Opinion

Goulburn constraints dead in the water

By Contributed

Dec 16, 2025

For 12 long years landowners have constantly told the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and politicians that for a myriad of reasons, the constraints projects cannot and will not deliver the 450GL to the Lower Murray, nor can it achieve the aspirational environmental objectives as legislated in Part 2AA of the Water Act. The MDBA has finally now acknowledged this.

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The MDBA, at a meeting on December 9 with landowners in the Upper Goulburn Catchment and Murrindindi Shire councillors, stated that the Goulburn Constraint project as envisaged under the Constraints Management Strategy or current basin plan settings would not proceed, nor would the Hume-Yarrawonga Constraints project proceed, with flows in this reach remaining at a maximum 25,000ML a day and not the proposed flood flow of 40,000ML/day.

In 2013, the MDBA devised the Constraints Management Strategy, whereby man-made manipulated environmental flood flows would be delivered down the Goulburn and Murray river systems to the Lower Murray and South Australia in an attempt to achieve “enhanced environmental outcomes”, such as keeping the Murray Mouth open 95 per cent of time without the need for dredging.

Under this strategy, the constraints projects were the vehicle by which the additional 450GL was to be delivered, via overbank flood flows that would consequently impact private property. This is known as “relaxation” of constraints.

The constraints projects are all interdependent, with the Upper Murray and Upper Goulburn flows being the drivers to achieve the proposed downstream targets, such as 80,000ML/day for a period of five weeks at the South Australian border.

With the Goulburn and Hume-Yarrawonga projects now dead in the water, and not proceeding, the entire aspirational delivery of 450GL to the Lower Lakes, Murray Mouth and Coorong comes crashing down.

Under the Water Act the MDBA is the independent agency responsible for providing expert advice to the Federal Government, specifically the water minister, on basin strategy, policy and planning.

So why has the minister, Murray Watt, stated it is his intention to spend billions of taxpayers’ dollars to buy back vast volumes of water that the MDBA has acknowledged cannot be delivered? The minister’s continuation of the buyback policy in the Southern Connected Basin is morally reprehensible, particularly when it is a known fact that the constraints strategy cannot deliver this purchased environmental water.

Jan Beer,

Yea