Farming groups are warning of a wave of job losses in rural Australia if the federal government proceeds with its plan to buy back more water in the Murray-Darling Basin, setting the scene for a repeat of earlier conflicts over water policy.
When the original Murray-Darling Basin plan was agreed to in 2010, there were demonstrations in country towns, and copies of the plan were burned in the streets of Deniliquin, New South Wales.
Farmers fear that the withdrawal of more water from agriculture under a proposed bill about to be debated in federal parliament will lead to job losses on farms and a further decline in rural towns, leading to a cycle of decline.
Environmental groups and scientists are equally passionate, warning that flows in the Murray-Darling system have been reduced by 20% as a result of climate change, and diversions from flood plain flows by irrigators. They argue that the original plan to retrieve 3200GL of water for the environment was already a compromise and there cannot be further compromises.
They are urging substantial water buybacks from farmers who want to sell entitlements, saying that alternative programs of infrastructure projects designed to save water have failed.
The opposing views are starkly demonstrated in submissions to a Senate committee on the proposed water legislation.
The water minister, Tanya Plibersek, has tabled a bill that extends the timeframe for completing the plan by three years, after it became clear that the plan’s aims would not be completed by June 2024.
It would also allow buybacks to resume, after being halted by the previous government.
But despite Plibersek granting basin states more time to realise the plan’s objectives to return water to the environment and ensure a healthy river, a furious debate is brewing over how the shortfall – estimated by the Murray Darling Basin Authority at around 750GL – should be achieved.
The bill was expected to pass the lower house on Wednesday but the real test will be in the Senate, where the Greens, who hold the balance of power, are expected to demand tougher action to ensure water reaches South Australia.
“The Greens will work to secure a guarantee that the 450 gigalitres of water promised for the environment and for South Australia will be delivered,” environment spokeperson Sarah Hanson-Young told Guardian Australia.
“As we head into El Niño this summer, the Murray Darling Basin is at serious risk,” she said.
“A river system dies from the mouth up, which is why it’s crucial that the Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray mouth get the water science says is needed.
“We also know that cuts to environmental flows in the northern basin has crippled the Darling-Baaka and those cuts should be reversed. The environment needs more water, not less,” Hanson-Young said.
The shortfall in water recovery has occurred in two parts of the plan.
About 300GL of the planned 605GL under the sustainable diversion limit adjustment mechanism (SDLAM) is still to be recovered through large projects that are designed to use water more efficiently.
Some are running late and some are not feasible. The minister has allowed two more years for states to propose alternatives and complete projects.
However, the Australian Conservation Foundation argues that SDLAM has failed and that no new projects should be accepted.
A submission by professors Sarah Wheeler, Quentin Grafton and John Quiggin argues that water recovery involving infrastructure projects is 3.1 times more expensive than buybacks.
The scientists also pointed to evidence that many of the projects “are non-performing” and either have not been delivered by the states or fail to deliver the water-saving equivalance promised.
The other tranche of water – an additional 450GL to ensure flows to South Australia – is now likely to be recovered though buybacks after other methods, such as on-farm projects, failed miserably.
Some farming groups are disputing that the 450GL was ever a formal part of the original plan and have accused the government of “rewriting history”.
The Murray Regional Strategy Group, which represents farming interests along the Murray, said it opposed the 450GL being recovered outright. Dairy Farmers Victoria said buybacks should not proceed unless it could be shown there would be no socio-economic impact.
Others are focusing on the expected job losses.
Cotton Australia has warned that the removal of each 700 megalitres of water (about 100 hectares of production) will reduce on-farm employment by one full-time equivalent.
“The focus should move away from further water recovery, to investing in many activities and structures, collectively termed complementary measures,” Cotton Australia said. “It is our view that these activities and structures would leverage far greater environmental gains from the existing pool of environmental water.”
Those measures included managing cold water pollution better, assisting with fish passage, restoring riparian vegetation, and removing carp.
However, the impact of buybacks and the modelling on job losses is also hotly contested.
Wheeler, Grafton and Quiggan argue in their submission that outer regional and remote basin communities have declining populations, while larger regional towns are growing.
“Importantly, these population trends pre-date water reform,” they said.
Many of the studies were done as consultancies for interest groups, were not peer reviewed and failed to take into account the reinvestment of the proceeds of buybacks in local communities.
“A widespread belief that water recovery has ‘decimated’ local communities is exaggerated and not supported by creditable economic studies,” they concluded.
