Farm Tender

Decision on the 450GL of an additional MDB Water to be made today

The Murray Darling Basin Water Ministers are meeting this Friday 14 December 2018 to consider the recovery of the additional 450 gigalitres of ‘Up-water’. Specifically, they will address how the socio-economic neutrality test will measure the impacts of future water recovery on Basin communities.

The RGA has sent letters to the Basin Water Ministers: David Littleproud, MP, Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources and Niall Blair, MLC, Minister for Primary Industries, Minister for Regional Water, and Minister for Trade and Industry, highlighting the significant risks this recovery poses to our rice industry and related communities. We emphasise that further water recovery threatens to dismantle the Australian rice industry, not least due to the up-water pressures that would be placed on the water market. We argue that it was not the intention of past governments to dismantle industries and communities with this water reform agenda.

Ad- Call Warrick Hay & Grain - We store Grain and Hay - Ad

The RGA believes that there are other options available that could achieve the same environmental outcomes without impacting communities. For instance, there are significant water savings to be made through efficiency measures being implemented by our river operators. Additionally catchment management and other complementary resource management activities could be integrated with current environmental water activities to achieve environmental improvements across the board (such as habitat restoration, cold water pollution controls, and weed and pest controls).

RGA’s recommendations are that:
1. The Murray Darling Basin Plan Ministerial Council (MinCo) prioritise the obligation to achieve ‘neutral or improved socio-economic outcomes’ over the objective of recovering the full 450 GL.
2. MinCo should avoid productive water recovery as all water recovered from productive use has negative socioeconomic impacts,not least due to the impact of a reduced water supply on the market.
3. Basin governments should investigate and undertake efficiency measures for river operations and environmental water management, as well as urban, industrial, off-farm and metering measures.
4. Basin governments should investigate the use of complementary measures to achieve the ‘enhanced environmental outcomes’ using less water than was originally intended, and develop a suitable model to measure the efficiencies achieved by implementing Complementary Measures.

AdCall Warrick Hay & Grain - We store Grain and Hay - Ad

The RGA urges the Basin Water Ministers to support our recommendations, and to ensure our communities and industries have a vibrant future.