The Minister for Water says Victoria is leading the way in securing greater protections for irrigators following a Ministerial Council meeting in Brisbane where Basin States agreed to ask the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to look at changes to trading rules.
The Minister, Lisa Neville said the Basin States had acknowledged concerns around foreign ownership and monopoly behaviour in the water markets and asked the ACCC to look at whether changes to trading rules were required and consider the registration of brokers across state borders.
“Evidence presented confirmed Victoria’s position that unless changes are made to the Basin Plan, neither communities or the environment will reap the expected benefits,” Ms Neville said.
“Victoria, NSW and South Australia will work together to collectively address the very real risk of deliverability shortfalls in the Basin in the lower Murray,” she said.
Ms Neville said she would personally review all new and increased extraction licence applications and that NSW and South Australia would look to establish similar policies to ensure consistency across borders.
“NSW and South Australia will work with Victoria to implement immediate precautionary measures to limit further extractions from the Murray River,” she said.
She said the States had acknowledged that there were serious issues with Constraints Measures Projects and a plan would be developed to provide a more realistic timeframe, appropriate milestones and greater buy-in from local communities.
She said the Murray-Darling Basin constraints modelling had been reviewed by an independent panel in light of community concerns about the impacts of proposed higher flows on land, businesses and local infrastructure.
“What we’re talking about here is creating a man-made flood to achieve environmental benefits – yet we’ve found that under the current modelling, neither the community nor the environment will get a good outcome,” she said.
Ms Neville said concerns were also raised about proposed changes to long-standing water sharing rules.
“Most Basin States [are] united in their refusal to support the Commonwealth’s push for a review into water sharing arrangements by the Inspector General.”
Ms Neville said all States supported establishing the Office of the Inspector General to investigate compliance, but Ministers said they would not be handing State powers over to the Commonwealth.
