A MILD summer complete with rains has taken a lot of eyes off the water market for this year and water prices have dropped considerably however, the long-term problems remain.
A group of fifteen locals took a week off from their normal day and visited areas of New South Wales and Queensland to get a better understanding of the situation there.
Speaking on her return from the trip, local Member for Shepparton District, Suzanna Sheed, made a call for the end of catchments targets to be implemented in the Murray Darling Basin to ensure all users receive a fair share of water the whole way down the river.
Speaking after her Truth and Water Tour of the Northern Basin on Sunday, Ms Sheed said the trip further cemented what she was being told by water users.
“While I want the Goulburn Valley to continue to lead the charge in fresh fruit, vegetable and dairy production, and the employment that these industries provide, this trip has shown me that we all need to work together and care for every community along the Murray Darling Basin and make sure we all get a fair share of water,” Ms Sheed said.
“What we have learnt from our trip is that there has been enormous and increasing water take from the floodplains in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland and as a result, communities in the lower Darling have suffered from lack of flows and the southern basin is deprived of its contribution from the north.
“If northern New South Wales floodplain irrigators continue to take water from the Murray Darling Basin the way they have been, it will lead to constant connectivity problems along the Darling River and through to the Murray. The unregulated water take from the northern floodplains and lack of metering and accountability must not continue,” Ms Sheed continued.
“But we have seen this is not always the case. We witnessed Indigenous communities in Menindee mourn their cultural rights on a dry lake bed, while cotton stations up north continue building storages to harvest water from the floodplains.”
Until the process of water use, collection and storage is brought to some universal order, Victorian farmers are liable to be the worse off as seasons change and water prices rise in the future.
