Can we save the Murray-Darling Basin?

Jonathan La Nauze

As we stare down the twin barrels of global warming and growing global resource demands, sustainability of the Murray-Darling ought to be a national priority. Water extraction already exceeds sustainable levels in all but one of the basin's 23 rivers, and seven of its groundwater systems.

Ninety-five percent of this water is taken for irrigation. And whilst we are experiencing a brief wet period now, the CSIRO predicts run-off in the Basin could decline by up to 37% by 2030 due to climate change. Simultaneously, market analysts predict global demand for Australian agricultural product will steadily increase, whilst another grave new threat to basin water resources muscles its way in – coal seam gas mining.

Reducing use in over-allocated systems whilst preventing overreach in the remainder is an absolute necessity if the basin's rivers, communities and industries are to survive the coming crunch. Yet right now the national water reform process looks like delivering the complete opposite or just disintegrating altogether. Where once there was bipartisan determination to solve the problem, short-term politics now seems to cloud the vision of Labor and the Coalition. In this context the Australian Greens have a crucial role to play.

The following article also appears in the current edition of Green, the magazine of the Australian Greens. Where it implores Greens members to take action, we urge the same of Chain Reaction readers. It also makes a particular appeal to Green MPs, to show leadership where it is lacking, and salvage the Murray-Darling Basin Plan within this electoral term. With every day that passes, the next drought edges nearer, as does the longer term drying of the climate. If we go to the next election without this matter resolved, there is a very real risk we will be too late.

The decline of Australia's longest and most heavily utilised river system has been making headlines for decades. So too the succession of politically compromised – and ultimately unsuccessful – attempts to reverse it. Now Australia teeters on the edge of yet another failure with the strife-ridden Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Hope survives yet, and in 2012 the Greens have a key role to play – as both a grassroots movement and a parliamentary party – if the Plan is to set the river on a sustainable course.

Spanning four states, one territory and 14% of the Australia's landmass, the Murray-Darling Basin is as vast as it is complex. At the heart of its plight is a deceptively simple problem: we take too much water from its 23 rivers, leaving aquatic ecosystems barely able to function. Curtailed flooding limits the opportunity for fish, waterbirds and other aquatic life to breed. Constricted flows prevent the river flushing salt downstream and out to sea. At its mouth, internationally renowned wetlands have become sterile hypersaline ponds and acidifying time-bombs that threaten the water supply for several million Australians.

Successive river rescue plans have failed to grasp the nettle, due largely to the lobbying power of irrigation's elite corporate farms and the parochialism of state governments in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Despite radical reforms and the expenditure of billions of public dollars, basin rivers remain mere conduits for irrigation flows. Floodplain wetlands and river channels themselves receive the scraps after irrigation entitlements are met. In many places this means years or decades between drinks.

Until now. Finally, at the height of the millennium drought, John Howard and his Water Minister Malcolm Turnbull stared down the irrigation lobby and upstream states to pass the Water Act 2007. It provides for a scientifically-determined Basin Plan that must reduce water extraction to sustainable levels. Nearly $10 billion is now allocated to put the plan into action and help regional communities adjust. Critically, a third of that is for buying water from farmers, avoiding the need for compulsory reductions.

Whilst the Plan is taking some time to develop, water buy-backs have already made significant inroads into the reduction it will demand. About 1,000 gigalitres (GL) – a quarter of what independent scientists say is needed – has been recovered since 2009. But then in November last year, Minister Tony Burke caved in to sections of the irrigation lobby and announced a slowdown on buy-backs in the southern rivers where irrigation entitlements are most dangerously oversubscribed.

Many ecosystems will take decades to recover from the stress we put them under during the millennium drought. If the next drought arrives before enough water has been bought back, some will tip over the edge. Delaying buy-backs makes this more likely. It also makes it harder for many family owned farms, indebted due to the high Australian dollar, the supermarket duopoly and ever-sinking commodity prices, to sell their water at a reasonable price and recoup their losses. As a direct result of the Commonwealth stepping out of the water market, entitlements have reached their lowest price in a decade. Good for big agribusiness wanting to buy-up water, not so good for small irrigators wanting to consolidate or retire.

Murray-Darling Basin Plan

The buy-back announcement was followed within days by the release of a draft Basin Plan so hopelessly compromised it has drawn universal condemnation from environment groups and the highly respected Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. All scientific studies to date indicate irrigation cuts of at least 4,000 GL are needed, yet the Draft Plan proposes only 2,750 GL. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) acknowledges this will deprive key sites of sufficient water, including internationally recognised wetlands like Chowilla in South Australia and Barmah-Millewa straddling the Victorian-New South Wales border. Salinity levels in the Coorong will still reach lethal levels during drought. Native fish and migratory waterbirds miss key breeding opportunities.

