It was a profoundly disappointing and frustrating development in the Commonwealth’s approach to the return of environmental water to the basin, particularly given its oft-repeated pledge to work alongside communities in balancing environmental, economic, and agricultural considerations.
For thousands of families across Victoria’s northern communities this announcement from Canberra has been met with anger and despair.
It has given rise to enormous uncertainty and fear for the sustainability, future and productivity of our Victorian basin communities and some of the most important producers of the dairy, fruit and vegetables that we all too often take for granted.
Victoria released a prospectus in May which outlines a pathway to achieve better environmental outcomes and climate change adaptation under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in ways that minimise socio-economic impacts.
This prospectus was designed with, for and by the Victorian communities that deserve to be at the centre of all decisions about their futures.
The area by area approach it sets out was developed over many months of careful and direct engagement with communities. It was guided by countless conversations, community meetings and collaboration, and proposes a framework of negotiation, consultation and partnership.
And it identified a path to the return of environmental water that would reduce the socio-economic damage caused by the blunt instrument of open tender buybacks.
In short, it is a way for Victoria to be at the table while decisions affecting our communities are made.
But by enabling purchases from across the Victorian Murray — including in the Sunraysia pumped districts, and the Torrumbarry and Murray Valley irrigation areas — the Commonwealth has in effect ignored this work and the priorities that communities have identified, and it has turned away from the obligations in its own legislation, and public statements about the importance of partnerships with basin states.
The Commonwealth has shown that it is capable of making concessions and decisions to reduce impacts in some irrigation areas, but in doing so it has also turned its back on others.
It is not too late for the Commonwealth to apply better practice to all of our irrigation districts and to rethink its refusal to consult with communities — particularly as the current approach amounts to decisions by the Commonwealth that disadvantage Victoria in comparison to other states through this tender program.
If the Commonwealth intends not to disadvantage Victoria in the implementation of its legislation, it must work with our communities, rather than against them.
This begins with transparency.
Under the Commonwealth’s legislation, the federal minister for water must consider the socio-economic impacts on communities before approving a water purchase program.
The Commonwealth must release the analysis of the impact of these open tender buybacks in Victoria, along with the criteria that was used to assess the socio-economic impacts.
Our Victorian basin communities remember all too well the damage and division caused by open tender buybacks.
Recent economic analysis from ABARES found buybacks will cost millions in lost agricultural production alone, and this is before the impact on dairy or losses to permanent plantings in drought are considered.
But we know the impacts are much wider than just direct job losses and agricultural production reductions.
As with any transition and as our communities know only too well from previous open tender buybacks, the losses and impacts will be significant and enduring.
It is in this context that the Commonwealth Government’s recent announcement of a ‘transition’ fund to assist communities to manage the long-term impacts of a loss of water from our consumptive pool falls well short of what is needed.
Its allocation of a one-off fund of $300 million to be split across all five basin jurisdictions amounts to $75 million per year for four years.
Given the losses that our communities will face through this first round of open tender buybacks alone, this seemingly arbitrary amount of money goes nowhere close to what Victoria’s basin communities need and deserve, let alone those in other basin states.
I raised this and other concerns in the recent Water Ministers Ministerial Council and it is my responsibility to keep advocating for Victorian communities to get the support they deserve as the Commonwealth implements its legislative changes.
Our government will continue to work with our regional communities to develop alternative proposals which get on-ground outcomes for the environment and support communities into the future.
We have worked tirelessly over many years to demonstrate our good faith and commitment to a sustainable and resilient basin, and to return more environmental water than any other basin jurisdiction.
We submitted our water resource plans years ago, and we have delivered nation-leading compliance and monitoring practises that have reduced water theft and enabled food producers to use water with a level of efficiency and sustainability not seen before.
Our communities know that healthy rivers and environments mean healthy and productive communities, and I will continue to urge the Commonwealth to respect the good faith and substantive progress that we continue to achieve.
The Commonwealth can still salvage its relationship with Victoria’s basin communities.
But for this to happen, it must genuinely and in good faith work with our communities rather than around them, and respect the grief, anger, and uncertainty that is currently and increasingly being felt.
Communities deserve to be consulted, something the Commonwealth has indicated they will not do for this round of open tender buybacks.
Communities deserve better than corner cutting on a program that could profoundly change their regions.
The opportunity is there for the Commonwealth to engage with our communities in the way they deserve.
And I look forward to an ongoing partnership with the Commonwealth to achieve negotiated outcomes for our communities here in Victoria that are fair, evidence-based and transparent.
– Harriet Shing is the Victorian Water Minister.
