Gannawarra Shire Council, Media Release, 7 May 2026

Gannawarra Shire Council is calling on the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) to recalibrate the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to reflect that the municipality has been the hardest impacted area in northern Victoria.

Council has produced a five-page submission to the 2026 Basin Plan Review, which will look at whether change is needed to make the Basin Plan work as efficiently and effectively as possible.

“There is no doubt that the Gannawarra is the most water-impacted local government area in northern Victoria, and we have absorbed more change than any other northern Victoria municipality under the Basin Plan,” Mayor Garner Smith said.

“Our ask to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority is direct: our communities have borne a disproportionate share of Basin Plan reform impacts, and the Basin Plan needs to be recalibrated to reflect this reality.”

The submission highlights various statistic from REMPLAN’s Conceptual Water Loss Funding Framework – Gannawarra Shire Council (December 2025) report that confirm the Basin Plan’s negative impact on the Gannawarra, including:

• A 51 per cent reduction in the Gannawarra’s irrigated pastures and crops footprint from 1995-2000 to 2015-2019, resulting from the removal of half of the irrigation water from the system on which the Gannawarra primarily depends on.
• A 38 per cent reduction in agriculture-related jobs between 1996 and 2021.
• A 57 per cent decline in food product manufacturing jobs between 1996 and 2021.

The submission also highlights that although the MDBA’s Strategic Climate Risk Assessment identifies significant risks to Basin Plan objectives under climate volatility, the discussion paper being used to guide the 2026 Basin Plan Review defers structured climate adaptation to future Basin Plan reviews.

“The original Basin Plan was developed during the Millennium Drought and was reliant on water availability during this period. The next drought will occur under a smaller consumptive pool, higher allocation prices, expanded permanent horticulture demand in the lower Murray, and reduced regional adaptive capacity,” Mayor Smith said.

“The compounded risk of reduced inflows combined with a reduced consumptive pool has not been modelled and must be addressed now.”

Council’s submission features seven recommendations, including:

• Recognition that the Gannawarra is the most water-impacted local government area in northern Victoria and allocate any future Sustainable Communities Program funding proportional to measured impact.
• Acknowledge Torrumbarry’s structural exposure within Zone 7 and examine the creation of a discrete Zone 7A to enable targeted policy responses.
• Halt further water recovery until constraints relaxation and complementary works are delivered and independently modelled.
• Expand MDBA modelling to include scenarios isolating constraints relaxation, the 300-gigalitre Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment Mechanism (SDLAM) redress, staggered recovery, and revised utilisation assumptions reflecting observed underuse.
• Integrate climate risk into socio-economic modelling now, including explicit modelling of the next drought under a reduced consumptive pool.
• Recognise cumulative reallocation pressures on northern Victorian irrigation communities, including urban transfers via the Goldfields Superpipe and cross-border demand effects.
• Resolve the contradiction between Basin Plan water settings and State housing and growth targets imposed on Gannawarra, through coordinated Commonwealth–State recognition.

 
“The Gannawarra has absorbed more change than any other northern Victorian local government area under the Basin Plan to date,” Mayor Smith said.

“Our community has done the work. We are calling for recognition that Gannawarra has borne some of the most significant impacts of water recovery in northern Victoria, and that any future funding must be proportionate to the measurable social and economic impacts experienced by our communities.”

To view the Gannawarra Shire Council Submission to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan Review, click on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan Review heading at www.gsc.vic.gov.au/yoursay.