A report by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Environment (ABRES) regarding water buybacks has been criticised by the NSW Irrigators Council and slammed by Corowa's Richard Sargood, Chairman of the Murray River Action Group.
The Murrumbidgee and mid-Murray valleys will be hit the hardest by water buybacks driving up prices and reducing production with the government's announcement of an assistance package for Murray-Darling Basin communities according to ABARES.
NSW Irrigators’ Council CEO Claire Miller said these basin communities already struggle to survive droughts when water is scarce and too expensive to grow key crops such as rice, which keep vital processing jobs in towns like Deniliquin.
“This report shows more government buybacks will add to costs and water scarcity, leaving these and other vulnerable communities in an even more precarious position,” Ms Miller said.
"Murrumbidgee and mid-NSW Murray communities have little scope to diversify their economies beyond irrigated agriculture – if they could, they already would have done so in response to the price and production impacts of previous buybacks.”
Ms Miller said given the federal government has been caught out manipulating drought images in its scaremongering urban ad campaign to justify buybacks, it cannot be trusted to be honest now about the impacts on communities.
"The ABARES report says more buybacks will increase average water allocation price about 10 per cent or $45/ML. What it doesn't say is that that $45/ML is on top of an average $72/ML increase ABARES has already attributed to past water recovery in earlier reports,” she said.
"And in Australia, averages mean nothing. An average $45/ML increase can be expected to surge to hundreds of dollars extra during droughts when prices soar.”
The report says additional water recovery will hurt the Murrumbidgee Valley and the Murray Valley above the Barmah Choke, with the rice industry taking the biggest hit among basin commodities.
Northern Victoria is also vulnerable, but ABARES admits it does not have the data to properly model dairy impacts.
“The government's announcement of $300 million to assist Murray-Darling Basin communities will barely touch the sides on what irrigation-dependent communities will need,” said Ms Miller.
“The economies of agricultural communities are all linked to production. If water buybacks proceed then communities will need much more than a local sugar hit.
“Job losses will extend to rural supply stores, hairdressers, frontline services and hospitality. If agriculture suffers then the whole community suffers.
“When water prices are already high in a drought, that extra added by buybacks is the straw that breaks the camel's back for many farm enterprises.”
Mr Sargood slammed the decision, describing it as “purely a political decision, not a scientific one”, and warned of dire consequences.
“This whole exercise is a blatant attempt to buy votes from city people who have no idea what the implications of flawed water policy mean to rural economies and communities,” he told The Free Press.
“Ripping productive water out of the southern connected basin will rip the heart out of the local communities that rely on this water.”
A furious Chairman of the Murray River Action Group continued: “Governments can buy back and recover as much water as they bloody well like, but they can’t deliver it.
“Environmental water already accounts for about 40 per cent of Hume and Dartmouth Dams total capacity, most of which can't be used without flooding downstream communities, which is illegal under current operating rules.
“Because this water is just sloshing around in the dams and not being released for productive or environmental use it dramatically increases the flood risk for downstream towns like Corowa when the dams start filling.”
Mr Sargood emphasised: “Governments can't deliver the water they already have, so why do they want to waste taxpayers' money buying more?
“These government decisions will dramatically increase the price of water, which will ultimately flow through to higher supermarket prices, adding to the cost of living and inflation.”