Ali Cupper urges ‘more guts’ on water from Federal Government

MEMBER for Mildura Ali Cupper has called on the Federal Government to step in to the benefit of Victorian irrigators and ensure NSW’s outstanding water resource plans are completed.

Ms Cupper said she hoped the new Labor government had “more guts” than the Liberal-National government, which she said had thrown Victorian irrigators “under the bus” by standing aside and not pushing the NSW Government to submit its water resource plans (WRPs).

Water compliance inspector-general Troy Grant told told the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s annual water conference on Thursday the NSW Government had none of its 20 WRPs accredited as required under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

WRPs set out the maximum quantity of water permitted for consumptive use and without accredited WRPs it was not possible to monitor and enforce full compliance with water take limits in the NSW section of the basin, Mr Grant said.

Ms Cupper said the inaction of the NSW Government had led to downstream effects that resulted in her ongoing negotiations with the Victorian Government to set a cap on inter-valley trade.

“This has only been necessary because of the sheer number and frequency of cease-to-flow events in the Darling, compounded by dodgy practices up north,” Ms Cupper said.

“Essentially, when NSW trashes the Darling, Victoria inadvertently trashes the Goulburn, because that’s our only source of temporary water when it’s dry – and pushing too much water down the Goulburn is causing significant ecological damage.”

The Victorian Government found water delivered from Goulburn inter-valley trade during 2017-18 and 2018-19 caused significant environmental damage.

It introduced interim trade rules in July 2021 to limit damage caused by prolonged high flows. A decision on long-term trade is pending.

The NSW Government was due to submit its WRPs at the end of 2019 but delayed submission citing severe drought. In 2020, the then Water Minister David Littleproud threatened to withhold Commonwealth funding due to the NSW Government not submitting its WRPs.

NSW has had its first round of WRPs rejected by the MDBA and so far has resubmitted two for approval while 18 are still outstanding.

There are 33 WRPs across the basin. Queensland and South Australia have three WRPs, which were accredited by September and November 2019 respectively.

The ACT, with two WRPs, and Victoria (five) had their plans accredited in June 2020.

Mr Grant said the NSW Government had until the end of June to deliver its WRPs, or he would have to ask Water and Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to allow the MDBA to prepare NSW’s WRPs.

The warning has drawn the support of the Nature Conservation Council in NSW, which said delaying “robust, climate-ready WRPS further will hurt communities, First Nations peoples and wildlife across the basin”.