Nationals candidate for Nicholls Sam Birrell has the 450 Gl of up-water in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in his sights, but while he wants to lobby for the region he is also a member of a party that is a coalition.
In this latest interview with Nicholls candidates on water issues, Country News journalist GEOFF ADAMS explores how the former Committee For Greater Shepparton chief executive officer hopes to achieve change in the next parliament.
Sam Birrell grew up a stone’s throw from the Goulburn River, helped develop a vineyard on the family farm, and worked on an Ardmona orchard before enrolling at the University of Melbourne’s Dookie agricultural campus where he gained an Applied Science degree in Agriculture and then became a horticultural agronomist, giving advice on crop production.
He went on to work for an Israeli international company which specialised in irrigation, taking him overseas on some projects.
He got a closer look at regional water governance issues when he worked for the Committee for Greater Shepparton, and if he gets elected Mr Birrell will be representing a rich agricultural region that is dependant upon water.
Water commentators, the VFF and some of our political leaders are convinced that the Murray-Darling Basin states are not going to be able to find projects to save 605Gl of water for the environment by the scheduled 2024 deadline.
They speculate that if the target is not reached by the date as specified in legislation, governments will try to take it off consumptive users.
What does Mr Birrell think about this?
“We don’t know where we will end upon the 605Gl,” he said.
“People have speculated there will be a shortfall, but there is a lot of water to go under the bridge. There are a lot of audits; projects to be finished; a lot of assessments before we know if there is a shortfall, and if so, how much.
“The minister’s (Keith Pitt’s) focus at the moment is trying to get the states to put in as many projects as possible.
“His comment was: ‘Don’t tell me what you can’t do, tell me what you can do’.”
Mr Birrell said the legislation on the 450Gl of additional up-water was a legacy of a former ALP government which established the hurdle that was now being faced.
Mid last year the parliament saw a rebellion by a number of National Party members (including Federal Member for Nicholls Damian Drum) against the Liberal Party when they attempted to amend water law to remove the 450Gl of up-water that was added to the basin plan’s recovery target.
The attempt was unsuccessful when the Liberals voted with the ALP to defeat the amendments, resulting in the awkward scenario of National Party members being in conflict with their coalition partners.
Mr Birrell said the 450 Gl socio-economic test was vague and that to his credit the (then) water minister David Littleproud and the state water ministers had put some clarity around the test, which had given some comfort to people in that water could not be pulled out of the consumptive pool if it hurt basin communities to do so.
“That stopped it for the moment, but what the Nats tried to do was knock the 450 out of the plan altogether. Damian Drum, Senators Perin Davey and Bridget McKenzie led that charge,” Mr Birrell said.
“I hope to get elected to parliament to focus on getting this 450Gl add-on removed and I will do whatever I can as a National Party member to make that happen.
“I think Damian Drum did exactly the right thing. He exposed the Liberals’ position.
“You haven’t seen the end of this 450 battle. Locals should see this as a policy differentiation between the two, the National Party and the Liberal Party, no matter what the candidate might say.”
He worries that future governments might change the socio-economic test.
“I want the 450 out,” Mr Birrell said.
“Not only is the 450 an economic cost to the community, but using the Goulburn River as a channel to try to take it down the lower river and lower lakes of South Australia, it’s environmental vandalism for our part of the world, due to high flows and bank erosion.”
He acknowledged the Nats had some heavy work to do in convincing their coalition partners.
Mr Birrell is against an engineering by-pass of the Murray River’s Barmah Choke.
“I am totally opposed to a by-pass because that just is an excuse to funnel more water to the end of the system for ‘environmental purposes’ or further development downstream,” he said.
“The right thing to do from an environmental and economic perspective is to use more of the water closer to the source, and that’s the Goulburn Valley.”
Asked about the demand to keep the lower lakes fresh, Mr Birrell was reluctant to be drawn into the debate, but said ripping productive water out of this region and using the river as a channel to keep the lakes artificially fresh “is not on”.
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority, he said, needed a major reset in the way it engaged with basin communities, and the appointment of a new chief executive officer was an opportunity to address that.
He said he had spoken to Mr Pitt about how this could be improved.