A forum highlighting the negative impacts of the basin plan on rural communities was held in Barham recently, with hundreds attending in person or viewing online.

Southern Riverina Irrigators (SRI) joined the Central Murray Environmental Floodplain Group, The Bridge Newspaper and Upper Goulburn Catchment Alliance to organise the event which included a variety of speakers across industry, science and agriculture.

The forum will be used as a submission to the MDBA as part of the basin plan review process.

SRI CEO Sophie Baldwin said everyone in attendance called for an end to all basin plan reform, which they say is “destroying our rural communities and crippling productivity”.

“Ultimately, the basin plan is based on flawed modelling and some unachievable environmental outcomes - something the Murray-Darling Basin Authority has finally acknowledged in the review they released in February.

“SRI is publicly calling for an end to all water recovery - no more buybacks, no sustainable diversion limit adjustment mechanism (SDLAM) shortfall and no relaxing of constraints because these are all mechanisms used to deliver water downstream for unachievable environmental outcomes.

“Basin plan reform is killing productivity, and we are at a critical point.

“There is still 221 gigalitres of water to strip from communities under the 450GL Restoring Our Rivers legislation, and if they come for the 305-350GL SDLAM shortfall, they are basically wiping out the entire annual productive pool of MIL.

“Who will grow our staple foods and feed our nation if we no longer have our farmers growing rice, cereal, dairy, fodder, livestock and fruit and vegetables?

“It is an absolute disaster.”

The forum included an industry panel which included representatives from Ricegrowers Australia, Kagome and Australian Consolidated Milk (ACM).

The three representatives painted a bleak picture of consolidation, job losses and dire consequences for rural communities.

Jason Limbrick spoke on behalf of dairy processors.

He said after commissioning a report into buybacks, water recovery of 302GL will reduce the consumptive pool by eight per cent and push temporary prices up 20 per cent.

Mr Limbrick told the forum dairy farmers face losses of up to 40 per cent, which will push people out of the industry and force some of the 40 dairy processing facilities employing 2000 people directly across eight local government areas to close.

He said this reform is not just an industry issue, it’s a food security issue, a regional development issue and a national economic issue.

Ms Baldwin said this is a sentiment SRI agreed with.

“At the end of the day, $11.4 billion has been spent on the basin plan,” Ms Baldwin said.

“There is now more than 4622GL in government water accounts and there is no money left to update critical infrastructure.

“IPART has just released another round of potential fee increases of 10 per cent over the next three years, plus CPI, and there is just no end in sight.

“We need drastic action now to change this trajectory, and there needs to be immediate flexibility with environmental water so it can be returned for use in the productive pool and keep our farmers farming.

“Our farmers will soon need to be recognised as critically endangered, just like the lower Murray River.”

Upper Goulburn River Catchment Management Association representative Jan Beer agreed and said there is no surety of water security for agriculture on which to base forward business plans and expansion.

“With the purchase of every extra megalitre of water from the consumptive pool, it becomes increasingly difficult to forward plan and budget,” she said.

“Buybacks escalate the price of water and when combined with other factors such as drought, global impacts of war, fuel and energy shortages we see businesses collapse.

“It is now 14 years since the inception of the Basin Plan, ample time to understand and see the environmental degradation caused to our major rivers, the failure to achieve legislated enhanced environmental outcomes, its success in destroying generational farming businesses, aiding in closing milk processing plants, increasing suicides and mental health issues.

“It is time to stop buybacks, step away from simply using volumetric water targets to specific sites and use the many complimentary measures available, such as eradication of carp, cold water pollution curtains, fish passages, improved water quality, sediment management, river bank revegetation and on-farm environmental refuges.”

• Anyone requiring crisis support can contact Accessline on 1800 800 944, Lifeline Australia on 13 11 14, BeyondBlue on 1300 224 636 or Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800. Resources and pathways to help are also available at www.denimentalhealth.org.au.

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Tuesday, 2nd November 2027

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