Its CEO Zara Lowien said the advice before the minister to inform the decision is “flawed”.
“The additional 170 gigalitres of water (from a 2024 round and this new one), will cause a significant increase in water allocation price of around 7.2 per cent in the southern Murray-Darling, and impact some industries particularly hard, such as rice, with an estimated 6.48 per cent drop in water use,” she said.
“The narrow assessment only looked at buying back 170 giglitres per year of water and apportioned $84 million annual production losses, ignoring that more than 2100 gigalitres a year is now recovered with an estimated annual farm-gate production loss between $602 million and $914 million.
“Can the minister really say she has considered socio-economic impacts, if the impact assessment is designed to not capture the full impacts?
“Worse still, the evidence highlighted the range of government programs aimed at mitigating the known socio-economic impacts but failed to mention the minimal progress of these other strategies.”
Ms Lowien said updates show there are no ‘new’ efficiency alternatives contracted, no land and water partnerships, and that only NSW has signed up to the Federal Government’s flagship program - Sustaining Basin Communities.
“The government is spending billions on buybacks and promising no community will be left behind, yet they are progressing almost nothing on the other options.
“That is not ‘prioritising non-purchase options’ by anyone’s standards.”
Ms Lowien said the updated trading strategy and purpose of the expression of interest process remains unclear and “of concern”.
“The updated trading strategy doesn't indicate how or where this additional 100 gigalitres will be purchased (other than the Southern Murray-Darling Basin) or how the government is using the expression of interest information.
“We are extremely concerned that the Federal Government is quickly acquiring the largest water market dataset for their eyes only, and given their potential market influence and the previous questions over procedures, this recent announcement looks and smells like a rushed attempt to show progress before the federal election, rather than good process.
“The Basin Plan also requires that the minister must be satisfied that buying back the water will contribute to enhancing environmental outcomes.
“Given the Auditor General struggled to find this link, we ask what the minister has changed before signing off on this to meet those legislative requirements?
“Basin communities are absolutely not convinced the socio-economic impacts of additional water recovery have been properly considered.”
