Complete with selective leaks to the cheer squad media and pretty pictures of pelicans on the water, the Prime Minister will today up the ante in taking water from irrigators in the Murray Darling.
But wait! The extra 450 billion litres on top of the 2750 already committed won’t be bought until 2019. So, just on the off-chance that the nation’s most energetic and destructive government ever manages to secure its base and bribe sufficient numbers of people to return it to office, it will not have yet another embarrassing pot of money to leach out of the taxpayer. What with the mineral tax shortfall, “commitments” to spend big on education, dental health and anything else that tugs the heart-strings of the perpetually unsatisfied even Gillard is beginning to wonder if it all can be paid for.
Of no concern to the government is the effect on farmers’ confidence in their future with all this entails in terms of investing to improve productivity. In line with the Gillard mob’s view of the economy, production is a given and the only issue is how do we redistribute it between our various interest groups to ensure we continue in office .
As far as the Murray Darling is concerned, this is a working river. Farmers in its basin produce a third of our agricultural output and that level would diminish considerably without the 11,000 gigalitres of water used by irrigators in the years when the water is available. That’s half the system’s normal availability and when water is not available – and the variable Australian climate means that is not infrequently – then the irrigators don’t get it.
But the government wants to re-prioritise the flows to reinforce its political base save some trees.
Of course the Australian Conservation Foundation, who were notified of the initiative in enough time to applaud the move as “a good start” don’t want to stop at 4,000 or even 8,000 gigalitres. They will never cease campaigning, and using taxpayer funds to do so, until all the water is taken from modern agriculture. Doubtless they would also like to return the system to its natural state. But oops! that would mean it would alternatively be totally dry every decade or so and flood a quarter of Victoria. Better not tell anyone and just sing along withthe governemnt that taking water will impel farmers to greater acts of productivity heroism so we have a win-win.
You need not cross out “reinforce its political base”. Water buybacks have no defined environmental goals, nor are the buybacks targeted at creating or maintaining flows for any specific biological communities, nor are any actual benefits to any particular ecosystem measured.
wreckage
26 Oct 12 at 9:04 am
Good luck procuring food from 1.3 billion hungry Chinese.
The Beer Whisperer
26 Oct 12 at 9:31 am
Not until the SA guvmint remove the bloody obstructions in the river at Lake Alexandrina will the River Murray
WTF are we going to replace the lost produce from those poor farmers who will be driven from their land, and at what cost? This is just another act of nation-destroying these imbeciles have done and unless ‘we, the people’ get rid these @ssholes soon, there will be no hope for any of us.
amcoz
26 Oct 12 at 9:39 am
Wreckage, the water is used to wash the fishies. Do you propose that they never see a shower or bath in their fishy lives?
You’re a speciesist.
Winston Smith
26 Oct 12 at 9:45 am
They must control the means of production. With control of the means, control of the decisions of what, how and where are simple. To these people, private property is a quaint and outdated concept.
Pickles
26 Oct 12 at 10:24 am
Sounds like a sop to the voters of Melbourne (Adam Bandt), Grayndler (Albo) & Sydney (Plibersek) so the ALP has a chance to win these 3 seats from the Greens.
The people of the MD Basin are just collateral damage from the most ruthless politician in Australian history.
Token
26 Oct 12 at 10:28 am
Beware, this is part of the creeping Tasmania syndrome. That eco paradise is where all of OZ is heading unless somehow stopped.
Biota
26 Oct 12 at 10:41 am
They’re not taking the water at all. They’re effectively buying it from the irrigators. They get it either by buying it on the open market or in exchange for infrastructure – eg converting open channels into pipes to reduce evaporation losses and the government gets to keep the water which would have otherwise evaporated and was not used productively anyway.
Chris
26 Oct 12 at 10:48 am
Um Chris, who sets the allocations?
.
26 Oct 12 at 10:59 am
Chris,I am not the only contributor that grew up in the MDB. I know the issue intimately and your post is pure left wing inner city fantasy.
Don’t try pedalling the government crap around here. There is no need to withhold water for any reason.
Token
26 Oct 12 at 11:00 am
Hah. Saving SA wetlands my arse. Google “sugarloaf pipeline”.
.
26 Oct 12 at 11:00 am
I grew up participating in landcare/tree planting groups, I know intimately what works and doesn’t.
Talk to the people in farms around Mildura who see the allocations taken from all surrounding properties how it effects the viability of their property.
Token
26 Oct 12 at 11:02 am
God bless Topher
Token
26 Oct 12 at 11:03 am
Brackstoria shafting da pelicans in the artificial, soon to be heritage listed lower lakes:
http://www.melbournewater.com.au/content/water_storages/water_supply/water_distribution/sugarloaf_pipeline.asp?bhcp=1
Where the water comes from
Water is stored in Eildon Reservoir and released into the Goulburn River where it is then pumped into the pipeline and sent 70km to Melbourne.
.
26 Oct 12 at 11:08 am
Token, I am from Sunraysia (Mildura area). I also know the issue intimately, with my family being 4th generation farmers arriving here around the same time as the onset of irrigation in this area.
One of the things that people like Chris dont understand is that environmental flows dont leave water in the river. IT is pumped out onto so called environmental assets. No community say on the importance of the assets, or the watering cycle. No scientific evidence for it either. IN other words, there is no scientific quantifiable evidence for the amount of water being requested or for its proposed application.
And the result is chronic mismanagement of the environmental assets. The drying up of the Anabranch and the killer black water flows are example of that mismanagement. There are example after example that the locals see.
And then on top of that is the damage done to the farming businesses and their communities. Disgraceful. Oh, and there should be no further govt funding of any description for the ACF.
dianeh
26 Oct 12 at 12:33 pm
And more on this.
IMO the Federal govt is using the ‘possible threat’ of legal action by the SA govt as an excuse to give more water back to the environment. In reality, the SA govt would be hard pressed to win such a court case, as they are going to have to argue that the lower lakes are in fact a fresh water system and not an estuary. And if the lakes are found to be an estuary, then clearly, the amount of water SA requires is seriously reduced.
THe Fed Govt, and the SA govt dont want to go to court, as the stakes are far too high if SA lose. The Fed govt doesnt want to win, as they too want more water taken from irrigators.
dianeh
26 Oct 12 at 12:49 pm
It’s just fucking hare brained as well. The rivers are not drainage ditches, the water flowing out to sea at a fast rate – not what the rivers did. Oddly enough, irrigation and irrigation ditches and “waste” replicate what the old rivers did before mass erosion of banks and slipwalls, not to mention the damage from carp. Water was slowly distributed across the floodplain in a conservative and judicious manner.
.
26 Oct 12 at 12:59 pm
Token – those water allocations were not taken. They were sold by their neighbours. If they’ve got a problem with that perhaps they should take it up with their neighbours. They weren’t forced to sell – just a commercial decision on their part.
Chris
26 Oct 12 at 1:40 pm
Chris
True, they were not forced to sell by the govt, rather by circumstances with most selling because they are no longer profitable. And why are they no longer profitable. For many, they borrowed during the drought and can no longer afford the repayments (high interest rates). The massive electricity bills they now face (and that was before the introduction of the carbon tax) make it unprofitable to keep growing crops, and reduction in returns, particularly exports due to the high dollar. Also, returns for irrigation have not been good for many years, and putting these imposts on top has been a killer.
But it is the random nature of the buybacks that is of great concern. The buybacks have left a patchwork of working and non working property, which means it is no longer cost efficient to improve irrigation infrastructure due to reduced usage in some cases. How to justify it for an ever reducing number of growers. Buybacks should have been strategic with infrastructure in mind.
So not only have the buybacks caused problems, they have been very inefficient (surprised anyone?) and had that money been targeted at specific areas, and more at infrastructure improvement, far better results would have occurred.
dianeh
26 Oct 12 at 1:53 pm
Labor and Greens want to convert farming that actually produces food, into carbon farming in which land is converted into a sterile wasteland, to produce carbon credits – no water needed.
