NSW Farmers has warned politicians to focus on outcomes, not point-scoring, as the federal election campaign heats up.
With both sides squaring off on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, NSW Farmers Water Taskforce Chair Richard Bootle said NSW Farmers Association had clear policy that purchasing water buybacks shouldn’t recommence until the Commonwealth had made a full assessment of the:
a. transparency and auditing of previous water purchases,
b. impact on new purchases on the viability of group supply systems,
c. impact on new purchases on irrigation dependent communities, including demographics, and
d. impact on irrigated agriculture’s ability to continue to sustain and increase food production.
“Just announcing more water recovery without going into the how and why is simply not good enough, and has the potential to do real damage to the years of progress made on water management,” Mr Bootle said.
“There are ways to achieve environmental outcomes while protecting productivity and the sustainability of our regions, but it’s not by playing political hardball.”
Farmers across NSW and Australia have endured drought, floods, fires and a mouse plague since the basin plan was introduced more than a decade ago, and the sector has started growing again. This year Australian agriculture is valued at more than $80 billion, and $1 out of every $7 of export in NSW comes from the farm sector. With Australia’s food and fibre production at stake, Mr Bootle said there needed to be certainty for farmers and regional investment.
“There are real opportunities to deliver environmental outcomes to the river system without reducing production,” Mr Bootle said.
“I would call on both sides to put aside the political point scoring around who’s tougher on water, and instead build upon the opportunities in the basin plan that have been hard fought but are still yet incomplete.”
