It’s said “when you’re a hammer, everything is a nail,” and the blunt political instrument of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is a jumbo hammer that swings with the force of the political party who wields it at the time. 

The Basin Plan was spawned through the 2007 Water Act, an elaborate plan that allowed the Federal Government to usurp the constitutional rights of Australian states over their water resources by using the legal cover of the Ramsar Convention, which the Commonwealth had signed, committing itself to protecting wetlands, which are critical for migratory birds. 

Though Australia didn’t follow other nations in protecting all migratory bird wetland habitats (Australia excluded those on private land), Japan, for example, included rice paddies, which play a large role in providing important migratory bird habitat.  

Neglecting private environment and ecosystem function holds a certain irony as the plan has been for the environment with no consideration for the social and economic aspects of Australians who live and work within the basin.

Review after review has confirmed that fact.

The National Productivity Commission’s interpretation of the Water Act (2007) is that “it requires the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to determine environmental water needs based on scientific information, but precludes consideration of economic and social costs in deciding the extent to which these needs should be met.”

The High-Level Review Panel for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan stated that “The driving value of the Act is that a triple-bottom-line approach (environment, economic, social) is replaced by one in which environment becomes the overriding objective, with the social and economic spheres required to ‘do the best they can’ with whatever is left once environmental needs are addressed.”

The triple bottom line touted by politicians held about as much weight as community consultation, a process swiftly discarded as public meetings often showcased the real intention and impacts of what was to come.

The Water Act of 2007 simply spells out environment first, with the funded scientists setting the parameters, the Commonwealth Government implementing and self-regulating, and the people must obey.

It begs the question, with such an environmentally centric plan, why has the rate of river erosion exploded? Why did critical habitats for endangered species like the Southern Bell Frog or Australasian Bittern get wiped out? Why did regulators stand by as new irrigation areas were formed on unsuitable soils with known salinity and deliverability risks?

The sceptic may suggest that money played a large role. The systematic removal of water from a public good to a multibillion-dollar unregulated bonanza; an economic market of a finite resource with no protection over insider trading, conflicts of interest and the ability of government bodies to vary supply.

This week, Australians once again witnessed the political charade of MINCO, the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council – the stage on which the two sides of state and federal politics grandstand, fighting over the scraps of what the bipartisan plan has left and has left to do.

Even with the Federal Government, Australia’s largest irrigator, controlling more than 4,622 gigalitres of water entitlements from the productive pool, Federal Labor Water Minister Tanya Plibersek has launched a fresh round of non-strategic buybacks. The news will delight water traders as any further water removal from the productive pool will see the continuation of the water price explosion, excluding many young farmers from the market and risking staple food industries.

Politicians have raised concerns that ABC staff may have been privy to market sensitive information on buyback tenders after a 7.30 Report story last week, ironic as politicians and bureaucrats have enjoyed a lack of regulation for more than 10 years. 

After MINCO, NSW Minister for Water Kevin Anderson said NSW has seen first-hand the negative impacts that Commonwealth water buyback programs have had on regional communities and is determined to avoid these impacts happening again.

Victoria’s Water Minister said she was opposed to any buybacks, citing a report her government commissioned, which has warned that if buybacks are used to achieve the 450 gigalitres extra flow for the environment, it could lead to more than $500 million in lost agricultural production in the southern basin each year.

The political plan rolls on.

This article appeared in The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 2 March 2023.