Governments Run Dry on Water Reform

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Last Wednesday the Water Bill 2007 was introduced into the federal parliament.   This week is it expected to be passed.  

Federal Water Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said it represented the most far reaching reform of water management in our nation's history and that irrigated agriculture will now be able to make every drop count through investments in better water infrastructure.

Yes, there will be money for improvements in water infrastructure but at what price?

Until Queensland Senator, Barnaby Joyce, raised the issue of compulsory buyback of irrigation licences, I thought the new legislation would just result in a very large amount of water being taken from agriculture.

Now the water is likely to be lost through free trade and given the many billions of dollars the federal government has to spend, the price of water is likely to skyrocket, creating a potential bonanza for irrigators.  Many may make lots of money, but as a nation will we be better off?  

The new legislation and the plan reinforce the perception that the current water shortage is about mismanagement.  
I am not suggesting that the States have done a perfect job, but how is the Commonwealth plan better? 

Mr Turnbull intends to create about as many new committees and plans as under the State systems. 

The federal government intends to put in place a new cap on extractions, at at time when the 1995 cap is just about to be realised. 

A review of the 1995 cap, published in 2000, concluded that while it did not necessarily provide for a sustainable (Murray Darling) Basin ecosystem, it had been an essential first step in achieving this outcome; and without the Cap there would have been a significantly increased risk that the environmental degradation of the river system of the Basin would have been worse.

Worse than what?

It is unclear how much water is need for environmental flows. But given the conservation movement is insatiable in its demands, let’s be realistic, it will never be considered enough. 

We have experienced the worst drought in perhaps 100 years and yet the Murray River has not run dry.  House boat operators in the lower Murray are complaining not because their boats are marooned, but because all the bad publicity has resulted in holiday makers cancelling bookings in the false belief the river is in crisis. 

It may be in crisis next year, but it has been full of water this last year.

If it doesn’t rain, it doesn’t matter how much money the federal government throws at the Murray, money can’t keep it full of water.

Lots of money can’t buy appropriate reform, and what is the point of new infrastructure if the irrigation industry is to be slowly closed down, rains or not.

Published in The Land

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