The Albanese Government doesn’t care about a potential $20 million reduction in annual irrigated horticulture in Sunraysia, Member for Mallee Dr Anne Webster said today as Water Minister Tanya Plibersek today tries to spin some positives out of a major report on water buybacks’ impact.

“The nation’s peak agricultural reporting agency has today laid bare the setback we face if Labor pursues their political target of a 450 gigalitre water recovery, largely via buybacks. On the data we have today, Sunraysia faces an approximate $20 million annual economic hit all so Labor can hang on to the seat of Boothby in metropolitan Adelaide.”

Today’s Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resources Economics and Sciences (ABARES) report models the effect of the buybacks in the southern Murray-Darling Basin, indicating the following impacts from a buyback program toward the 450 gigalitre target:

“In Sunraysia alone, which produces 15 per cent of the nation’s horticultural output, last year our Gross Value of Production (GVP) was scheduled to grow more than anywhere else in the nation, $500 million – that is – by 32 per cent from $1.7 billion in 2020-21 to $2.2 billion per annum in 2029-30,” Dr Webster said.

“ABARES figures’ today confirm what the Coalition have been saying for a long time about Labor’s political buybacks program, because unlike Labor we understand supply and demand. Reduced water in the system will spike water demand, particularly in the dry years.

“For Labor to promise a once-off $300 million compensation package for river communities is abysmal given that under a 325GL scenario that compensation is wiped off across the Basin in just 2 years. This is a political payout for a political target on a political timeframe, nothing more.”

“Today’s data again highlights the critical importance of the socio-economic test the Nationals fought hard for in the Basin Plan, which Labor took away when it tore up bipartisanship and teamed up with the Greens to transform the Plan. Labor’s $300 million is a pittance compared to the social and economic harm their buybacks plan will wreak for generations in the Basin.”

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