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]