The Federal Government is copping flak after the first round of environmental water purchases, with critics saying the entitlements will yield hardly any water this year.
That’s true. In the short term these entitlements will not return a substantial amount of water to the environment on account of the ongoing drought. But in the medium and long-term they will. And that’s what the last round of buybacks is all about. It’s a long-term program to return environmental flow to our rivers and wetlands to address the legacy of water overextraction and prepare for the impacts of climate change.
Much of the criticism of the buyback program is grossly unfair. By buying the water the Federal Government has achieved its aim of purchasing from willing sellers on the open market without pushing prices upwards or downwards. The Government has made sure all the water purchased will benefit high conservation value wetlands and wildlife refuges, many of them internationally significant wetlands.
Federal Opposition water spokesman John Cobb’s comment that the Government had bought the cheapest water without caring where it came from is totally disingenuous. It fails to recognise that there are important wetlands spread right across the Murray-Darling Basin. This is reflected in the wide geographic spread of the entitlements bought.
The commitment to buying back water from willing sellers has bipartisan support. Mr Cobb knows this. It would be good if he chose to make a more constructive contribution to the debate around the buyback scheme, not least because there are elements of the “Water for the Future” program that are desperately in need of closer attention.
Of particular concern is the fact that the latest round of buybacks will not make any difference to critically endangered wetlands like those at the bottom of the Murray-Darling Basin where the problems caused by decades of water overextraction have come home to roost.
The Coorong and Lakes Alexandrina and Albert were once jewels in the crown of Australia’s wetlands estate. Now they are in serious danger of complete ecological collapse. They will lose the values that make them internationally significant unless they get 400 billion litres of freshwater by the end of spring 2008. Without a rescue package for the Lakes, South Australians may be left dealing with the legacy of a toxic waste dump cause by acidification. These areas need an emergency rescue package. They simply cannot wait to reap the benefits of water purchased with the medium to long-term in mind.
There is a lot of water currently held in storages in the Darling Basin on account of two large floods there within the last 12 months. If we want to prevent an ecological and socioeconomic disaster at the lower end of the system Governments must immediately look at water being held in Queensland and northern NSW.
Yesterday’s announcement by Water Minister Penny Wong that the next phase of the buyback program will look to Queensland, home to many of the major water hoarders and cotton farms, is welcome. Right now there is a golden opportunity to help the whole system since a number of properties that hold a lot of this water are on the market.
No doubt the Federal Government will be criticised for this approach too. But failure to press on with the reform agenda will consign our internationally significant wetlands to a future as uncertain as that of our important irrigation industries. Those industries must get themselves onto a sustainable footing or face the consequences of a declining natural resource base that will be unable to support them.
Delay reduces the time available for transition and means we will have to deal with the double whammy of entrenched overuse and the impacts of climate change. We know what to do to fix the problem. We have to get on with the job and do it.
So much for actions which are agreed to not relate to the short term – and the Coorong is definitely in need of short term assistance.
Why is it that we hear nothing about prosecutions for documented water theft and unauthorised water channels within high value wetlands out west? Let’s see some serious action to show that we care, rather than just variations on a gabfest theme.
Get a few illegal activities before the courts, publicise the results, cancel crown leases where the leaseholder is in breach and force water theives off their lands, or at least force them to engage impartial administrators for their lands.
Am I the only person who is fed up about inaction in these matters?
THE ONLY WAY to face the reality that the murray has stopped flowing and is a dying river is to stand up to the water horders and big business. Cubby creek has millions of dollars for expansion and what is the Federal government doing;; nothing much. If we can call a Federal Intervention for a National Emergency on the scale of hurricane Katrina (Howards words not mine) about the health of children, why not call one for the river that feeds them and provides them with water to drink? And, I am sick of people using or referring to ‘climate change’ every time they mention water, it has SFA to do with it. We always have had and always will have serious droughts here. Unfortunately the land can not accommodate Corporate Greed & drought. Now, which one of these SHOULD the government temper…….
I guess I best keep rain dancing round the water tanks then.