The drought led to the federal takeover of the
Murray-Darling with the institution of the
‘Water Act 2007‘. The act was passed under
the prime-ministership of John Howard and
dutily supported by the *then* Basin Plan
architect, water minister Malcolm Turnbull.
The Plan was adopted in 2012 by Julia
Gillard’s government, resulting in an
independent national Murray-Darling Basin
Authority,
deftly
side-stepping
state
governments
vested
constitutional
responsibilities.
The federal government invoked its
international obligations for wetlands of
international importance and migratory
shorebirds, like the sharp-tailed sandpipers
which fly to and from the Murray-Darling
Basin wetlands to Russia and China each
year.
As stated earlier, over $13 billion was put on
the table to fix the river system’s manifold
problems.
Much of this sum was handed off to irrigators,
or used to buy back water from said irrigators
at inflated prices.
Additionally, a target was established: return
3200 megalitres of water to the environment
each year.
So, it’s now been five years since the $13
billion was allocated by the federal
government… yet, the plan is failing to fulfil
upon its objectives.
Little has been done to alleviate the intense
competition over access to water, nor much to
provide clear data for the management of the
basin’s water flows.
Remarkably, in some parts of the basin,
almost three quarters of irrigators have failed
to install meters on their pumps to measure
how much water they are extracting – this is
over a decade since the Water Act.
Late last year, the Murray-Darling Basin
Authority recommended the Darling River
catchments be “docked” 70,000 megalitres of
environmental water, citing ‘socio-economic
impact ‘.
Yet, this also included selling 12,000
megalitres of environmental water initially
intended for the vulnerable Macquarie
Marshes.
To make matters worse, the federal and NSW
governments have introduced policy changes
which threaten to further kneecap the plan,
beginning with limiting the buyback of water
by 22% from July 1, 2019.
This is an average annual reduction that
exceeds the volume of water in Sydney
Harbour.
Achieving those environmental flow targets
now seems highly unlikely, with even the
well-intended water buybacks coming at a
high price.
In 2018, the Productivity Commission began
conducting a five-yearly inquiry into the
effectiveness of the Basin Plan.
In recent days, leaders of the NSW opposition
parties have called for the government to
establish a special inquiry into the state’s
water management.
“The scale of this disaster is extraordinary
and unprecedented,” said Michael Daley, the
leader of Labor. “The people of NSW have
watched for 18 months as water theft
scandals; water mismanagement and now
ecological disasters have rocked far west
rivers.”
Irrigation Woes
In spite of the overuse of the land and water
being the obvious determining factor of this
crisis, the highly resource-intensive NSW
cotton industry is making it clear that they are
definitely not responsible for the mass deaths
of hundreds of thousands of fish in the Darling
River, or any of their actions.