The recent Ministerial Council Meeting was a missed opportunity to put the issue of additional water buybacks to bed.
Instead, Victorian irrigators have been left in limbo with the Federal Labor Government’s attempts to push even more water through the system regardless of the impacts on our Murray River communities.
By leaving all options on the table, Tanya Plibersek has left Victorians worse off, and continued to push a dodgy plan to tick boxes.
The Murray Darling Basin Plan is more than legislated targets – it is peoples’ and communities’ livelihoods and must be treated so.
Victoria is already recovering environmental through water saving technology, instead of forcing farmers to sell and make the pool of water even more shallow, pushing up the price of water.
The Federal Government had an opportunity to support the pragmatic approach of Victoria and New South Wales, and instead has decided to play politics with these communities.
This is not good enough. We need certainty and we need buybacks off the table.