While southern irrigators have experienced, “clear, legislated restrictions on the growth of their water use for almost 30 years” they say northern farmers are only just starting down this path.
“From the outside at least, it would seem that there’s been no serious efforts to apply similar restrictions in northern NSW and southern Queensland until commencement of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in 2012,” the Ricegrowers Association of Australia told the parliamentary inquiry.
“In the southern valleys, questions about the sustainability of water use and the public reporting of compliance scrutiny, have been revisited and revised for decades.”
The association has told the inquiry into floodplain harvesting that some form of regulation is needed to license and measure floodplain harvesting.
The Victorian Government has also raised concerns with the inquiry about the unregulated nature of floodplain harvesting in the north of the basin.
“There is a concern that this will further decrease water availability to the southern basin, leading to potentially higher water market prices for farmers and deliverability risk to Murray users,” acting Water Minister Richard Wynne said in a submission.
“Victoria wants to see the floodplain harvest policy address excessive water take in the northern basin because it reduces inflows to the southern basin and impacts water availability.”
The Victorian Government submission challenged the NSW Government proposal to license floodplain harvesting take, arguing the proposal would lock in unsustainable high levels of take.
The submission also said the uncertainty about the legality of floodplain harvesting was translating to a perception that illegal conduct would be rewarded in the new policy.
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