WATER IS LIFE: policy failures at Australian federal and state level just keep rolling on

 

The Guardian, 3 August 2021:

The Barwon-Darling is the main tributary for the Darling and was the focus of allegations in 2017 of water theft and users taking more than their allocations. Photograph: Mark Evans/Getty Images

New South Wales has been found to have exceeded its water allocations for 2019-20 in the Barwon-Darling catchment, one of the main cotton-growing areas of the state, raising new questions about the effectiveness of the state’s water enforcement rules.

The Barwon-Darling is the main tributary for the Darling and was the focus of the 2017 Four Corners report which raised allegations of water theft, pumps being tampered with and water users taking more than their allocations.

It led to a number of reports, prosecutions and an overhaul by NSW of its compliance regime.

But in the first year of compliance reporting, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority found NSW had exceeded what are known as the sustainable diversion limits (SDLs) in three areas – the Barwon-Darling watercourse, the Upper Macquarie alluvium and the Lower Murrumbidgee deep groundwater catchments.

The state claimed there was a “reasonable excuse” for exceeding the limits, and that it was adhering to its draft water resource plans for all three.

The MDBA accepted that as a reasonable and valid explanation for two of the areas, but not for the Barwon Darling.

“The MDBA found that NSW did not operate in a manner fully consistent with the submitted water resource plan in the 2019–20 water year for the Barwon–Darling,” the report said.

All other states were found to be compliant.

The NSW independent MP Justin Field said this was another black mark against the NSW Nationals on water management.

“Communities will be furious that water management has been non-compliant over a period which included the end of the worst drought on record and the first flush event. To have extractions exceeding limits over such a critical period raises serious questions about who benefited from the failures to properly implement water sharing rules.

“These findings make it all the more important that downstream targets to protect the environment and communities are included as part of any floodplain harvesting licensing regulations in the Northern Basin, including in the Barwon-Darling.”

Read the full article here.

On 5 August 2021 the Australian Government's Office of the Inspector-General of Water Compliance (IGWC) became operational. Responsibility for enforcing compliance with the Basin Plan now resides with the IGWC.

Image:IGWC

The IGWC is described as an independent regulator and its Interim Inspector-General of Water Compliance is former NSW Police officer & former NSW Nationals Member for Dubbo from 2011-2019, Troy Grant (left).

As NSW Police Minister Mr. Grant did not always obey the road rules and in his two year and one month stint as NSW Deputy Premier he failed to impress. Between April 2011 and  2019 Grant was a minister nine times over - with three tenues lasting less than six months.

In 2019 he did not re-contest his seat at the state election and in 2020 he resigned from the National Party of Australia.

His appointment as Interim Inspector-General was not universally approved when announced in 2020:

 “They’re not even pretending anymore,” Nature Conservation Council Chief Executive Chris Gambian said.

“Troy Grant was in charge when some of the worst policy decisions that favour big irrigators at the expense of communities, farmers and nature downstream.

“Fresh from stinging criticism from ICAC about water management in NSW, the federal government has appointed the fox to be in charge of the hen house.

Pathetically low fines for non-compliance with rules enforced by the Natural Resources Access Regulator (NRAR) leaves Murray-Darling Basin irrigators in NSW laughing all the way to the bank with those dollars earned from what is essentially water theft

 

https://www.mdba.gov.au/importance-murray-darling-basin/where-basin

The State of New South Wales is currently not in drought. However, its rivers often have highly variable water flows so it was not surprising to find the morning of Tuesday 13 July 2021 revealing that WaterNSW State Overview real time data record showed that 14 of the state's rivers were flowing at less than 20%. While 15 of the state's principal dams registered volume levels at between 31.4% and 95.9% of capacity, with another 3 registering over 100% of recommended capacity.

Some of those rivers and dams fall within Murray Darling Basin boundaries.

