While the minister announced the “1000 responses”, she did not indicate how many were viable offers of water, nor the price of the water being offered.
The Commonwealth is seeking up to 70 gigalitres of water for the environmental water pool for the Murray-Darling Basin.
The National Irrigators’ Council said the offers from 1000 willing sellers didn’t matter much if the buyer could not proceed due to procurement guidelines.
“The last time Minister Plibersek announced a buyback tender round had been oversubscribed, the government later rejected 72 per cent of the offers, contracting only a small proportion of the reported offers (26 Gl out of 90 Gl), mostly due to value for money concerns,” NIC chief executive officer Zara Lowien said.
“Past experience shows us that people putting their hand up to sell their water to the government, is really no indication on actual progress.
“Making this announcement of ‘1000 willing sellers’ a continuation of a political smokescreen as the Albanese Government continues to embellish their efforts on implementing the Murray-Daring Basin Plan without any contracts or evidence.”
A search of federal financial funding agreements indicated that one project for the Resilient River Program has been contracted (which was progressed prior to last year’s basin plan amendments) and the Reconnecting River Country constraints project.
“The government’s messaging isn’t being backed by any action that we can see,” Ms Lowien said
“Nearly 12 months since the Restoring Our Rivers Bill became law, we have no real evidence that governments have made genuine progress towards implementing the basin plan, other than inflated media announcements, which we know, not all will turn into contracts.
“There are no new projects contracted under the Resilient Rivers Program nor contracts for the Basin Communities Fund, and both programs are key pillars of the department’s ‘framework’ to enact the minister’s promise to parliament that purchases wouldn’t be the first and only tool in the toolbox and that communities would not be left behind.
“We call on the minister to stop putting up political smokescreens and provide real transparency on the government’s progress on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.”
Ms Plibersek said responses were being evaluated and value-for-money offers would be accepted from December 2024.
“Voluntary purchase is just one of the ways that water will be recovered, with the government prioritising non-purchase options.
The Resilient Rivers Program provides more than $494 million for water saving infrastructure projects nominated by states.
“One construction project, one water saving program and four feasibility projects, worth close to $90 million, have already been approved with more in the pipeline,” Ms Plibersek said.
The program also makes another $3 million available to states to develop land and water partnership proposals.
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