Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek mysteriously reinstated federal funding for 58 gigalitres of Victorian Murray Darling Basin Plan projects today in an embarrassing backdown, Member for Mallee Dr Anne Webster says.

The Minister was withholding funding for Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment Mechanism (SDLAM) projects because Victoria had refused to join the NSW, Queensland and South Australian governments in signing up to the Basin Plan due to Victoria opposing devastating water buybacks.

“Victorian Water Minister Harriet Shing has been doing the right thing by Mallee river communities by holding the line opposing buybacks. Minister Plibersek today said Minister Shing was now backing the 450 gigalitre additional MDB water recovery target under the revised and partisan Labor-Greens Plan. However, Minister Shing reportedly has not budged on opposing buybacks, in which case I commend her on behalf of my food producers and their communities,” Dr Webster said.

“Amid today’s mystery on what deal the two governments have done, clearly Minister Plibersek came to Victoria to salvage her floundering Labor-Greens Basin Plan that ripped up a previously bipartisan approach to Basin management,” Dr Webster said.

Dr Webster said Victorian food producers had done the heavy lifting on returning water to the environment in the past, and the new round of buybacks will have devastating effects on Mallee irrigation communities.

“Labor’s previous water buybacks left a patchwork quilt of irrigated and dry land, schools shrank or closed and businesses were forced to cut back. The remaining food producers now bear the higher costs of maintaining water infrastructure with less of them to contribute. Buying water out of our irrigation districts wrecks regional town economies towns and devastates river communities.”

Dr Webster said The Nationals, through then-Water Minister David Littleproud, secured bipartisan protection for communities in the Basin Plan through a socio-economic neutrality test. The 2018 measure guaranteed no harm could come to local communities through water recovery.

“Harm prevention and caring for communities was a key tenet of the previous Basin Plan through former Labor Water Minister Tony Burke. The Albanese Labor Government tore up that test and bipartisanship alike to prevent more inner-city electorates going Green.  Yet again Labor shows their true colours – robbing regions to buy votes in the cities.”