So it is with the R M Williams Henbery Station of 516,000 Ha which has been converted to carbon farming, having just sold one million carbon credits to Qantas, creating an unprecedented, taxpayer funded river of gold for the opportunistic white shoe banker brigade, ably supported by Malcolm Turnbull.
Talk about the unintended consequences of Julia’s carbon tax, that will not change the planet’s temperature on iota. Or was it intentional????
terrarious
26 Oct 12 at 1:56 pm
It’s foolish as well. Farming sequesters carbon when it is profitable and thus has to be sustainable.
.
26 Oct 12 at 2:13 pm
Gillard says she wants to put hundreds more giggle-eaters in the Murray River.
I don’t know what a giggle-eater is but shouldn’t we get an Environmental Impact Statement.
I mean …. I don’t even know what a giggle-eater is?
Can they swim?
Will they eat native fish?
Who knows?
Leigh Lowe
26 Oct 12 at 2:51 pm
Not only do the alp not give a shit about the economy, they are salting the earth for the only party that does.
jumpnmcar
26 Oct 12 at 4:49 pm
Pipes sound good but require massively more energy to run. Like, start building a couple of new power plants now.
Sadly for your argument, water is a real thing and works in actual ways. It is not a data point and cannot be treated like one.
I do like the way you inferred that if the government pays for something, it isn’t market interference. That was gold.
wreckage
26 Oct 12 at 11:21 pm
wreckage – that the amount of water that is removed from the river system every year needs to be regulated is not disputed. Nor is the need to increase environmental flows particularly controversial even amongst irrigators. The exact amount that increase needs is in contention as is how/where the water comes from.
You can either have a centrally planned solution like dianeh is suggesting where the government gets to choose which communities should be shutdown, or you can have a market based on where people who are able to least efficiently use the water will tend to sell first. Now this may lead to a patchwork scheme and some people may find that they are less efficient because their neighbours have sold up and may in turn end up selling out as well because they are now the least efficient producers.
So you can choose between having the government make decisions from the top about which communities are going to survive, let the market decide or stick you head in the sand and pretend there’s no problem which will most likely lead to increased pressure on all communities and the environment especially during droughts as there is not enough water to go around to keep everyone viable. And then all the farmers have their hands out for the droughts they know are inevitable and should have planned for.
We wouldn’t have this problem if governments hadn’t over allocated water in the first place.
Chris
27 Oct 12 at 10:32 am
Chris – pull your head out of the ministerial mandated bullshit, go and live and work out there for three or four years (it’s beyond Petersham or Fitzroy or Manuka I know, I know – yes, a very long way away) then come back when you are qualified to make an intelligent comment.
Working out there means in the field, and listening rather than talking rubbish, not serving coffee and cakes in the main street or sitting at a computer terminal at the local council pontificating about “which communities are going to survive”.
Self important, ignorant fool!
Mick Gold Coast QLD
27 Oct 12 at 11:26 am
That’s the problem with the agrarian socialist’s point of view of the Murray. They think its a uniquely country area and farming issue. Its not. Large parts of urban South Australia rely on the Murray River both for drinking water and tourism related activities. And city people are willing to pay a lot more for water than farmers are.
No doubt water allocation reform is going to be painful for some farmers and communities. But hey so has car tariff reform for a lot of city based communities. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen.
Chris
27 Oct 12 at 3:42 pm
Equating water buy backs with car tariff reform is like equating economic vandalism withi it’s redress. There is nothing more wrong with the Murray than with any other working river. Returning it to some Natural state means sacrificing economic gain.
Some communities have access to the river for drinking water and if others wanted it there are plenty of willing sellers. What is offensive is the government using my money to buy water so they can tip it into the ocean or preserve some man made fresh water estuary
Alan Moran
27 Oct 12 at 5:29 pm
Alan – spend some time down in South Australia, especially near the mouth of the Murray river and talk to some of the locals. Might give you a different perspective. As for arguments for just removing the barrages, well I’m sure SA people will be happy to do that at about the same time when everyone else removes all the artificial locks along the Murray and lets the river flow naturally (ie that’s never)
NSW and Victorian communities have for many years ignored the problems of over allocation of Murray water, refused to invest in infrastructure, and now they’re whining when they’re being *paid* to return some of it.
