Updated: NSW water buyback reports slammed

Recent media after the October 2022 Murray—Darling Basin Ministerial Council meeting has suggested that there is an open and available round of water entitlement purchasing by the Commonwealth.

This is not accurate.

Please note:

November 14: NSW buybacks slammed

Farmer groups say they are outraged by reports the state water ministers agreed to almost 50 gigalitres of water buybacks at last month’s Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council meeting.

The water is to meet the basin states’ ‘bridging the gap’ target under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

The communique released after the water ministers’ meeting on October 12, stated that “as a matter of priority” the Federal Government would work with communities and basin states “on options to bridge the remaining gap in water recovery, including through strategic purchase”.

Victoria has achieved its target but as of August 31, 46 Gl of surface water and 3.2 Gl of groundwater was still to be recovered by the basin states, primarily from NSW.

It is understood 10 Gl of surface water will come from the NSW Murray.

But NSW Farmers Conservation and Resource Management Committee chair Louise Burge said it was only through media reports after last week’s federal budget estimates that communities learned the remaining water would be recovered via buybacks, which she said was “outrageous”.

The Speak Up Campaign said communities were being “abandoned” as a result of the decision.

“There’s a lack of transparency. There was no government announcement and no detail on how much the government is prepared to pay, yet water trading companies have already been contacting farmers to see if they are willing to sell water,” Speak Up deputy chair Lloyd Polkinghorne said.

Southern Riverina Irrigators chair Darcy Hare said his group — along with Murray Regional Strategy Group, Speak Up Campaign, Central Murray Environmental Group and NSW State Member for Murray Helen Dalton — had all been “desperate” to get in front of Federal Water Minister Tanya Pliberskek, but so far she had not met with them.

Ms Dalton said she was angered by the decision to push on with buybacks.

“Every megalitre of water that leaves our communities is disastrous and the southern basin has already contributed 83 per cent of water bought-back under the basin plan and that’s more than enough,” she said.

Ms Dalton said she wanted to know how Ms Plibersek expected “to deliver additional environmental water downstream to South Australia without negative social, environmental and economic impacts upstream, which were all meant to be a protected under parameters of the basin plan”.

“This is just a disaster ... where do they think their staple food is going to come from if we keep taking water away from productive ag.”

NSW Water Minister Kevin Anderson has previously said the state was committed to delivering the basin plan in a way that protected communities from negative social and economic impacts.

On November 13, a Victorian Government spokesperson reiterated it opposed buybacks, saying there was “no change to the government’s stance on buybacks”.

“Any future consideration of this issue is a matter for the incoming government,” the spokesperson said.