New analysis has confirmed nearly a third of the annual average volume of water, bought back or traded under the Murray Darling Basin Plan since 2008, has come from Victoria’s Goulburn Murray Irrigation District (GMID).
Attendees at the Speak Up ‘Uniting the Southern Basin’ water forum, Moama, NSW, were told 340 gigalitres (GL) – or 31 per cent – of the 1100 GL recovered from farmers across the southern Basin came from the GMID.
In the NSW Murray, the figure was 259.7GL, or 23.5pc.
The GMID water leadership group’s co-chair David McKenzie said the figures were based on independent analysis, by Claire Miller, of the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) community profiles, released earlier this year.
“That speaks a 1000 words about why certain areas of the Basin have felt more pain than other areas of the Basin,” Mr McKenzie said.
“In the early days – the MDBA was saying ‘yes there’s pain, but everywhere is feeling pain’.”
“We were saying there’s more going on in some pockets than others and it took a long time to build the evidence to prove that argument.”
Ms Miller, a former Dairy Australia analyst, found the Murrumbidgee (Griffith/Colleambally) lost 95.5GL, or 8.6 pc, whilst in South Australia the recovery was 116.2, or 10.5pc.
Mr McKenzie said it was the third report, which confirmed concerns held by GMID irrigators and communities.
RM Consulting Group’s (RMCG) Matthew Toulmin said the GMID and NSW Murray were the most vulnerable regions, in the Murray Darling Basin.
“They have contributed the most, in terms of the impact of the Basin Plan,” Mr Toulmin said.
He said there was a very significant risk important decisions were been taken by people who were not involved at the ground level.
“The Basin Plan is too important, as a process, to be undertaken solely in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne,” Mr Toulmin said.
He said RMCG had found 451GL had been transferred out of the consumptive pool in the NSW Murray, resulting in the loss of $120million of irrigated production.
“That’s equivalent to, and has the impact, of 470 jobs lost, that were previously dependent on irrigated production,” Mr Toulmin said.
“For the GMID we are talking about 350GL of water transferred out of production, equivalent to $225million worth of irrigated production with 500 jobs lost.”
Mr McKenzie said a Victorian Government report, by Tim Cummins and Frontier, had also confirmed concerns raised by irrigators and GMID communities.
