Conservation Groups Say Australia’s Federal Budget Fails to Address Murray Darling Basin Plan Target

A veiw of the Hume Weir at sunrise on February 23, 2007 in Albury, Australia. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

Environmental conservation groups across four Australian states have criticised the Albanese government for failing to add additional funding from the federal budget towards meeting targets set under the Murray Darling Basin Plan (MDBP).

Environment Victoria, Nature Conservation Council NSW, Queensland Conservation Council, and the Conservation Council of South Australia have said that while the Albanese government has committed $146.8 million in the recent budget to fulfilling its election promise to complete the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, it has failed to commit funds towards delivering the final 450 gigalitres of water.

Under the plan, the final 450 gigalitres of water are an additional target on top of the legislated 2,750 gigalitres that basin states agreed on meeting back in 2018. So far, only 4.5 of the 450 gigalitres, termed “efficiency measures,” have been recovered. In total, more than 2,100 gigalitres of water have been relocated back into the environment.

But the Albanese government’s commitment of $146.8 million will be mainly spent on scientific studies and work to assess progress.

Tyler Rotche, Environment Victoria’s Healthy Rivers Campaigner, said that as water prices increase, the Albanese government needs to allocate more money for water recovery.

“The government needs to get the most water for the funds already set aside. Purchasing water from willing sellers is the most reliable option. It’s by far the most straightforward, aboveboard, and cost-effective method on the table,” Rotche said in a statement.

Craig Wilkins, Chief Executive of the Conservation Council of South Australia, said while Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek has shown a “genuine commitment” to deliver more water under the plan, the federal government has not committed additional funding to improve and return the Murray Darling Basin system to health.

“As a nation, we won’t be able to do what is required to improve the health of Australia’s greatest river system without the federal government entering the market to purchase water from willing sellers.”

However, the federal government’s purchase of water from irrigators, termed “water buybacks,” has been criticised by Victoria, New South Wales (NSW), the federal opposition, the National Farmers Federation, and the National Irrigators Council, who are against the move.

In a previous interview with The Epoch Times, Jan Beer, a representative from the Upper Murray River Catchment Association in Victoria, said that water buybacks will affect the country’s ability to produce food.

“If they buy back that water or they take that further water out of the consumptive pool, then food production and food security will be greatly affected because the irrigators get the very last of what’s left in the consumptive bucket of water,” she said, adding that the economic impacts would be “enormous.”

Calls to Redirect Money from Closure of Dam Project to Meeting Target

Meanwhile, the Albanese government’s withdrawal of funding for the proposed Dungowan Dam in north-west NSW has been applauded by conservation groups, who say the money should be directed towards water buybacks.

The dam was projected to cost $1.3 billion and was promised to be split by the previous Coalition state and federal governments.

“While the decision not to fund the dud Dungowan Dam near Tamworth is applauded, the money saved should have been repurposed for water purchases. Funding is critical if we are going to save the Murray Darling Basin,” Jacqui Mumford, CEO of the Nature Conservation Council NSW, said in a statement.

But federal Member for New England, Barnaby Joyce, has criticised the decision not to proceed with the proposed dam.

“All the work that so many people in the city of Tamworth and New England have done over so many years to fight for this has now come to naught, and that’s a terrible shame,” Joyce said, reported the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

“We have to try and get back into government and reinstall the money.”

According to the federal budget, the dam project’s business case did not have “sufficient support” for its construction, and its scrapping would save $595 million over seven years.

The federal budget also states that $19.1 million for another dam project—the Wyangala Dam near Cowra in central west New South Wales—will be deferred.

Push for Deadline Extension Continues

Victoria’s water minister, Harriet Shing, is pushing for the legislated deadline of June 30, 2024, to be extended for two years.

Under the MDBP, basin states need to deliver both the legislated 2,750 gigalitres plus 450 gigalitres by that date.

Federal water minister Tanya Plibersek has previously said that delivering the measures by 2024 is “next to impossible.”

“It’s about timing, it’s about funding, it’s also about the Murray-Darling Basin Plan,” Shing said, reported the ABC.

As such, the Victorian state government has paused four major environmental projects under the plan. Harriet said that if there is no extension, the works for the projects would not be completed by 2024 and that the four water projects would deliver 60 gigalitres of water into the basin system.

Federal shadow water minister and Nationals Senator Perin Davey said he understood Victoria’s push for an extension.

“Without the agreement for an extension, the federal funding is not guaranteed, and I can totally understand why the state minister would be reluctant to commence or commission any contracts if they are not sure they are going to get the funding for it,” Davey said.

Davey added that without these works, the federal government would need to commence water buybacks in the region.

But Shing said Victoria was committed to its policy against water buybacks, which has also been opposed by NSW.

“I would like to see that we can return water, but it has to be with positive or neutral socio-economic outcomes,” Shing said.

South Australian Labor Water Minister Susan Close and South Australia Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young have both voiced support for the water buybacks.

A review by the Productivity Commission into how effectively the basin plan has met its objectives is expected to be completed by December. The Commission’s 2019 report said that some water projects were unlikely to be delivered by the 2024 deadline.