Murray-Darling water allocations to be sold back to farmers after years of environmental buy-backs

Updated

The Federal Government has announced plans to sell back water allocations to farmers along the Murray-Darling river system.

The Commonwealth currently owns almost 1,700 gigalitres of water in the basin, following several years of environmental buy-backs.

Parliamentary secretary for the environment Simon Birmingham says the trade of this year's water allocations will have important economic benefits while also maintaining environmental flows.

"The core test for the environmental water holder in undertaking these activities is whether it better achieves environmental outcomes, whether it aligns with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, which the Coalition is committed to implementing in full and on time," he said.

"Trading will be limited and will only be a small portion of the overall entitlement held by the environmental water holder.

"But you can get these benefits because not every wetland, not every key asset would naturally receive water in every single year."

The Federal Government will release details of the first tender process today.

Mr Birmingham says the trade will significantly benefit agricultural production in the region.

"This will be good news for irrigators who will be keen to secure more water during this period of hot and dry weather," he said.

Greens say sales will undermine ecosystem's recovery

The Greens are accusing the Federal Government of undermining the recovery of the Murray-Darling ecosystem.

The party's environment spokeswoman, Lee Rhiannon, says the policy will come at the cost of the environment.

"When you start the sell-offs, particularly when it's driven by a Coalition government, you're opening the door to winding back the small achievements that have been made in terms of restoring health to the Murray-Darling basin," she said.

"There looks like there is a budgetary driving factor here, in that the Government is moving through all the departments looking for savings.

"And again, the environment and communities along the Murray-Darling basin are suffering because of that obsession that the Government has."

Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says the Government must ensure its scheme is conducted independently.

"What's important here is that the process is independent and clear," he said.

"We'd expect the Abbott Government would operate on the best independent advice but also be really clear about what's happened and provide all information to Australians.

"The best way for Australia's future is for the Abbott Government to treat Australians like adults and be up front about the facts."

Labor's environment spokesman, Mark Butler, says any water management plans need to be carefully considered and based on stakeholder consultation and scientific advice.

"The Government has shown in its first few months in office that it is not keen to accept scientific advice or to be transparent about its decisions," he said in a statement.

"Australia’s biggest river system is too important for [Prime Minister] Tony Abbott and [Environment Minister] Greg Hunt to continue this trend."

Irrigators look forward to more information about sale

Irrigators say the move is overdue. They say the water can and should be sold and put to agricultural use without compromising the environment.

National Irrigators Council chief executive Tom Chesson says the impact of the sale on water prices will depend on how much water actually goes on to the market.

"We're not sure exactly which valleys will be having water sold back to potentially irrigators or anyone that wants to buy it and we're very much looking forward to seeing how that's going to work," he said.

"We're reaching the end of the summer cropping periods, so most irrigators who grow rice and cotton and those types of crops will have already either had enough water on hand or to finish off their crops. We've had some hot weather which has spiked the water use."

Mr Chesson says irrigators are keen to see the best environmental outcomes delivered.

"We don't want to go through as we have been over the last couple of decades, historical reforms every three or four years. We don't want to see that," he said.

"We want to see this work, but the reality is that we are entering a drying phase. We had three years of floods, record floods in Australia across the east coast. We're now entering that drying phase.

"There will be wetlands that need to be dried out so that water that would otherwise have been stored in dams, that would otherwise not be used, should be put to productive use.

"We look forward to Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder maturing enough to realise that Australia is a land of extremes and that sometimes selling water makes environmental and economic sense."

Topics: water-management, water, environment, murray-darling-basin, rivers, federal-government, government-and-politics, irrigation, rural, bega-2550, broken-hill-2880, orange-2800, tamworth-2340, wagga-wagga-2650, nsw, renmark-5341, sa, bendigo-3550, horsham-3400, mildura-3500, wodonga-3690, vic, toowoomba-4350, qld, australia

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