THE NSW government might have been riding high after the recent state budget, but it has just had a fall – a big fall.
The expose on this week’s Four Corners episode Pumped unveiled a self-imposed uppercut that hasn’t just hurt government, but NSW agriculture.
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This shiner will take a while to fade – and it will hurt the state’s position at the negotiation table on water.
Multiple voices from across agriculture are acknowledging the state government, as the regulator, has stuffed up.
Regulation, monitoring and enforcement definitely need a look, if for nothing else to return confidence in the regulation process, the Basin Plan, and the irrigation industry.
It is with some irony that former federal water minister, Tony Burke, who attached the extra 450 gigalitres for South Australia in brokering the Basin Plan in 2012, said the plan becomes meaningless if there is no integrity to the system measuring the water.
Right now that integrity is definitely undermined.
Monday night’s program shone a light on the inadequacies of the system, and in doing so raised the question of how wide spread were such practices?
This has cast a shadow on the industry as a whole. Those looking for a free kick against irrigated agriculture were just handed one and it was right in front of the goal posts.
Yet, this is fixable – if the government chooses to do so. Multiple representative voices across agriculture are unifying in a call for better regulation and reporting.
A number of people claim the Basin Plan is broken, but it would be crazy to throw away the past five years of water recovery under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan because of allegations against a couple of irrigators, big as they may be.
A review of the regulations regime, as suggested by Murray-Darling Basin Authority chief executive officer, Phillip Glyde, could help address some core issues.
He also points out Barwon-Darling system water users have already recovered their target of 32 gigalitres, so in the context of the greater goal of water recovery for the environment, it is not all bad news.
But how this water is being used is now in doubt.
Regardless of whether extractions have been within the overall basin cap, as claimed by Minister for Regional Water Niall Blair, people want to see a trustworthy, transparent system in place that guarantees this.
