The former New South Wales primary industries minister Katrina Hodgkinson should answer questions about her role in formulating the controversial Barwon-Darling water-sharing plan, Labor’s NSW water spokesman, Chris Minns, has said.
“It’s time for the former minister to front up and answer questions,” he said. “Why were the water-sharing plans altered? Did she accept submissions from powerful irrigator lobbyists after public consultation had finished? And did these same cotton irrigators receive 32% more water while she was water minister?”
The Guardian revealed on Thursday that a key irrigation lobbyist representing large irrigators around Bourke, Ian Cole, continued to lobby the minister after the public consultations on the plan had closed and that further changes were made by the minister to make the plan more favourable to irrigators.
Meanwhile, in Canberra, the move by the Greens to block an amendment to the northern basin plan that includes the Barwon-Darling, has prompted a warning from the water minister, David Littleproud, that the the entire Murray-Darling basin plan could “unravel” .
Sussan Ley, the Liberal member for Farrer, which covers the Murrumbidgee and Murray valleys, said in parliament she was prepared to encourage NSW and Victoria to leave the plan if her community was forced to make more water savings.
Labor appears willing to horse trade on the 70-gigalitre cut to the northern basin plan for more solid commitments from the Turnbull government on the southern basin.
Labor’s water spokesman, Tony Burke, is trying to obtain written and legislative commitments from the government on proposals to increase flows to the southern basin, which include an additional 450GL of “down” water for South Australia by 2024.
Labor wants the 450GL linked in legislation to a plan to deliver 605GL of “upwater” through efficiency projects to be funded by the commonwealth. These include farm projects to make more efficient use of water.
In a letter, Burke says if the water savings don’t materialise Labor wants “a written commitment that … the commonwealth would take responsibility to deliver the 450GL”.
With the South Australian election campaign in full swing and a byelection in the federal seat of Batman in Melbourne on 17 March, a “win” on water policy would be a big boost to Labor.
Labor faces a tough challenge from the Greens in Batman and polls have indicated that Labor is behind in South Australia, though the intervention of Nick Xenophon’s SA Best party makes the outcome more difficult to predict.
In return, Labor is offering to delay the disallowance vote in the northern basin on the 70GL cut.
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority issued another defence of its plan to cut the target for environmental water recovery by 70GL or 18%, saying it was based on sound science, and disputed the findings of the Australia Institute.
Water policy has become highly contentious once again. The government is attempting to legislate changes to the plan, which are backed by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, but environmentalists and scientists say the current plan is already compromised by the way the states have implemented it and that it is failing.
The large number of documents obtained by the Guardian detail the bureaucratic processes in forming the controversial Barwon-Darling plan and raise questions about the fairness of the process.
A draft letter to Cole to be sent from Hodgkinson acknowledges that late changes were made in 2012.
“Following consideration of a number of WSP matters raised with me, I requested the Office of Water to make several amendments which, I believe, now present a fair and equitable outcome for all.”
Hodgkinson announced her resignation from parliament within days of a Four Corners program going to air in July last year. The program detailed allegations of water theft in the Barwon-Darling and a lack of action by NSW bureaucrats.
The formulation of the plan and the handling of water theft allegations by NSW are now under investigation by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption.
