Last week the Prime Minister, John Howard, announced a national plan for water security with a focus on irrigation in the Murray-Darling Basin and a $10 billion budget.
Indeed $6 billion has been committed for modernising water infrastructure and another $3 billion for addressing over-allocation including the purchase of water entitlements.
Living in Toowoomba I can't wash my car or water my garden because of the Level 5 water restrictions in place here, but there is no money in the new so-called "nation plan" to build or improve water infrastructure in Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne.
The focus in the new plan is almost exclusively rural and the assumption is that by buying water entitlement from irrigators the Murray and Darling Rivers can be "saved".
If the federal government started buying water entitlements tomorrow, with $3 billion they could perhaps accumulate a whopping 3,000 gigalitres of water entitlement equivalent to about six Sydney Harbours of water.
But, as every irrigator knows, a water entitlement does not guarantee water and after spending the $3 billion the government could still have no actual water.
For example, there is about 1,500 gigalitres equivalent of general security water entitlements in the Murray Valley. But most irrigators started this season with no water allocation because the dams are low.
Many were hoping to get through the season with water saved from the year before.
Then, just before Christmas, these irrigators had 52 percent of this carry-over water taken from them by the New South Wales government.
About 1,000 farms are now facing the prospect of no water, not even for "stock and domestic", for the first time since the beginning of irrigation in the region in the late 1930s.
While some may be under the impression that with $10 billion the Prime Minister can fix the water crisis nationally, in fact, he is only spending the money buying water entitlements in the Murray-Darling Basin and will still have no guaranteed water.
Rather than trotting out grandiose plans with a life expectancy way beyond the next election, it would be more useful if the Prime Minister focused on getting water to sheep and homes in the Murray Valley right now.
ADVERTISEMENT
No comments:
Post a Comment