A key environmental measure in the Murray-Darling Basin plan “cannot be achieved under the current program settings” which may only save 13% of the 450 gigalitres required to protect river ecosystems, a much-anticipated report has found.
The plan promises 450GL to the environment, to save wetlands and avoid species loss, by 2024. The commonwealth funds that 450GL through the water for the environment special account (WESA).
So far, just 2.6GL has been delivered, and very little of the $1.775bn in the fund has been spent, although more water has been contracted since the report was finalised.
The latest WESA report was delivered to the former government late last year and released by the current government on Tuesday. Its findings prompted renewed calls for voluntary water buybacks, which could deliver the water quickly but would require legislation.
The panel which wrote the report found it was not possible to reach the 450GL target under the current program that focuses on off-farm efficiency projects, which have been described as costly and ineffective.
The projects could deliver up to 60GL by the deadline, the report found. An analysis by external consultants suggested that if other efficiency measures were allowed it would cost between $3.4bn and $10.8bn.
The water minister, Tanya Plibersek, accused the former government of “deliberately hoping to leave [the WESA money] unspent”.
“This is another report that was kept secret by the previous government,” she said.
“The previous government had no intention on delivering on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan – they just didn’t have the guts to admit that before the election.
“Their failure to deliver on the plan wasn’t due to a lack of money – it was a lack of will.”
The Murray-Darling Basin plan is the product of years of negotiating after the devastating millennium drought. It was often framed as a battle between water for the environment and water for irrigators.
It also split Australia on state lines, with South Australia at the forefront of demands for the 450GL to ensure environmental flows through the saline pools and wetlands of the lower Murray, while upstream states said reserving that water would hurt farming communities on the river system.
As recently as Monday, the Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie claimed the 450GL target was “off the table”. “We’ve given enough,” she added.
Great to see @SamBirrell2 shine a light on the impact of taking the 450GL outlined in the Murray Basin Plan would have on basin communities in regional Victoria during his first speech today. We’ve given enough. The 450 is off the table. https://t.co/Gd2l8OQyzp pic.twitter.com/hoRfgqYZOA
— Senator The Hon. Bridget McKenzie (@senbmckenzie) August 1, 2022
The shadow water minister, Nationals senator Perrin Davey, has said only 62GL was needed.
The Greens’ environment and water spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, said urgent action was needed, and that Plibersek should “go and buy the water”.
“Anything short of the 450GL is unacceptable,” she said.
“Water buybacks must be reinstated immediately. Putting up the white flag is surrendering to big corporate irrigators.”
The federal government has suggested it is open to the idea of buybacks, which were capped and then effectively ended under the former government in favour of the efficiency projects.
The funding for the WESA expires on 30 June 2024.
“It is clear from this report that the Nationals were simply running down the clock on this money,” Plibersek said.
“They were deliberately hoping to leave it unspent. Indeed, the report shows that under current policy settings, there is virtually no way that the money can be spent in the remaining timeframe.”
After an initial WESA report in 2020, the former water minister Keith Pitt ordered the second review.
Dr David Adamson, a senior lecturer in the school of economics and public policy at the University of Adelaide, said the report was “no surprise”.
Adamson said the “zombie” strategy of using water efficiency measures to generate water savings was still being embraced despite evidence the money was better spent elsewhere.
“The ongoing failure to understand how the water returned to the environment benefits all of society, including irrigators both now and into the future is a tragedy,” he said.