The Draft Plan flies in the face of the MDBA's previously published science that indicated cuts of up 7,600GL were required. Since then, the irrigation lobby has sharpened its knives, New South Wales and Victoria have returned to the warpath, and ex-NSW planning minister Craig Knowles has been installed as the new MDBA Chair.

To justify the about-turn, Knowles claims the earlier work didn't account for how modern "flow constraints" conspire against the delivery of larger flows: environmentally desirable, but simply not possible. This claim is mischievous and misleading. With $10 billion and seven years before the Plan comes into force we have ample opportunity to overcome most if not all of these constraints.

In some cases the work has already started, such as with the mid-Murrumbidgee wetlands. The Draft Basin Plan deprives them of enough water to maintain wetland vegetation and native fish breeding. The MDBA's excuse is that the Mundarlo bridge near Gundagai would be washed away if the required flows were delivered.  Yet the state government has already begun a feasibility study into raising the bridge to allow for bigger environmental flows.

In western New South Wales, the Australian Floodplain Association has begun helping farmers draft legal waivers to give government the confidence that environmental flows across their land won't result in a lawsuit. The risk of such lawsuits is another excuse the MDBA has given for limiting environmental flows. In their first month the Floodplain Association had a million acres of floodplain covered. Far from a 'constraint', graziers are bending over backwards to enable environmental flows because it's good for business – land productivity increases after a good flood.

Another flaw in the Draft Plan is the astounding decision to ignore the risk of climate change. The MDBA estimates global warming could deprive Basin rivers of up to 37% of their flow by 2030. To manage this risk we must ensure any reductions in streamflow are shared equitably and sustainably between irrigation and the environment. The Draft Plan does the opposite: it guarantees that the bulk of environmental flows will be eroded before any irrigation entitlement is touched.

And even if we somehow avoid the likely impacts of climate change, a proposed 2,600 GL increase in groundwater extraction could literally undermine the 2,750 GL clawed back from surface water users. Scientific experts including the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training have condemned this move because too little is known about which aquifers are connected to rivers and wetlands. In the USA, whole rivers have dried up when the water table beneath them was pumped out.

What role for the Greens?

So what role can the Greens play in salvaging the Basin Plan and associated water buy-backs? Submissions on the Draft Plan will have closed by the time this article goes to print, but several points of intervention remain. Firstly, when the final Plan is drafted, state governments are able to demand revisions. With the National Party in control of water portfolios in NSW and Victoria (and Queensland probably to follow), state Greens MPs will need to hold their governments to account. Victoria and New South Wales are already lobbying for the Draft Plan to be weakened further.

Simultaneously, federal Greens MPs have a crucial role to play. The final Plan is a disallowable legislative instrument that Water Minister Tony Burke must table in Parliament.  Before he does so, he can demand the MDBA make changes and is likely to do so if he believes the Authority's version would be voted down. Tony Abbott's Coalition has recently softened its rhetoric, positioning themselves to negotiate. But views diverge wildly between moderate Liberals committed to the reform they began (particularly the South Australian MPs) and hardline Nationals who want to destroy it. Burke could easily end up having to rely on the crossbenches instead. The Greens must put themselves in a strong negotiating position with both the government and influential independent Tony Windsor if they are to influence the outcome.

Finally, Greens members are amongst the most dedicated and active environmentalists in the country. And they are spread throughout every state and federal electorate. The watering-down of the Basin Plan has happened because we as a movement have not matched the campaigning efforts of agribusiness lobbyists. With the Murray-Darling one of the Gillard government's most significant reforms and a federal election looming, pressure in any and every federal electorate will have an impact on the outcome. Whether it's visiting your local MP, writing to the paper or organising a local event, Greens members can help turn the Basin Plan into the rescue package our Darling Murray desperately needs.

Take Action

Visit our new website ourdarlingmurray.org to take part in the campaign. It's packed with background info, campaign resources and online actions.

You can also find us on facebook at 'Our Darling Murray', follow us on twitter @FoEAustralia or email barmah@archive.foe.org.au to subscribe to our email bulletin.

Jonathan La Nauze is the Murray-Darling Campaigner with Friends of the Earth, Melbourne.