Federal government to spend $205 million on 26 gigalitre Murray-Darling Basin water buyback
The Federal government is spending more than 200 million dollars on water buybacks as part of the Murray Darling Basin plan.
Transcript
00:00 These are the first water buybacks across the Murray-Darling Basin since 2020.
00:06 At a cost of $205 million, Australian taxpayers have secured 26 gigalitres of water.
00:13 Now this is water that would typically come out of the river each year and be used to
00:17 grow things like food or cotton.
00:20 That water, because the Commonwealth has now purchased it, shall stay in the river system
00:26 with the intention of boosting the environment.
00:28 And to put this into a little bit of context, we've seen more than 2,100 gigalitres of water
00:34 recovered for the environment since the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was legislated more than a decade
00:39 ago.
00:40 And there's been $13 billion of taxpayer funds dedicated to seeing this plan implemented.
00:47 But last year, the government changed the law to allow potentially more water buybacks
00:51 to be used to recover 400, another 450 gigalitres of water.
00:58 We also know that there's a shortfall on some state-run water savings projects of around
01:02 315 gigalitres.
01:04 So potentially more than 700 gigalitres of water yet to be recovered in the next few
01:09 years across the Murray-Darling Basin.
01:11 The government hasn't said how much it's prepared to spend on this new legislation, on reaching
01:16 these new targets.
01:18 But before a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra tomorrow, it's expected to be a topic of questioning.
01:23 And we've heard from the minister today about this most recent parcel of purchase.
01:28 Farmers as individuals, they're the ones selling to the government.
01:32 It's worth noting that this 26 gigalitres has come from willing sellers, that's water
01:37 licence holders who are happy to sell or because of their debts or because they want to retire
01:43 or for whatever reason, have decided to enter this tender process and sell this water to
01:48 the Commonwealth, knowing that they'll never be able to use it to grow food again.
01:53 But as a collective, we hear from farmers and food manufacturing and regional communities
01:58 that these water buybacks leave their communities worse off.
02:02 Here's the president of the National Farmers Federation, David Jahinke, addressing this
02:06 point this morning.
02:07 Yes, it is voluntary, but once again, if you're selling or doing something for government,
02:14 it is very rare that these prices are what we would consider market or commercial prices.
02:19 And if I was a farmer too, and I wanted to potentially game the system, I would also
02:24 offer up water at twice the price it is and see if the government would take that offer.
02:29 David Jahinke is the president of the National Farmers Federation.
02:32 [BLANK_AUDIO]