Confusion over who controls basin water

“I support the position that when it comes to water, when it comes to the Murray Darling Basin, the food bowl of the country and one of the great environmental icons of this nation, that you need to have the balance right, between the environment and the economy”, Senator Xenophon he said.

“This today was a wedge by the so-called independents against the government about who is going to take over water”.

Political tensions over the four-state Murray-Darling Basin exploded on Wednesday, as arguments broke out about the management of the system and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull met Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce to discuss how water policy should be managed.

Yesterday, ahead of Mr Joyce’s meeting with Mr Turnbull, seven of the eight crossbench Senators backed Mr Joyce having full responsibility for water policy, while urging the Basin Plan be “paused” due to concerns about the current high cost of water.

Mr Turnbull has yet to make a formal statement about the final allocation of water policy responsibilities under the new ministerial arrangements.

“The science says that in another 25 to 30 years, the southern Murray-Darling Basin… they say there’s going to be a decline of 15 per cent in the rainfall in the southern Murray-Darling catchment, which will relate to a 35 per cent decline in run-off”.

ACF said the most recent audit found 21 of the Murray-Darling Basin’s 23 river valleys were in a “poor, very poor or extremely poor condition”. Associate Professor Wheeler says increased drought and water scarcity in the years to come could exacerbate the issues faced by irrigators.

“She is a South Australian who has a background in irrigation she understands the importance of irrigation to regional communities”.

Federal Labor water spokesman Mark Butler said suggestions that a choice needed to be made between farmers and the environment was wrong.

Mr Turnbull and Mr Hunt have both said water reforms are largely complete and the Basin Plan’s water delivery targets set in legislation, paving the way for water policy to return to the agriculture portfolio, where it has traditionally been held.

“I think they need to be listened to”, he told reporters. The minister has now clarified “conjecture” around his role, saying he will have the lead on most water matters, except for environmental flows around the basin, because it was never in the agriculture portfolio anyway.

“The progress on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to date goes to prove that we can walk and chew gum, unlike the cross bench, ” Mr Butler said.

He has asked that Senator Ruston hold responsibility for horticulture and wine and forestry and fisheries but the final outcome remains unclear.

Mr Joyce’s former Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture in the Abbott regime, Tasmanian Senator Richard Colbeck, played down the issue of the new portfolio allocations.

“The important thing for water and for Australia is that water is under the responsibility of the Coalition and not the opposition”.

He said the new Prime Minister had promised Mr Joyce water prior to the leadership ballot – but now “Barnaby Joyce will not have control of those precious water resources”.

But Heffernan said all sides of politics were making false promises on water.

But the Administrative Arrangements Orders released by Governor General Sir Peter Cosgrove added the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder (CEWH) and part six of the Water Act 2007 concerning environmental water use, to the Environment Department. Joyce has insisted he should take over all day-to-day handling of the water portfolio rather than cede it to his junior minister, the South Australian Liberal senator Anne Ruston.