Apparently - even in time of relative water plenty - healthy rivers, environmental water flows and intergenerational equity are not part of the business plan for many of the irrigators growing cotton, almonds, rice, fruit, vegetables, grape vines and other food & pasture crops - how else does one explain this?

The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 July 2021:

Nearly half of the biggest irrigators in NSW have made no effort to install meters that comply with new water laws more than six months after they became mandatory, an audit has found.

The NSW Natural Resources Access Regulator found that 45 per cent of large pumps that draw from rivers and creeks were not using compliant meters to measure how much water was taken, contrary to new laws designed to prevent water theft.

Only 23 per cent were fully compliant with a further third on their way to compliance based on evidence provided by way of invoices, product orders and emails confirming validation appointments.

NRAR’s chief regulatory officer Grant Barnes said there had been “a positive shift” in compliance rates since its desktop audit in April, which found two-thirds of irrigators were non-compliant, but there was still more work to be done with those water users who had neither installed the meters nor made an effort to do so.

“For us, this is about ensuring those water users who have done the right thing and have complied with the regulations get a fair go, and so these results will be disappointing to those people,” Mr Barnes said. “[Compliance] is also important to those who recognise the importance of a social licence for irrigators.”

Individuals who have shown no effort to comply face fines of up to $750 and irrigation companies face $1500 fines.

“The pumps in question here are gigantic, half-meter diameter straws that have the capacity to suck the lifeblood out of our rivers.”

Independent MP Justin Field

The meters were a central recommendation from the 2017 Murray Darling Basin Compliance Review, which found irrigator compliance in NSW and Queensland was “bedevilled by patchy metering, the challenges of measuring unmetered take and the lack of real-time, accurate water accounts”…...

Read the full article here.

NSW Forests War: State of Play November 2020

NSW Greens and a NSW Independent in the state parliament upper house placing the concerns of many ordinary people in regional New South Wales on the record.

Legislative Council Notice Paper No. 67—Thursday 12 November 2020, excerpt:

163. Remapping of old-growth and high-conservation-value public forests: resumption of the adjourned debate (8 August 2019) of the question on the motion of Mr Field:

(1) That this House notes that:

(a) the Government is planning to allow logging in thousands of hectares of old-growth and high-conservation-value public forests on the North Coast that have been off limits for decades,

(b) these forests are rare and important ecosystems which provide irreplaceable habitat for many threatened species, such as koalas, gliders, quolls, frogs and owls,

(c) they have been protected as part of the nationally agreed reserve system for decades and have been granted state significant heritage protection for their historical significance, including to Aboriginal people, aesthetic significance, research potential, rarity and valuable habitat,

(d) this process is being driven by a desire to access more timber, based on a Forestry Corporation calculation that new rules under the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals (CIFOA) to protect koala habitat and threatened ecological communities could result in a small timber supply shortfall of up to 8,600 cubic metres per year,

(e) despite advice from the Natural Resources Commission (NRC) that this wood supply shortfall “represent[s] the worst case scenario and may never be realised”, the Premier requested the NRC consider remapping old growth forests and rainforests to meet this shortfall,

(f) a pilot study of 13 areas of state forest found that remapping could open up 78 per cent of protected old growth forest to logging, despite all sites having vitally important habitat,

(g) the Government has committed over $2 million to this remapping process, despite this cost far outweighing the $1.5 million value of buying back the contracts for the maximum claimed timber shortfall,

(h) the funding is being provided by the Government despite the NRC recommending that any remapping and rezoning should be paid for by Forestry Corporation as the beneficiary, and

(i) remapping on private land has already opened up over 29,000 hectares of previously protected old growth forests to logging in recent years.

(2) That this House agrees that remapping old growth forests:

(a) breaks the Government’s commitment to no erosion of environmental values under the new CIFOA,

(b) is based on timber supply impacts that are not verified and probably do not exist, and

(c) is a subsidy to logging which exceeds the value of the extra wood supply.

