Sheed calls for water ministers to meet for first time since August 2021

With just two out of six water ministers still in their posts following elections and cabinet reshuffles since the last meeting, Ms Sheed said a new meeting was urgently needed.

New Federal Water Minister Tanya Pliberseck last month said she was “gobsmacked” how far the nation was behind meeting its targets under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, with only two of a planned 450 gigalitres recovered ahead of the 2024 deadline.

On Friday, NSW passed controversial water laws which allowed irrigators in northern NSW to capture floodwater in private dams through floodwater harvesting.

Ms Sheed also rejected calls for buybacks for irrigators made by Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young as something the Goulburn Valley “vehemently” objected to.

“Ms Hanson-Young mentions ‘willing sellers’ and we saw how that had a negative impact on our entire dairy industry during the last round of buybacks,“ Ms Sheed said.

“Having willing buyers and willing sellers does not eliminate a negative socio-economic impact on our region.

“In 2018, the Federal Water Minister and all basin states’ water ministers agreed upon a socio-economic test to ensure that there would be no negative impacts on river communities to obtain the 450 gigalitres for the environment.”

She was concerned the southern basin would not have met its recovery targets by 2024.

There were concerns the new NSW laws would result in less flow down the Darling River and put additional pressure on the Murray system to provide more water for South Australia.

“We do not want any further water taken from the consumptive pool if this issue is not resolved when a full assessment of water recovery is undertaken in 2024,” she said.

“In the Goulburn-Murray irrigation district, we have given up so much water already, and this has had a disastrous impact on our dairy industry.

“We need our federal and state water ministers to meet before time runs out for the basin plan.”