It says reports dating back 10 years have highlighted job losses from the Basin Plan and the future risk of more from water buybacks.
“What’s the surprise? We’ve been warning for many years that this is coming, but no-one wants to listen,” MRSG Chair Geoff Moar said.
“Government agencies, including ABARES, have predicted food production challenges, especially in the rice industry.
“Even before the plan started in November 2012 there were reports presenting dire statistics about potential job losses from water recovery.
“But the Albanese Government and its lapdogs at the Murray-Darling Basin Authority have refused to listen, and as a result this is probably the tip of the iceberg.
“In our view, it’s un-Australian. How could a government and its obedient bureaucracy allow hardworking Aussies to lose their jobs and their futures when it is totally avoidable, but they do nothing?” Mr Moar asked.
He said MRSG has become extremely frustrated as it tries to work collaboratively with the MDBA and government departments that can’t seem to grasp the concept that water buybacks damage the entire community. They either do not understand or do not care.
“We’ve explained umpteen times that buyback money generally does not stay in the local community, and the ongoing economic benefit of the productive water is simply lost.
“That’s why rice farmers are not growing rice; why Australia will increasingly rely on food imports; and why jobs are being sacrificed in manufacturing plants like SunRice.
“Are our bureaucrats so ensconced in their Canberra bubble that they are blind to what is happening in the regions?
“The balanced Basin Plan we were promised has become a sick, bureaucrat-led joke with rural communities suffering the major consequences, while our city-based cousins pay more for their food at the supermarket.
“It can all be fixed, but whether we have the political willpower or senior bureaucrats with the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the politicians is questionable,” Mr Moar said.
He added the failure of the MDBA to adequately include either agriculture or social and economic impacts in the Basin Plan Review discussion paper is a sad reflection on the authority’s inability to deliver a Basin Plan to the standard that Australians should expect for its massive $13 billion price tag.
“It is not good enough,” Mr Moar said.
“Our communities were promised they would be protected by the Basin Plan, but that promise has been broken.
“Broken political promises are difficult to accept. However, it’s even worse when we have a taxpayer funded bureaucracy in the MDBA that is supposed to be independent of government, yet in reality it is anything but.
“Again, MRSG calls on the MDBA to recommend to Water Minister Murray Watt that water buybacks must stop, due to the unequivocal evidence of social and economic harm, coupled with the MDBA’s own statements that acquiring more water will have limited environmental benefit.
“It’s time the authority stops hiding behind the excuse that it can’t make such a recommendation. It is, in fact, their statutory obligation, especially as we undergo the Basin Plan Review.
“It is time for the lapdog to stop pandering like a wimpy pup and start barking loudly. Do the job you are paid billions for, and deliver an effective, balanced Basin Plan instead of a plan that is nothing more than the government’s toy to achieve some political and vote-winning objectives,” Mr Moar concluded.
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