(3) That this House call on the Government to:

(a) end the remapping and rezoning of old-growth and rainforest on public and private land,

(b) ensure no areas of forest currently protected will be opened up to logging, and

(c) conserve native forests to protect biodiversity, store carbon and provide new tourism and recreational opportunities—Mrs Maclaren-Jones. (15 minutes)

Debate: 1 hour and 45 minutes remaining.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

749. Ms Faehrmann to move—

(1) That this House notes that:

(a) the National Party has threatened to blow up the government in the midst of bushfire recovery, the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis over the new Koala State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) that aims to strengthen protections for koala habitat,

(b) the new Koala SEPP will have little impact on the majority of farmers across the state as it is only triggered at the point of development consent, and

(c) since the 2011 state election the NSW National Party has had ministerial responsibility for water, agriculture and regional New South Wales which has resulted in:

(i) a dramatic increase in the clearing of native vegetation and threatened species habitat with the winding back of native vegetation laws,

(ii) increased logging of koala habitat after the 2019-2020 bushfire season which saw 24 per cent of koala habitat on public land severely impacted and up to 81 per cent of koala habitat burnt in some parts of the state,

(iii) the gross mismanagement of the Murray Darling Basin including selling out downstream communities on the Lower Darling by over-allocating water to their corporate irrigator donors turning a blind eye to ongoing water theft in the Northern Basin including and pushing the Barwon-Darling River system into hydrological drought three years early,

(iv) incompetent management of regional town water supplies that saw multiple regional centres coming close to day zero, in some cases having to rely on bottled water, over the summer of 2019-2020.

(2) That this House acknowledges that the NSW National Party cannot be trusted to manage our land, water and environment and calls on the Government to strip them of their portfolio responsibilities and end their coalition agreement.

(Notice given 15 September 2020—expires Notice Paper No. 73)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BACKGROUND

The O’Farrell Coalition Government corporatized state-owned Forests NSW on 1 January 2013 and renamed the organisation Forestry Corporation of NSW. The company is headquartered at West Pennant Hills in metropolitan Sydney, New South Wales.

It is one of the largest forestry companies in Australia today and produces around 14 per cent of the timber harvested in Australia.

This corporation manages est. 2 million hectares of state forests, along with around 200,000 hectares of softwood plantations and 35,000 hectares of eucalypt plantations.

Est. 30,00 hectares of state forest are harvested for timber each year by more than 100 contractors who undertake harvesting and haulage and other aspects of its operations on behalf of the Forestry Corporation.

The combined take from state forests and plantations is around 50 million tonnes of timber annually.

Nominally all individuals and groups in the state are considered potential stakeholders in the Forestry Corporation of NSW. Except that all regional residents get for being stakeholders is an ongoing loss of both wildlife habitat and forest trees in the districts in which the Corporation operates.

The Corporation’s native timber harvesting is focussed on north east NSW and it is looking to forestry plans on private land and logging in currently protected forest areas to supply it with native timber into the future.

In October 2020 the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) commenced five prosecutions against Forestry Corporation of NSW in the Land and Environment Court for allegedly felling trees in protected areas in northern NSW, including trees in core koala habitat in Wild Cattle Creek State Forest.

This is not the first time the Forestry Corporation has been caught allegedly breaching the terms of its licence and I suspect it will not be the last.

Commercial logging is not the only issue of concern. So is land clearing generally.

According to the NSW Valuer-General’s Office, on 1 July 2019 there were 2,603,793 individual property lots in New South Wales.

Of these 238,842 are private properties zoned rural and classified as either non-urban, primary production, rural landscape or rural small holdings.

The NSW North Coast contains 56,095 or 23.4% of all these private rural property lots, the North-West contains 14,143 lots, Northern Tablelands 11,864, Murray 10,353, Hunter 15,950, Hunter Coast 6,357, Central West 20,688, Central Tablelands 18,972, Riverina 17,924, South Coast 18,974, South East Regional 20,164, Sydney Central 3, Sydney Coast South 11, and Sydney Coast North 1,208. 

