With the support of the Greens, there’s a chance the ‘Restoring Our Rivers’ Bill will pass. Will it be enough to put the Murray-Darling Basin Plan back on track?
Buying back water from irrigators across the Murray-Darling Basin will not be enough to restore river health because we have big problems getting this ‘environmental water’ to where it’s needed most.
Infrastructure is always a vexed issue. The program is full of pork barrelling, whoever is in power. Even when that’s not involved, what to build and when it should be built is often contested.
Once again, First Nations in the Murray-Darling Basin have been shortchanged in water reform and shortchanged in the water market. It’s time to listen and actually deliver tangible outcomes.
Knowing the ‘next drought is just around the corner’, Australia’s Water Minister Tanya Plibersek is striking a new agreement to return water and health to the Murray-Darling Basin.
Projects have not been delivered. States are bickering. If the Albanese government is to uphold its election promise to deliver the Murray plan, hard tradeoffs are needed.
Australia’s beloved billabongs and waterholes are in danger of filling up with eroded soil from farms, leaving little room for the aquatic animals that depend on these vital drought refuges.
In our land of drought and flooding rains, better water management should feature in every federal budget. The new budget delivers it – but not everyone is happy.
The review examined hundreds of studies and concluded the lower Murray should remain a freshwater ecosystem, or severe environmental and economic damage will result.
Daniel Connell, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
There’s little transparency or clarity about how much water states are allocated. This failure in communication and leadership across such a vital system must change.
Quentin Grafton, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Knee-jerk responses to water insecurity won’t fix the basin. The harder and longer path is delivering real water reform, including transparent water planning enshrined in law.
Keith Pitt on the Murray-Darling Basin, the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, and Nuclear Power in Australia
Keith Pitt, minister for resources, water, and Northern Australia, discusses the NAIF, climate policy, nuclear energy, and the Murray-Darling Basin scheme with Michelle Grattan.
Australian winemakers have lost smoke-tainted crops and political leaders apparently cannot solve the Murray Darling crisis. Perhaps climate change is getting the better of us.
Executive Director and Professor of Fisheries and River Management, Gulbali Institute (Agriculture, Water and Environment), Charles Sturt University, Charles Sturt University