The Hon. Michael McCormack, Shadow Minister for Water and Federal Member for Riverina, Media Release, 3 July 2026

The Albanese Labor Government has quietly abandoned 14 water infrastructure and river management projects across the Murray-Darling Basin, with irrigators and water users fearing more devastating water buybacks are to come.

The withdrawals were confirmed in a Basin Official’s Committee communique snuck out mid this week, citing “a range of implementation challenges” for projects that will not be operational by the 31 December 2026 deadline.

This is just an excuse. The Government simply could not get these projects done.

The dumped projects include the Yanco Creek offtake works, the Murrumbidgee Key Focus Area and Murrumbidgee airspace management, along with major floodplain works in Victoria, the Menindee Lakes project and the flagship Enhanced Environmental Water Delivery project.

Shadow Minister for Water and Federal Member for Riverina Michael McCormack said the announcement was a confession of failure, with the bill to be paid by Basin communities.

“These projects were meant to achieve environmental outcomes the smart way, through infrastructure and better river management, not by draining water out of the communities which grow the nation’s food and fibre,” Mr McCormack said.

“The Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s own reporting shows a shortfall of up to 355 gigalitres a year against the 605 gigalitre offset. We all know exactly how Labor will fill that gap, because buybacks are the only tool they are willing to use.

“Three of these abandoned projects sit in the Murrumbidgee system. The people of the Riverina and the Basin did not fail to deliver these projects, governments did, yet it is our irrigators, our small businesses and our towns which will be made to pay.

“Buybacks hollow out communities. They take water out of production, jobs out of towns and confidence out of regional Australia, and they do it permanently.

“This Government has had every opportunity to deliver these projects and it simply could not manage it. Lazy buybacks are not water policy, they are an admission Labor cannot build anything.”

Related story: Basin Officials Committee communique, June 2026: MDBA