National Farmers Federation (NFF) vice president Les Gordon said from an irrigation perspective, the Snowy plan raised several questions that needed to be addressed in the feasibility study process.
He said there must be “no detrimental change” to the timing of water releases to irrigated farming businesses and the overall allocation and price of water.
“I’m guessing some sort of re-negotiation of the Snowy agreement would be required and that raises a whole range of questions around irrigation water, and in particular the price, timing of release and volumes.
“Secondly, there’s also a lot of money involved and that could lead to a change in the ownership structure for Snowy Hydro. At the moment NSW (58 per cent) is the majority shareholder but how they intend to raise money and whether that has any implications for the ownership structure is still a question to be answered.
“We’re keen to ensure that whoever is doing the feasibility study understands the details of we’re interested in around price, volume and reliability.”
The scheme is operated by Snowy Hydro Limited a company that’s 58 per cent owned by NSW, 29pc by Victoria and 13pc by the Commonwealth.
Mr Gordon said a lot of the water for irrigated farm production in the Murrumbidgee and Murray valleys came from the Snowy scheme and their interests needed protecting.
“The major issues they’re worried about in those valleys are a change to the timing of water releases, a change to the volumes and change to the prices,” he said. “It is working well and the agreement has stood the test of time and worked pretty well for a long time and they’ve been flexible when they’ve needed to be.”