Currently owners of those private rural properties which are situated near bushland in 10/50 Entitlement Clearing Areas have an almost unfettered right to clear trees within 10 metres of their house and farm sheds, as well as underlying vegetation under trees for a further 50 metres, as a bushfire protection measure.

However, in addition to this proven effective bushfire measure, now the Berejiklian Government is also progressing another amendment introduced to the Legislative Assembly on 10 November 2020 - this time an amendment to the Rural Fires Act 1979 titled Bushfires Legislation Amendment Bill 2020.

This amendment if passed will allow the owners of all 238,842 of these private rural properties in New South Wales to clear trees and vegetation within 25 metres of a property’s boundary with adjoining land and, lays down processes so that these landowners can ensure their immediate neighbours do the same - thus making the land clearance in effect 50 metres wide.

A specific measure that does not appear to be included in recommendations found in the Final Report of the NSW Bushfire Inquiry dated 31 July 2020.

A potential 50 metre open space on all four sides of up to 56,095 private rural properties on the NSW North Coast from the Mid-Coast to the Queensland border represents a significant tree cover and habitat loss.

Of course after 232 years of land clearing this degree of native vegetation clearing is no longer required on a great many properties because barely a tree stand survives in some districts.

This is an aerial view of a section of the Moree Plains showing its typical landscape in 2020:

According to the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, by mid 2018 bulldozing of bushland nearly tripled around Moree and Collarenebri after safeguards which existed in Native Vegetation Act 2003 were repealed by the NSW Baird Coalition Government, with 5,246 ha of Koala habitat destroyed at a rate of 14 ha per day in 2017-18.

Moree has a history of opposition to any checks on the ability to clear land. In 2014 this sadly led to the killing of an Office of Environment and Heritage compliance officer and the later conviction of a prominent landowner for murder with a sentence of 35 years imprisonment.

The Guardian, 27 March 2020:

Land-clearing approvals in New South Wales have increased nearly 13-fold since the Coalition government relaxed laws in 2016, according to a secret report to the state cabinet by its Natural Resources Commission.

The report, marked “Cabinet in Confidence”, was commissioned by the government in January 2019 under an agreement between the Liberals and Nationals to review land clearing if applications exceeded 20,000ha a year. The commission handed it to the government in July, but released it only after the Independent MP Justin Field threatened legal action…..

The commission found more than 37,000ha were approved to be cleared last financial year, almost 13 times greater than the annual average rate across the decade to 2016-17. Approvals jumped more than 70% after the rules covering land clearing changed at the start of 2019, rising from 25,247ha in the final quarter of 2018 to 43,553ha in the first three months of the new year. 

The commission found the extent of the land clearing and what is described as “thinning for pasture expansion” was putting the state’s biodiversity at risk. The government had promised to protect between two and four times as much land as it cleared, but had failed to do that in the majority of the state. 

It also highlighted the lack of an effective monitoring and compliance regime to ensure laws were enforced. In a six-month stretch between August 2017 and January 2018 there was 7,100ha of unexplained land clearing. It was 60% of the clearing in that time.... 

The Nature Conservation Council of NSW said the report showed the National party was incompetent. Its chief executive, Chris Gambian, said it was a damning assessment of how the government had handled what was supposed to be a signature reform. 

“This report is alarming because land clearing is a key threat pushing most of the state’s threatened species towards extinction,” he said. 

“Koalas and other vulnerable species are being smashed from every direction, by bushfires, drought, logging and land clearing. Land clearing is one of the few threats we can tackle directly, but the National party is preventing this government from doing what is needed.” 

Gambian called on the government to release regulatory maps that were still not available two years after promised.....

New South Wales 2020: the problem of water greed & outright theft

The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 September 2020:

The rapid growth of blueberry and other intensive farming in northern NSW has prompted a crackdown on illegal water use and sparked concerns about pollution in rivers and in the state's first marine conservation area.

The Natural Resources Access Regulator found 28 of 31 farms it inspected around the Coffs Harbour region in the first two stages of the clampdown were allegedly non-compliant with water laws.

The regulator said in the five years prior to the start of the campaign, agencies received more than 130 reports of alleged breaches in the region. "This potentially indicated a high level of non-compliance," a spokeswoman for the regulator said.

For the first two phases, the regulator ordered 13 farms to reduce the capacity of dams among 25 directions. Other actions include 20 penalty notices, with more likely after a third stage of investigations last month.

The problems stem in part from the conversion of banana farms to blueberries, raspberries and cucumbers, among other products, in the past two decades. Farms with set water licences have been subdivided, with new owners apparently adding bores, pumps and even dams on the smaller plots.

Water quality, too, has been compromised as the more intensive crops increase the use of fertilisers, pesticides and other chemicals. That's prompted the Coffs Harbour City Council to commission multiple studies by researchers from the Southern Cross University, among others.

One report found levels of nitrogen soared after rains as fertiliser from farms washed into rivers, reaching 695 times that of drier conditions.

"These [nitrogen oxide] loads were amongst the highest reported for catchments on the east coast of Australia, and similar to loads in rivers throughout China, Europe and India with strong agricultural or urban influences," the 2018 study found.

Shane White, one of the Southern Cross University researchers, said the Coffs region is prone to short, heavy rain bursts. Soils in the hilly area are typically shallow and sit on a clay base that limits the absorption of water, leading to significant run-off….

Breaches of NSW water laws have also been found in the Northern Rivers area in 2020 to date - 1 direction notice and 2 penalty notices have been issued to Clarence Valley LGA landowners, 2 direction notices to Ballina LGA landowners, 3 penalty notices to Byron Bay LGA landowners, 3 penalty notices to Lismore LGA landowners and 1 direction notice and 3 penalty notices for Tweed LGA landowners.

Water raiders show their ignorance and reveal the true motive for wanting to dam & divert water from the Clarence River

There are four councils currently calling for the diversion of water from the Clarence River system - Tenterfield Shire Council (NSW), Toowoomba Regional Council (Qld), Southern Downs Regional Council (Qld) and Western Downs Regional Council (Qld).

These local government areas have a combined population of est. 236,984 people.

Here is the aptly named Peter Petty from Tenterfield demonstrating his ignorance about the hydrological processes at work along the more than 380km length of this coastal river. 

He seems to forget there are irrigators already drawing water from the Maryland River, one of the main tributaries of the Clarence River where it rises at Rivertree, NSW and he appears to naively believe that harvesting between 20,00 to 30,000 megalitres from the total unallocated annual flow of 36,839 megalitres would have no effect on the Upper Clarence.

Even if the proposed dam capacity was only 21,000 megalitres that is equivalent to approximately 57 per cent of the average annual unallocated water flowing from this tributary into the Clarence River.

Mr. Petty is likely one of the people supporting an application to Infrastructure Australia to fund this large dam on the Maryland River, in order to pump pipe water over 45 kms as the crow flies into a region in Queensland which is quite capable of building water infrastructure within southern Queensland to meet the needs of its own population.

Just as the last time councils in the Murray-Darling Basin made a concerted effort to raid the Clarence River catchment when the hidden agenda was obtaining someone else's water to expand their own urban footprint and/or grow their own local economies, Mr. Petty let slip a similar hidden motive this time.

It's not about water to relieve current drought conditions because a project such as these councils are suggesting takes years to bring to fruition and will do nothing to ease current water shortages.

No, it's about conning the Federal, New South Wales and Queensland governments into backing infrastructure which will enable this blatant water theft because "they are looking to expand". 

The Daily Examiner, 5 September 2019, p.3, excerpt: 

On the issue of building a dam on the Maryborough River, Tenterfield Mayor Peter Petty said he was not concerned about the effect on the lower Clarence because of the small percentage of water being redirected. 

“With the research and everything that has been done up here, we are talking less than 1per cent,” he said. 

Cr Petty said the water issues regional councils faced now were in part due to a reluctance from governments to invest in water infrastructure. He said if people were serious about decentralisation, then more needed to be done to shore up water supplies. 

“We used to lead the world but there has been nothing done for 40 years,” he said. “I have no problem supporting populations to support industry, but you cannot do it without infrastructure to secure water. 

“These towns need to be supported, and especially where they are looking to expand. (Towns like) Warwick and Toowoomba should have had adequate water supply years ago and now we are playing catch up.”

The national scandal that is the Murray-Darling Basin continues unabated

On the morning of Friday 12 July 2019 NSW Water's real-time records showed that much of the Murray-Darling Basin river systems where they pass through New South Wales are still recording less than 20 per cent water flows, with some sections of the Darling River still regularly recording zero flows and water levels as low as 0.16 of a metre.  

Water sustainability and environmental water flows have been in crisis for decades within the Basin and no solution is in sight.

Here is a snapshot of the latest information........

ABC News, 7 July 2019:

Australian taxpayers have given a huge corporation more than $40 million, enabling it to expand irrigation in the Murray-Darling Basin under an environmental scheme that has been labelled a national disgrace.

Four Corners can reveal that more than $4 billion in Commonwealth funds has been handed over to irrigators, which has allowed them to expand their operations and use more water under the $5.6 billion water infrastructure scheme — the centrepiece of Australia's $13 billion Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

The scheme is intended to recover water for the rivers by giving farmers money to build water-saving infrastructure, in return for some of their water rights.

Some of the beneficiaries of the scheme are partly foreign-owned corporations that have used the money to transform vast tracts of land along the threatened river system, planting thirsty cotton and nut fields.

One of the biggest operators is Webster Limited, a publicly traded company that produces 90 per cent of Australia's walnuts and is 19.5 per cent owned by Canadian pension fund PSP.

Webster has received $41 million from the water infrastructure scheme to grow its empire in the Murrumbidgee Valley, in south-west New South Wales, where it has bought hundreds of square kilometres of land.

The funding covers more than half of an ambitious $78 million capital works program by Webster Limited to build dams to store more than 30 billion extra litres of water and irrigate an extra 81 square kilometres of land, developing much of it into prime, irrigated cotton country.

Maryanne Slattery, a former director at the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, says it is horrifying that a scheme designed to help the environment is allowing irrigators to use more water.

"That program was supposed to reduce the amount of water that was going to irrigation, when it's actually increased the opportunities for irrigation … all subsidised by taxpayers," she said…...

Read full article here.

Note: It should come as no surprise that Chris Corrigan - who attempted to 'bust' a union and rob Patrick Steverdores workers of their jobs & wage entitlements via a version of the ‘bottom of the harbour’ scheme - is Chairman of Webster Limited. 

See PatrickStevedores v MUA [4 May 1998] HCA 

ABC Four Corners, 8 July 2019:

Taxpayer dollars, secretive deals and the lucrative business of water.

"It's a national scandal." Water economist

Two years on from the Four Corners investigation into water theft in the Murray-Darling Basin that sparked a royal commission, the program returns to the river system to investigate new concerns about how the plan to rescue it is being carried out.

"How extravagant is this scheme?... I'd just call it a rort." Lawyer

On Monday Four Corners investigates whether the contentious plan has become a colossal waste of taxpayers' money.

"The Murray-Darling Basin Plan is a triple bottom line fail. It's a fail for communities, it's a fail for the economy and it's absolutely a fail for the environment." Business owner

The river system is the lifeblood of Australian agriculture but right now it's in crisis. It's experiencing one of the worst droughts on record, and with mass fish deaths capturing the headlines and farmers struggling to survive, many are saying the scheme is failing to deliver.

