Basin Plan focuses attention on water planning

With the public release of the Guide to the Proposed Murray-Darling Basin plan scheduled for 8 October, unprecedented levels of media and public scrutiny is being directed towards water planning in Australia. The Guide is the first part of a three-stage process consisting of the Guide, the Proposed Basin Plan and the Basin Plan.

The Guide will give stakeholders an overview of the Proposed Basin Plan ahead of its release and an additional opportunity for feedback before the formal consultation and submission process begins.

Whilst we have previously reviewed both the stakeholder engagement process and the socio-economic assessments undertaken as part of the development of the plan, it is clear that these remain the two most outstanding areas of concern regarding the first stage release.

The MDBA has already indicated that they will be undertaking further work to improve some of the social and economic elements of the Guide's contents, and that such work will be continued until the Proposed Basin Plan is released.

Below is a collection of some of the quotes appearing in today's media in relation to the socio-economic impacts of the Basin Plan in particular.

Socio-Economic Impacts of the Basin Plan

Danny O'Brien from the National Irrigators Council says it supports a sustainable and healthy ecosystem but wants the reform process to be balanced:

We're very concerned about it because we're worried that the authority will come out with a plan that's heavily skewed towards the environment with significant cuts to irrigation.

That will be bad for all Australians because it will have impacts on jobs, it has impacts on food prices and of course it threatens the future of family farms.

It has been estimated a 25 per cent cut in water availability for irrigation could cost the national economy $1.4 billion annually and 14,000 jobs.

We expect that there will be cuts in the basin plan and I guess we're bracing ourselves for that but we think they need to be reasonable. If you take water out of regional communities and food producing communities you take the wealth out of those communities and that needs to be well understood by the government and by the MDBA [Murray-Darling Basin Authority].

The NSW Farmers Federation has suggested that about one in three farmers in Australia's food bowl could leave the land because of cuts to water entitlements arising from the Basin Plan. Association vice-president Fiona Simson said of those who thought their businesses would remain viable under reduced water allocations, 38 per cent still expected to scale down operations:

Downsizing would inevitably lead to job losses and 31 per cent of respondents say they expect to cut staff due to reduced income. For every farmer who leaves the land, someone else loses their job, a local business loses a client, a town loses a resident.

Some towns won't survive.

It is appalling that the government has not sought the input of irrigation communities in preparing the draft.

Victorian Farmers Federation president Andrew Broad said the federation had been heavily lobbying the MDBA to ensure farmers were given the best possible deal and irrigated agriculture, and its contribution to the Victorian economy, was recognised:

If the basin plan does not adequately consider the socio-economic impacts of reducing water for our farm sector, the consequences for rural communities could be devastating.

It's imperative that the information meetings, which coincide with a busy harvest period and locust control program, take into account the inflexible nature of on-farm schedules.

Socio-Economic Assessments in Water Planning

As part of the Water Planning Tools project, we have examined the availability of methods and techniques to improve the quality of socio-economic impact assessments for water planning. These have included: