Inquiry reveals Basin's double standards

That’s the sharp view-point of Victorian Independent Senator John Madigan who is one of the chief protagonists behind the Senate Select Committee inquiry that was instigated in June.

Last week, public meetings were held in Shepparton and Echuca in Victoria and at Broken Hill and Griffith in NSW the week before.

Witnesses have also given evidence at forums at Canberra in the ACT and St George in Queensland while meetings are due in Goolwa and Renmark in South Australia in December, ahead of a scheduled reporting date of January 26 next year.

The inquiry being chaired by NSW Liberal Democratic Party Senator David Leyonhjelm has broad terms of reference including; the costs and progress of the Basin Plan’s implementation; and its direct and indirect effects on agricultural industries, local businesses and community wellbeing.

Evidence of any environmental changes to date is also a key consideration along with the effectiveness and appropriateness of the Basin Plan's controversial Constraints Management Strategy (CMS).

The CMS aims to deliver an additional 450 gigalitres of environmental water to SA on top of the Plan’s baseline 2750GL target in Sustainable Diversion Limits.

Senator Madigan told Fairfax Agricultural Media there was a mood of concern about the Basin Plan in places like Broken Hill – which has made a significant contribution to the nation as the birth-place of BHP – but doesn’t have a reliable water supply.

He said community concerns had also been raised in evidence presented at the hearings by farmers and irrigators about problems with carry-over water and the complexity of water trading rules.

But one of the most common themes raised in evidence given by farming and irrigation representatives he said was community concern about the scrutiny they’re subjected to with their use of water and the different standard attached to measuring the veracity of claims attached to environmental watering results.

“An enormous amount of productive water has been bought by the Commonwealth, out of the Basin,” he said.

“My personal opinion is that farmers, irrigators and communities in the Basin are subject to a higher level of scrutiny than what the environmental groups and advocates are, for their environmental water use.”

But Senator Madigan said more balance was needed in the Basin Plan’s implementation.

“I’m not anti the environment but I’m pro-people and believe we need healthy communities and a healthy agricultural and irrigation sector,” he said.

“But I still believe, as I did when I started on this path, that the balance is wrong and the social and economic considerations of the Basin Plan are not given equal weighting with the environment.

“And people in communities and the irrigators in the Basin, don’t get a fair go.

“Some people may suggest that I’m biased towards the farmers but I know better than anybody that there are competing interests and as much as farmers need to be accountable and transparent on water use, the same level of accountability and transparency should also apply to environmental groups, otherwise you don’t win the hearts and minds of people; you only sensitise people.”

NSW Irrigators Council CEO Mark McKenzie told the inquiry’s hearing at Griffith on October 27 that the Basin Plan needed to be balanced but “at this point in time, demonstrably, that is not the case”.

Mr McKenzie said the Plan’s social and economic impacts were not being monitored or evaluated.

We are also not sufficiently monitoring the environmental impacts of the watering program to date, let alone what it may look like as the full plan unveils, he said.

“It seems to us that the Water Act, which has amendments under consideration by the government at this point that are yet to be put to parliament, needs to be amended to make it absolutely and blatantly clear that this Plan was based on the triple bottom line approach,” he said.

“In other words, the environment was one factor but it could not be enhanced to the detriment of either the social impact on Basin communities or the economic impact on irrigators, other users of water or those communities as well.”

Senator Madigan said he’d also observed a clear “disconnect” between what the bureaucracy thinks is occurring in the Basin and what people at the coal face, who have presented to the inquiry, are experiencing.

“There’s a huge disparity between the two,” he said.

“I realise there will always be differences of opinion in this space but the historical records and facts don’t seem to have any weight with the people who make policy decisions from afar.

“The irrefutable historical facts and irrefutable life experiences of people in the Basin are not being taken into account in the decision-making process and the forming of policy.

“It’s amazing how much credence is given to people who don’t live in the Basin and who rarely if ever visit the Basin.

“They seem to have a disproportionate amount of influence over what happens in the Basin.

“We have all this talk about the huge opportunities that are supposedly being opened up for Australian food exports by signing the China Free Trade agreement.

“But the Basin produces a huge amount of our food and fibre and if we cripple the Murray Darling Basin, how are we ever going to avail ourselves of these so called opportunities, if we’ve strangled one of the greatest food and fibre producing regions of our country?”