Mayor Peta Betts said the $300 million compensation under the Commonwealth Government’s Sustainable Communities Program will come nowhere near offsetting the enormity of what we will lose, and that council’s highest priority is fighting against the buybacks.
She also emphasized the importance of ensuring that council gets a seat at the table to make the best use of the funds needed in the Edward River and wider NSW Murray economies in case the government refuses to listen to its regional citizens and stop these buybacks.
“News of the Commonwealth Government tender that up to 70GL of water will be bought from farmers right here in the southern Murray Darling Basin has sent shock waves through communities already doing it extremely tough, and we are already hearing of major local employers saying that they will need to close,” Cr Betts said.
“We know that when buybacks happen in small regional and rural communities that rely on agriculture to drive their economies the results are disastrous, and we will keep doing everything we can to fight against the use of indiscriminate buybacks in our region to meet water targets.
“There are much better ways to meet water targets and the government must look at those first rather than just leaning on buying water from our communities who are already suffering.
“But given the government appears fixated on buybacks despite the decimation it will cause in our communities, our job as leaders is also to do whatever we can to make sure that funding is spent in a way that genuinely can help our communities to respond and adapt to large amounts of water leaving our region.
“We need government to focus on successful infrastructure projects and land and water purchases right here and right now before just defaulting to buybacks, such as past investments in the Lower Murrumbidgee. It seems the government doesn’t want to learn from the past.”
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences released modelling and findings in June that confirm water buybacks push up water allocation prices for irrigators and revealed the communities likely to be the most affected.
“We have clear and compelling data, released by the government itself, which shows that Edward River is amongst communities in our region vulnerable to water buybacks.
“So now we need to know what the plan is to make sure that Edward River and our fellow councils in the Murray River region of New South Wales are properly supported by governments to be part of the process.
“We cannot afford for this to be another example of governments expecting small rural councils to dig even deeper into their pockets to find a way for their communities to be heard and to have to find more money to properly and collaboratively identify projects that will be critical to their futures.
“We need a commitment from governments that councils and their communities will be consulted genuinely right here in our community. Any investment needs to clearly address impacts and lead to improvements here in the region.
“You can’t do this from Canberra and Sydney. Government needs to talk with us, because we feel like we are in the firing line wearing a blind fold.”
The Commonwealth’s open tender opened on July 15 and closes at midday on September 11.
In the NSW Murray, it is targeting high and general security allocation both above and below the Barmah Choke.
Water is also being targeted from zone 13 of the Murrumbidee, zone 12 of the South Australian Murray, two sections of the Ovens and Kings Regulated and above and below the choke on the Victorian Murray.
