8th February 2007Irrigators are demanding the Federal Government honour existing property rights agreed to under the National Water Initiative (NWI) in the new $10 billion plan for water.
They have warned anything less than that will risk an election-year backlash from the Coalition’s rural heartland after the Government confirmed that water allocations, secured by the NWI until 2014, were likely to be cut.
NSW Irrigators Council chief executive, Doug Miell, said the NWI gave water users more certainty, but feared that was at risk of “being trashed”.
“That is not something irrigators are willing to trade off,” Mr Miell said.
Securing the crucial support of the states for the Federal plan is also still in doubt ahead of today’s meeting of Premiers and the Prime Minister in Canberra.
While NSW Premier, Morris Iemma has agreed to hand over control of the Murray Darling Basin to the Commonwealth, Victorian Premier Steve Bracks on Tuesday listed 40 areas of concern, including irrigators’ rights, which needed to be addressed.
“We don’t want to lose sight of the interests of our state, of our irrigators, of our communities, of the people who have been served for a long period of time with effective provision of water resources,” Mr Bracks said.
But the Federal Government said the $9 billion allocated for infrastructure investment and structural adjustment for over allocation, would help minimise the impacts or even add to existing water entitlements in some cases.
However, a re-examination of the Murray Darling Basin cap by CSIRO this year is one of the cornerstones of the plan, and the Government has already warned an allocation reduction in just about every region in the Murray Darling Basin would be inevitable.
To counter this, the government will look at options to minimise the impacts, which could include running existing water sharing plans to the end of their life, enabling the benefits of structural and efficiency works to be realised in the meantime.
Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile has reassured irrigators that the benefits outlined in the NWI would be “consolidated and captured” if the Commonwealth’s plan were enacted.
“By putting the $3B aside to be buying licences in the market place – not compulsorily but in the market place – is a clear recognition and acknowledgement of the value of that property right,” Mr Vaile said.
Irrigation and farm lobby groups, which have still not been briefed on the package, have said they would not sign off on the Prime Minister’s new water deal, unless existing property rights were cemented in the plan.
Mr Miell said the “key selling factors” of the NWI, underpinned by the separation of land and water titles, were, more investment security and the granting of water rights in perpetuity.
“Irrigators basically know what their risks are for the next 20 years, and now, two and a half years on, that rock solid agreement is in question – that’s not good faith,” he said.
National Farmers Federation water taskforce chairman, Laurie Arthur, said “any whiff” that the NWI principles would not be recognised would spark “ferocious opposition”, although he believed no Australian Government would ever consider the option.
“What we’re trying to make the government aware of, is that any tinkering with specific interstate water agreements will have a significant impact.
“The whole process must be underpinned by the NWI,”
Mr Arthur said.
Federal Minister for Agriculture, Peter McGauran, conceded the details of the water plan were “still too general for most people’s comfort”.
“But one of [the plan’s] strengths is that we will continue to consult irrigators and affected communities.
“The starting point of the plan is that $10 billion is there to support irrigation … to put it on a more secure long term basis,” Mr McGauran said.
SOURCE: Rural Press National News Bureau, Parliament House, Canberra
