Friday, March 29, 2024

Money drives madness

Recent stories

Australia’s $13 billion Murray-Darling Basin Plan is yielding some unintended consequences as decades of sage warnings went ignored.

As far back as 2006, the book ‘High and Dry’ was sounding the alarm of the risks of highest return per megalitre leading to ruination of the very Basin governments were attempting to save.

A recent report commissioned by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority titled ‘An Investigation into the Location of Horticultural Water Demands’ spells out acutely why we are moving production below the natural constraints and sacrificing the very river the MDBA is trying to ‘save’.

Money is the motivator. “Almonds, citrus, and table grapes can all be grown above or below the Barmah Choke, but horticulturalists believe they can each be grown more profitably below the Choke.”

The hotter, drier conditions of the areas targeted make for less chance of rain impacting harvest or creating soft ground as the light, sandy soils provide better trafficability as the water freely drains away.

Another key driver on where developers invest is water availability, trade and reliability.

The limits and risks of running huge volumes of water through the natural constraints damaging the river system is seen as “risks they must manage”.

The report states that for international developers, Australia’s water management framework is seen as carrying less risk than the arrangements in the Central Valley of California. The relaxation of approvals and the financial approvals processes have also favoured development below the choke.

The report states: “Until 2009, the overwhelming majority of new horticultural developments below the Choke were planted in Victoria. In part, this had to do with Victoria’s one-stop-shop approach to the various development approvals processes.”

Then, adding, “Between 2015 and 2021, the overall rates of expansion were similar in each of the three states.

In part, this had to do with an increasing scarcity of easy sites to develop in Victoria, and in part, it had to do with the relaxation of approvals processes in NSW and South Australia.”

The report states South Australia is now the “more attractive” option for permanent plantings with leading water security, the influence of Lake Victoria supported by the Menindee Lakes and the series of weir pools in South Australia.

Not bad for a state that apparently never has enough water.

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has opened the floodgates to unregulated development and the international money is here to stay.

“International companies will continue to develop new orchards, or purchase existing orchards, in Australia, given the complexity of risks surrounding water availability in the Central Valley of California, which at the moment, looks worse than the situation in Australia.

They look favourably on Australia’s strong water entitlement and water trade protocols.”

Those trade protocols must be the annual almost $2 billion unregulated water trading industry?

Was the intention of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to use public funds to benefit international corporates while destroying the river system and wiping out Australian family farms?

Sounds like something that a former Wakool mayor used to talk about, contained in the United Nations Agenda 21, now Agenda 2030, which Australia is a signatory to.

The politicians’ words of the last 20 years seem far removed from the real life outcomes of a balanced, adaptable plan to ‘save the basin’.

The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 21 July 2022

This article appeared in The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 21 July 2022.

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