Farmers must not be left to carry the can for Government’s failure to deliver on its environmental water commitments, Australian Dairy Farmers says.
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s draft determination, released early this month, has revealed a substantial shortfall of 265 gigalitres in environmental water recovery targets after 14 projects in NSW and Victoria were withdrawn.
Under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, the Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment Mechanism (SDLAM) allows projects to deliver environmental water benefits while reducing the need to recover water from irrigators.
The Government has a legislated obligation to meet its water recovery targets, and Federal Minister for Water and Environment Murray Watt has not ruled out additional buybacks to meet these shortfalls.
Australia Dairy Farmers President Ben Bennett is calling on Minister Watt to stop stalling and guarantee the gap will not be addressed through further buybacks.
“These projects were agreed to, funded and designed to deliver environmental outcomes without taking more water away from productive agriculture.
“Governments made the promises. Governments received the funding. And after years of delays, additional funding and extended deadlines, governments have failed to deliver what they promised,” says ADF President Ben Bennett.
“This is their failure to fix, not dairy farmers or regional communities. We are seriously concerned that instead of holding governments accountable and fixing the problem, the Minister is leaving the door open to making farmers pay.”
ADF would also like to see Federal and State Governments provide a full public accounting of the abandoned projects, including how much money has been spent, why the projects were not delivered and who is responsible.
“State and Federal governments must now explain what went wrong and find solutions that don’t negatively impact rural and regional communities,” Mr Bennett said.
Mr Bennett says any buybacks would remove more productive water from agriculture and put further pressure on regional communities.
“This would be a flagrant failure to accept responsibility. We are calling on the Federal Minister to assure farmers that the shortfall will not be made up via buybacks, and the Victorian and NSW governments to work on practical alternatives.”
ADF supports a healthy Murray-Darling Basin, but Mr Bennett says governments must deliver the environmental outcomes they promised without continually stripping productive water from regional communities.
“Dairy farmers have invested heavily in water efficiency while managing Basin reform, high water prices, drought and tight profitability. They cannot keep carrying the cost of policy and project failures.”