A NEW Senate inquiry into the Murray Darling Basin Plan offers fresh hope to water-weary farmers in the southern Riverina, who dragged themselves into town in massive numbers yesterday in another effort to get decision-makers to heed their warnings.
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A public rally was held yesterday on the banks of the Murray River at Barham, where more than 1000 people from irrigation towns across the Basin vented their frustrations.
While the inquiry is yet to kick-off, action can’t come quick enough for Riverina residents, who want federal agency the Murray Darling Basin Authority’s (MDBA) moves to reclaim yet more water from production halted.
The crowd spilled out of the Barham Services Club.
Farmers said the skyrocketing price of water has flowed from the Basin Plan, which threatens the future of agriculture in the southern Basin.
"No major parties are willing to face the facts because of political risks, political point-scoring and a fear of a backlash from environmentalists," Deniliquin mixed farmer Louise Burge told the public forum yesterday.
Independent Senator John Madigan championed the Basin towns’ call for for an inquiry.
He was supported in the call for an inquiry by independent Senators David Leyonhjelm, Bob Katter, Bob Day as well as Liberal Sharman Stone and Labor’s Sam Dastyari.
“This is an opportunity to rectify a great bloody stuff up,” Senator Madigan said.
Senator Madigan wants to hammer out the issues in the Basin Plan - and to demonstrate his intentions, he manned a pop-up black smith shop, knocking out iron work for the locals.
The Basin Plan is designed to recover a total 2750 gigalitres for environmental flows, and the capacity to take an additional 450GL was announced in the dying days of the Gillard government. To date, 1950GL has been recovered.
The Senators sat on the stage in front of the capacity crowd to listen to a litany of concerns that came from the floor.
Speakers said that local input is absent from the Basin, the impact of water prices on farmers is ignored, flood risks from future environmental flows have been swept under the carpet
De Bortoli Wines managing director Darren De Bortoli said the Basin Plan is an “economic and social disaster”.
Koondrook farmer Daryl MacDonald said Basin residents had lost faith in the seven year Basin Plan process because of the lack of local input which had filtered through into the MDBA.
“All our consultation has been for zero,” he said.
Mrs Burge, also a member of Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) Edward-Wakool Constraints Advisory Group, said no baseline studies had been made available on the Basin's environmental health, to assess the level of water recovery needed to meet environmental objectives.
Farmers frustration was on show yesterday in Barham.
The meeting moved four motions the want the MDBA to abide by:
- Amend the Water Act to indisputably give balance to the triple bottom line of environmental, social and economic impacts from the Basin Plan
- Community has lost confident in the MDBA
- Pause the roll-out of the Basin Plan
- Ban further water buybacks
