For many Goulburn-Murray Water customers, Commonwealth water purchases are a source of concern.
Last year, changes were made to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan that gave the Federal Government greater scope to purchase water entitlements.
G-MW believes water purchases are a far from ideal way of obtaining additional environmental water because of their inevitable impacts on the agriculture sector and our region.
This was a key issue at a summit I presented at last month.
The Northern Victoria Basin Water Summit, organised by the Goulburn Murray Irrigation District Water Leadership Group, was attended by Victorian Water Minister Harriet Shing and Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen, as well as various leaders from local government, agricultural and manufacturing sectors, as well as some G-MW customers.
One of the recurring themes at the summit was the need for future water purchases to be strategically targeted, as opposed to an open-tender approach to buybacks.
The open-tender approach can cause bills to rise because water corporations, like G-MW, have to maintain the same amount of infrastructure but with fewer customers.
That is why, I and many others at the summit, including Lower Murray Water, advocated for an approach where we work with communities to identify specific areas where water purchases will have less socio-economic impacts.
Identifying such areas would mean that when water purchases are made, existing water delivery infrastructure can also be decommissioned. This enables water corporations to offset their lowered income by also lowering their operating expenditure.
The Broken Reconfiguration Feasibility Study — which is nearing completion — is an excellent example of how this can look.
The study is investigating potential ways the Broken system can be reconfigured to support the community in planning for reduced water availability.
Through the study, we have been able to work with entitlement holders within the system to understand their needs, and how the system can be reconfigured to meet them.
For some people within the system, this could involve their water entitlements being purchased by the Commonwealth. However, because these purchases would be targeted, the economic impacts on customers and communities would be significantly reduced.
The difference between this community-driven approach and open tender water purchases is stark.
Our financial modelling shows that depending on the number of delivery shares that are terminated, open-tender water purchases could see some customer bills within the Goulburn Murray Irrigation District increase by 12 to 34 per cent.
There have been various reviews and inquiries undertaken by Commonwealth departments regarding the future of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan over the past year.
G-MW has actively made submission to these reviews and inquiries highlighting the considerable impacts open-tender water purchases would have on the region.
Ultimately, our preferred option is not to have any Commonwealth water purchases, and for water for the environment to instead be obtained through water savings projects.
Projects undertaken by G-MW, including the Connections Project and the Water Efficiency Project, have already provided more than 450 Gl of additional water to the environment, for urban water security, irrigators and Traditional Owners without affecting irrigators’ consumptive pool.
Furthermore, these projects enabled decommissioning of 1800km of channel and 6000 outlets, which helped us pass on a 10 per cent price reduction to our customers in 2020.
We have advocated for further investment in projects such as these, and hope that in the long term, these types of projects are prioritised over water purchases, as they benefit the environment, our communities and our customers.
But if water purchases are to occur, communities should still be at the fore, as it is their input that will enable water purchases to be targeted and for prices to remain sustainable.
– Charmaine Quick is G-MW’s managing director.