Murray Darling Basin Plan back on track

Hailing it as a signature achievement of his time in office, Water Minister David Littleproud announced the government has done a deal with Labor to block the Greens controversial Sustainable Diversion Limit disallowance motion.

Labor will vote in the Senate tomorrow to side with the government, ensuring the Greens are defeated. 

The disallowance motion would have spurred a further 605 gigalitres of irrigation buybacks in the Southern Basin.

The stakes were particularly high this time around, with tensions running high over irrigation cutbacks. NSW and Victorian water ministers threatened to withdraw from the Basin Plan if the projects were blocked.

“I reached out across the aisle to seek bipartisanship and aimed to provide leadership on this issue from day one. We rarely achieve lasting results by going to war,” Mr Littleproud said.

“In my short time as Minister I hope to have demonstrated that transparency, integrity and compliance are important to me. Given this, I’m rapt with adjustments which will now be made to the Plan.”

The Greens wanted to overturn the approval parliament granted last year for 37 infrastructure works, worth $1.3 billion, which are designed to move environmental water more efficiently and reduce irrigation cutbacks by 605 gigalitres.

The deal cut today will see fresh oversight for the Northern Basin rollout of the plan in the unregulated river system, with a Northern Basin Commissioner to report on the progress water recovery.

Labor’s deal with Government includes more stringent oversight of water recovery and compliance, and a commitment to bring the Northern Basin amendment back to parliament.

Labor and the government committed to deliver the 450GL of ‘upwater’, to be recovered through on-farm efficiency projects, which will take the overall water recovery to 3200GL – given it comes with no net negative impact to Basin communities.

“The process of attaining the 450GL, with no negative social or economic impacts, can now begin,” Mr Littleproud said.

Funding: The Federal Government pledged $20 million to develop remote monitoring systems and enhanced compliance measures, $40m of Basin Plan funds to increase indigenous economic and cultural participation in the Basin Plan, and $20m to fund grants for economic development to help communities to adjust to water recovery.

Offset projects: The deal also includes a commitment to better oversight to ensure water reserved for environmental benefit is not available for consumptive use; a “comprehensive response” to allegations of corruption and water theft in the Northern Basin; indigenous consultation and engagement in water planning and; accuracy of data and modelling assumptions.

Labor’s water spokesman Tony Burke brought the Basin Plan during his time steering the portfolio for the Gillard Government in 2012.

Mr Burke said today he had sought a guarantee from government that the offset projects will achieve their goals, including increased oversight of project modelling, ongoing monitoring and a commitment to recover any shortfalls with buybacks when the recovery target kicks in, in 2024.

Mr Littleproud said the fresh bipartisan commitment to the Basin Plan removed the uncertainty which has dogged the water recovery process and taken its toll on communities.

“During this process I’ve always kept in my mind an agronomist who rolled his ute after working huge days because with the uncertainty of not knowing how much water his district would have, he’d chosen to do all the work himself rather than keeping an employee. This is the toll of uncertainty,” Mr Littleproud said.

“People and communities can finally move forward knowing government is at last starting to get out of their lives.” 

The deal also reiterated the Basin Plan objective to increase the river flow to hit 80,000ML a day across the South Australian border.

This is a contentious issue due to the flood risk to low-lying land and the amount of infrastructure investment which will be needed to prevent third party damages.

The Greens were successful in a similar blocking bid lodged against a proposed 70GL reduction to irrigation cutbacks in the Northern Basin in February.  

Known as Sustainable Diversion Limit offset projects, the Greens cited environmental shortfalls in project designs and called for more scrutiny before the projects were implemented.

The upshot is by moving water more efficiently, the volume needed for the environment can be reduced, which in turn minimises the size of cutbacks to irrigation entitlements.

The MDBA has calculated that 37 offset projects proposed by NSW, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia can reduce the Basin Plan recovery recovery target of 2750 gigalitres by 605GL.

The Murray Darling Basin Authority says the offset projects are necessary to deliver the environmental objectives of the Basin Plan - with targeted water deliver at key flora habitats, while building capacity into the river system to handle the larger flows that will come with water recovery.

(Here’s a further explanation of what how the offset projects work)

Offset projects include new works on Victoria’s Belsar-Yungera Floodplain to increase the effectiveness of wetland inundation, reconfiguring weirs in Gunbower forest and rewriting state regulations to encourage water releases from storages at environmentally beneficial times.