Northern Victoria is mounting a pushback against sustained attacks and claims over water recovery for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
Farming and water groups have led the charge, by setting out Victoria’s major contribution to the 2100 gigalitres already recovered for the environment.
Meanwhile Environment Victoria is ramping up its attack on Victoria, claiming the state has tried to sabotage the plan.
For the second time in two months, the lobby group has published reports blaming Victoria for holding up the full implementation of the plan.
And for the second time the organisation has not acknowledged that Victoria is the biggest contributor to water recovered for the environment under the basin plan.
Goulburn Murray Irrigation District Water Leadership Group co-chair David McKenzie described the report as “bizarre” and said it reflected on the credibility of the organisation.
Environment Victoria policy and advocacy manager Bonya Lipski said while alleged water theft in NSW had generated national headlines, Victoria had actually played a bigger role in ripping off the river system.
“This report is the first time Victoria’s shortcomings and negligence of our river system has been comprehensively documented,” she said.
The Committee for Greater Shepparton, in a submission to a Productivity Commission inquiry, said Greater Shepparton had been at the centre of pandemic disruptions and in late 2022 experienced some of the largest and most prolonged flooding in recent history.
“Despite these challenges our region has continued to deliver in good faith against the plan’s targets and as detailed in our submission, Victoria has:
- Exceeded water recovery targets.
- Is able to deliver 98 per cent of project outcomes by December 2026.
- Has delivered more than two-thirds of all water recovered against the Efficiency Measures target (additional 450 Gl).
The VFF went further than the committee in its summary of what has been achieved to date: “It is the VFF position that no more water should be recovered for the environment until such time that the water currently available to the environment is used effectively and the environmental benefits of recovering additional water are demonstrated to be commensurate with the costs.”
The VFF noted: “The basin plan has made significant progress and recovered over 2100 Gl of water to date.”
Environment Victoria blames the Victorian Government for the NSW Menindee fish kills in March this year, and for fish kills in Menindee in 2018 and 2019, despite admitting the cause was reduced flows upstream in NSW.
The report, Debasing the Basin Plan, challenges the principles behind the original Foodbowl Modernsation Project, claiming there were no real water savings generated by the project, and that money should have been spent on other community assets.
Committee for Greater Shepparton chair Leigh Findlay said Environment Victoria was catastrophising the issue in order to raise money for their cause.
He said the report was most disappointing given Victoria’s leading contribution to environmental water recovery.
The Committee for Greater Shepparton submission to the Productivity Commission included the following recommendations about the future of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan:
- Environmental water management outcomes and impacts must be measured along the entire system.
- Evaluate water recovery options against their full costs and benefits.
- Prioritise outcomes over volumes.
- Prioritise water delivery over water recovery.
- Enable co-design of partnership initiatives.