Corporates have suffocated the Darling River, it’s now completely up to the Murray River and the family farmers to satisfy the needs of our spoilt, down stream dependent.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A view of the Wonga Wetlands in Albury. Photograph: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

That gives you a clear idea of the split, but what do they want? Southern irrigators want to “pause, review and re-set” the MDB plan, something that neither major parties are entertaining given how hard it was to get across the line in the first place.

But watch this space because there are an increasing number of credible voices lending their weight to pause the plan.

For example Mal Peters, a former NSW Farmers Association president and former chair of the Northern Basin Advisory Committee for the MDBA, believes the MDB plan should be paused and the board sacked. And he is a northern NSW irrigator.

“There is little point continuing if it ain’t working,” Peters said. “And it ain’t working.

“Month after month, we told the board about environmental water being bought while it was being legally pumped out at the same time, there was water being knocked off and then there was the Barwon-Darling Water Sharing Plan, 80% of which is owned by two irrigators.”

Peters wants an independent panel that would have authority to commission international experts to conduct a transparent review with terms of reference written in consultation from the river communities, environmental groups and scientists.

He wants an inquiry into the impact of separating land and water, including the effect of international water investors and their effect on industries like dairy, rice, table grapes, stock and domestic users and flood plain farmers.

He also wants an independent audit of all commonwealth environmental water purchases to identify how much water is actually getting into the rivers, an examination of the Barwon-Darling Water Sharing Plan and the impacts of the massive increases in levee constructions in NSW and Queensland.

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Peters said the loss of the seats of Murray and Barwon by the National party at the NSW election should be a catalyst to look at the plan with “fresh eyes”.

“We can’t have fish kills, we’ve got to have healthy water to towns and we have already spent $8bn to get it right,” said Peters.

“There is enough water for sustainable industry but we have to manage it right – what we have at the moment is a few really big blokes doing the wrong thing.”

“We still have $5bn left to be able to spend, the results to date are delivering no water to these guys at Walgett, dead fish and on and on we go. I don’t have any confidence that anything is going to change unless something dramatic like this happens.”

New polling by the left-leaning Australia Institute shows a majority of Australians (55%) now consider the health of the Murray Darling basin poor or very poor, up 18 percentage points on the previous year (37%).

After the fish kills over summer, the national survey of 1,532 people between 20 February and 4 March this year also found over a third (37%) said the health of the river system was very poor – three times more than in the previous year (11%).

Almost half (48%) of Australians now consider the standard of river management by government agencies to be poor or very poor, compared with 33% in 2018.

So while the government might join growers praying for rain (and the seasonal outlook does not look hopeful), it will take more than a deluge to appease the anger of those driving tractors on Tuesday.