The ministers will have in their hands the latest basin plan ‘report card’, but they will also know their decisions will be watched by basin communities.
The VFF said people and industry must be at the centre of discussions.
VFF president Emma Germano said the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s basin plan report card highlighted the fact that Canberra was ignoring the impacts on regional communities and irrigated agriculture, with its plans to buy back an additional 450 Gl on top of the basin plan.
“Farmers in the basin produce food for the nation,” Ms Germano said.
“They are now doing that with one third less of the water they had before.
“Taking more water from them will not only make their own lives more difficult, but it will also drive-up food prices — impacting households at a time when they are most sensitive to price increases.”
Ms Germano said Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek needed “to listen more to all her state counterparts, not just the South Australian minister”.
“They understand the original objectives behind the basin plan to optimise social and economic outcomes and to improve water security for all users.
“The social and economic outcomes seem to be the objectives that are constantly forgotten about or ignored.”
Ms Germano said the concept of fully implementing the basin plan had become a political football and that federal and state water ministers needed to agree on what a fully implemented plan is.
“The most alarming comment in the MDBA’s report card was that ‘most regions support full implementation of the basin plan’. This is simply untrue,” she said.
“There is widespread opposition to more Commonwealth water purchases and widespread opposition to reducing the amount of water available for producing food.”
VFF Water Council chair Andrew Leahy said rural communities were staring down the barrel of more Commonwealth buybacks, which fuels uncertainty for farmers.
“We must remember the 450Gl was never guaranteed and is subject to a socio-economic test and that water buybacks fail to meet this test,” Mr Leahy said.
