Darling Basin water use well below sustainable limits
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s latest “Register of Take” report reveals water diversions across the Basin were 23 per cent below government Sustainable Diversion Limits (SDLs).
This is especially so in the Barwon-Darling, where water users diverted 34 per cent, or 155 GL, less than the valley’s 2022-23 SDL.
NSW Irrigators’ Council CEO Claire Miller said despite consistent and chronic underuse of water well below the SDLs, the Commonwealth government is misleading Australians in television ads claiming water is being overused.
“The MDBA’s own data shows that for another year, water use is well within the SDLs, and this unused water stays in the rivers, boosting flows and helping the environment,” Ms Miller said.
“Yet the Commonwealth is ignoring that gift to the environment, and instead targeting large, concentrated water buyback tenders into the most vulnerable communities throughout 2024-25.
“So why is the Commonwealth determined to push forward with reckless buybacks and unnecessary rule changes when the data clearly shows SDLs are being met in all Basin States, including NSW?
“The answer is simply meeting a political promise to South Australia back in 2012, based on an old model long overtaken by new knowledge such as these MDBA reports on water use.”
The MDBA report is dated March 2024 but was not published on the MDBA website until 2 August, without any public notifications and well after the Commonwealth had already set in train its buybacks tenders.
Shadow Minister for Water Perin Davey said that, in an effort not to embarrass the Albanese Government the MDBA has quietly released its 2022-23 report into water take in the Murray Darling Basin six months late.
The report shows that consumptive water use across the Basin is well below allowed levels.
Senator Davey said the central claim in the government’s $14 million advertising campaign of “… water being overused” has been proven a lie by the MDBA’s report.
“The government’s claim water is being overused and the Murray Darling Basin is at risk is fundamentally wrong,” Senator Davey said.
“It is disingenuous of the government to waste taxpayers’ money on advertising campaigns using fake imagery and stock photos from outside the basin to convey false information when in fact the reverse is true.”
Senator Davey pointed to the report finding that every valley in the Murray-Darling Basin used less water than was permitted in 2022-23, continuing a trend across multiple valleys ever since accounting commenced in 2019.
“The key role of the Basin Plan is to set a volume that can be sustainably taken from the river systems, known as the Sustainable Diversion Limit,” she said. […]
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