"I would characterise it as pink batts for farmers, or pink batts for earth movers. It all had to happen in a short space of time." Contractor

Billions of taxpayers' dollars are being poured into grants handed to irrigators in an attempt to save more water. Four Corners investigates exactly how the money is being spent.

"I'm a taxpayer. I don't agree with the scheme. I think it's actually too expensive." Farmer

Some irrigators say this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to transform their businesses.

"With a bold initiative, having the basin plan and the government investing in irrigated agriculture, you get an opportunity to basically reset... for the next 50 years." Irrigation CEO

Others question who is actually gaining the most from the generous scheme.

"We're degrading the rivers at the same time as we're handing out money to a few individuals to realise huge economic gains at public cost." Ecologist

For those with access to water, there are lucrative sales to be made. Water prices have hit record highs turning it into liquid gold.

"Anyone can come in and buy water. You don't even have to be a farmer...You're going to make money out of it, and that's what a lot of people are doing, unfortunately." Farmer

Others worry that the scheme is encouraging the planting of crops even thirstier than cotton, creating a potential time bomb.

"There's been an explosion in the production of nuts in the Murrumbidgee, and more broadly in the Murray-Darling Basin...This may well be a time bomb." Former water official

Four Corners investigates how the scheme is being regulated and whether water users and the authorities responsible are being properly held to account.

"We're talking about billions of dollars in taxpayers' money on a scheme that many, many capable and reliable scientists have said, this isn't going to work." Lawyer

Transcript of Four Corners 8 July 2019 episode Cash Splash is here.

Abc.net.au, 9 July 2019:

Two years on from Pumped, the Four Corners investigation into water theft in the Murray-Darling Basin that sparked a royal commission, Monday night’s report Cash Splash investigated new concerns about how the plan to rescue the fragile and vitally important river system is being carried out, probing the infrastructure grants scheme which is now the centrepiece of the $13 billion Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

The investigation revealed tens of millions of dollars intended to restore the Murray-Darling Basin is helping big businesses expand irrigation and access huge volumes of water that would have flowed into communities and habitats downstream.

The aim of the story was to speak with people who have first-hand evidence of how the grants scheme is operating. It drew on a wide cross-section of the community affected by the scheme, including farmers and irrigators who have received the funding or been involved in its expenditure, scientists and economists who have gathered and analysed data on its effects, community leaders, former government officials and current and former Murrumbidgee Irrigation staff.

The interviewees on the program were:

Julie and Glen Andreazza, NSW Farmers of the Year

Brett Jones, CEO, Murrumbidgee Irrigation

Anthony Kidman, former Murrumbidgee Irrigation Project Manager

David Papps, former Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder

Professor Richard Kingsford, Ecologist, UNSW

Richard Beasley SC, Former Senior Counsel Assisting the SA Royal Commission into the MDBP

Prof Sarah Wheeler, Water Economist, University of Adelaide

John Kerrigan, Earthmover and now irrigator and recipient of infrastructure grants

Maryanne Slattery, former Director of Environmental Water at the MDBA and now senior Water Researcher, Australia Institute

Kelvin and Glen Baxter, farmers

Prof Quentin Grafton, UNESCO Chair in Water Economics, ANU

Paul Pierotti, Vice President of the Griffith Business Chamber

Tony Onley, Business Development Coordinator, Murrumbidgee Irrigation

Emma Carmody, Senior Solicitor, Environmental Defender’s Office

Matthew Ireson, Grazier

Four Corners requested an interview with Environment Minister Sussan Ley, who is responsible for the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office and is the Member for Farrer, which includes the Murrumbidgee Valley where the story was filmed.

Minister Ley declined to be interviewed and her spokesperson told Four Corners no-one from the government would comment for the story.