Pipe Dreams Help Nobody

Sign Up for free e-mail updates!

The so-called $10 billion dollar national plan for water security looks set to go ahead, with the Federal Government indicating reluctant Victoria doesn’t have a right of veto on the plan.

But up north, Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie, is proposing a few billion dollars from Mr Howard’ water war chest be used to implement the Bradfield scheme that proposes piping water from North Queensland rivers into the Murray-Darling system.

It’s a grand pipe dream in more ways than one.

The concept has garnered some support, including from Visy Industries boss and billionaire, Richard Pratt, who says rain should be captured where it falls and piped to where it is needed.  

Irrigators in the Murray-Darling Basin have long successfully argued for more water and almost 50 percent of the water that flows into the Basin is now diverted, much of this for irrigation.
 
In contrast, there has been very little water infrastructure development in northern Australia.

For example, only a few years ago a modest dam was proposed for the headwaters of the Fitzroy River in Central Queensland. 

The Nathan Dam looked set to go ahead until the World Wildlife Fund (Australia) and the Queensland Conservation Council applied for a judicial review by the Federal Government. 

They were successful, and the development stopped on the basis a new dam could affect the Great Barrier Reef.   

The Queensland government has since passed the Wild River Act 2005. 

It’s purportedly about preserving the natural values of wild rivers through regulating future development while maintaining grazing, fishing and eco-tourism. 

But the bottom line is it is designed to stop the further development of irrigated agriculture in North Queensland and was championed by the Wilderness Society.

There are good rich soils in the Gulf of Carpentaria, a region that receives four times the run-off of the Murray-Darling Basin and where just 0.05 percent of inflows are diverted. 

But activists are unlikely to allow even small scale develop in this region, let alone piping water south. 
Many Queenslanders see Mr Beattie’s very recent support for the Bradfield scheme as just more politics – in particular, a tactic to distract attention from South East Queensland's water shortage.
Instead of getting behind pipe dreams for northern Australia’s water, southern irrigators would do well to consider how fortunate they are to have a developed irrigation infrastructure and industry and they would do well to keep an eye on the main game – keeping their current water licenses.  

Indeed the $10 billion plan is unlikely to deliver much more water from Queensland, but, with $3 billion to buy back water entitlements, the plan is likely to deliver more water to South Australia. 

Lake Alexandrina and the Southern Ocean are likely to receive a lot more water at the expense of irrigated agriculture in New South Wales and Victoria.

Published in The Land

More Articles