National Food Security Now in Jeopardy Due To Albanese’s Water Policies

Murrabit irrigator Andrew Leahy has accused the federal government of “asset stripping irrigation communities, when people were already on their knees”.

Peter Hunt’s Weekly Times article today ‘Almost 90 per cent’ of 450GL buybacks target by Christmas’ shows the Albanese Government obviously has zero understanding of the importance of water for food production and national food security.

Agriculture in Australia is being battered from all sides by poor government policy which has led to fuel and energy shortages and now we have no surety of available water because the Federal Government continues to strip water for the environment out of the consumptive productive pool, which with every megalitre bought back, escalates the price of water for those remaining as farmers or processors.

The Federal Government already has environmental entitlements valued at $11 BILLION. This is despite the fact that The Feasibility of Relaxing Constraints in Northern Victoria Report released in June 2024 by Victorian Water Minister Shing and The Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) explicitly stated -

The study investigated the feasibility of relaxing constraints in the Goulburn River and 2 reaches of the Murray River, (Hume – Yarrawonga and Yarrawonga to Wakool) and found ‘The beneficial environmental impacts of relaxing constraints in the mid-Murray and Goulburn tend to decrease with increasing distance downstream of the Barmah Choke. Modelling suggests relaxing constraints will result in no change in the frequency of environmentally desirable higher flow rates in the Murray River at the South Australian border under all relaxed constraints scenarios tested in this stage of the Victorian CMP.’

AND

“The observed difference between the current and relaxed constraint scenarios… decreases downstream of Torrumbarry and the Wakool Junction.”

These outcomes were concluded from hydrological modelling of the Goulburn and Murray systems using simulations over 100 years of hydrological conditions to see how relaxing constraints would impact the river system. This modelling was undertaken by the MDBA, DEECA and University of Melbourne.

The Federal Government and its agency the MDBA, have misled the Australian people by instigating water policies that give the general public the impression that recovered environmental water would secure an open Murray Mouth 95% of time without the need for dredging, supply sufficient environmental volumes to save the Coorong and water high level floodplains and hence achieve aspirational, unrealistic “enhanced environmental outcomes.”

The MDBA surely, cannot believe they have the ability to manipulate flows from the upstream catchments in at least 3 of the 4 major river systems, coincide releases from major dams, “piggy-back” them on top of high tributary flows, deliver these 2,500 kilometres to the Murray River downstream so that they combine to produce flows over the SA border of specifically 60,000-80,000ML/day for a sustained period of 5-6 weeks. And combine this with a strong outgoing tide to scour the Murray Mouth AND avoid a high incoming tide and strong onshore southerly winds!! BECAUSE THIS IS THEIR ASPIRATIONAL POLICY.

It is morally reprehensible for the Federal Government to continue to spend billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to acquire 450GL of additional water when the facts already show this vast volume of water simply CANNOT be delivered.

Jan Beer

Cheviot Hills

Yea VIC 3717

0407 144 777