Chris
27 Oct 12 at 8:35 pm
Ahum,
So they’ll get rid of the barrages when everyone else gives up flood mitigation and irrigation releases, rather than buy the water themselves.
They can get fucked if that’s their attitude. No one in Griffith ever pretended that Lake Burrinjuck was a natural waterway to be preserved.
.
27 Oct 12 at 8:39 pm
WTF does that even mean? They didn’t build enough dams?!
.
27 Oct 12 at 8:39 pm
Sounds like you believe in water “justice”.
Typical for someone who lives outside the basin.
The best solution is to put in more dames. If there were more dams up river in NSW & Vic, they could have caught more of the water that dumped during the latest La Nina cycle there would be more water for all now.
If SA wants more water, let them build desalination plants and use some of the generous supply of nuclear fuel to cheaply power them.
Too simple really.
Token
27 Oct 12 at 8:59 pm
Fuck off they are! Do you even fucking know what the market rate for water is, and how that compares to the retail price of water in a city, given 100% security in the city vs allocations made by a public servant? Residential water is treated and has network costs. Do you realise Adelaide isn’t in the basin? If they want the water so badly, why don’t they just buy some more?
Agrarian socialists what want a free market in water? What the hell? SA Water which runs the Adelaide and all state water supply charges a single price – you could be friggen Poochera and pay the same price as someone in Renmark or Adelaide.
Please, stop talking shit. So much fucking shit.
.
27 Oct 12 at 9:05 pm
Graeme the greatest philosophical contribution you could provide to society would be to discharge a loaded Glock 20 with a 115 gr JHP into your cranium.
.
27 Oct 12 at 9:51 pm
Nope, using the water they have allocated more efficiently. Reducing evaporation and seepage loses through investment in infrastructure. Better use of modern technology so they only use water and the right amount when they actually need it.
Yep, that’s a pretty typical attitude of an irrigator. You’d be happy to suck up so much water even if it dried up the river downstream if you could just work out how to do so. And all the problems reported downstream are just people whining. And everything would be great if the people upstream didn’t keep taking too much water.
Chris
28 Oct 12 at 12:58 am
What? They pay market prices under allocation from hostile Governments.
So you want to reduce the way the irrigation system delivers environmental benefits to the floodplains the way the old rivers did at the benefit of ONE/TWO artificial freshwater lakes at the end of the river, which should be, by rights, estuarine?
This is just madness. “They should pipe water to SA for free and fuck up their own wetlands to the benefit of our man made lakes we consider should be heritage listed”.
This is seriously stupid.
No, your attitude is completely fuckbrained and out of touch with the environment and business realities.
You have no idea what you are fucking talking about. Please shut the fuck up.
.
28 Oct 12 at 4:26 pm
How about buying water with that in mind? The buy backs are random and make the system grossly inefficient; fatally so in some areas.
The buy backs are effectively arbitrary, no set benefit is measured beyond GL out the mouth.
The barrages support nothing but a giant recreational lake; a vast and expensive vanity project that the large, rich and diverse economy of the city is demanding be paid for by tiny, poor single-industry towns to their north.
Nobody in the cities is paying individually for what they want, they are using political force to divert general government funds to the task.
wreckage
28 Oct 12 at 4:34 pm
The woman’s a moron.Remove the water from one of our most productive food producing areas,then 2 days later come out with a white paper insisting we feed Asia.Hope they like dry grass..
max49
28 Oct 12 at 4:54 pm
Are our bird-nets all in for repair or something?
sdog
28 Oct 12 at 5:11 pm
My Grandmother was Irish..mad as a hatter..part of the national identity.
max49
28 Oct 12 at 5:34 pm