Irrigators like Tony Wass have been navigating the minefield that is water reform for more than a decade, but he said proposals to change the trading rules for water being sold out of irrigation schemes will bring the industry to its knees.
Mr Wass heads up Macquarie River Food and Fibre – a group of 600 irrigators in Central West NSW - and when there is water available he irrigates cotton and mixed crops on his property "Mount Foster", north of Warren, NSW.
He said the Federal Government has already bought about 15,000 megalitres of water out of the region and was taking advantage of the drought to buy water when farmers were stressed and needed money.
He said Minister for Water, Penny Wong, has set new guidelines which stipulate the ACCC set the rules to make trading water out of irrigation schemes more flexible, but argues the cost to the people left behind on those schemes have not been properly recognised and will cripple private irrigation entities.
There are hundreds of formal and informal irrigation off-river schemes throughout Australia which are set up to jointly run water through irrigation infrastructure which is owned and maintained by the group or corporation.
An estimated 400 groups are operating in NSW alone, and some schemes are already restructuring or contemplating closure if the trading rules don't recognise their ongoing costs of doing business.
And there is legal action already being mooted by schemes in the north and south of the Basin to protect their irrigation entities and fight the Government for fairer trading rules that don't favour the purchaser or the seller.
"The proposed guidelines being devised by the ACCC have the potential to destroy off-river irrigation schemes in Australia," Mr Wass said.
"The Government must put set rules in place that put impact neutrality between those who wish to stay and those who wish to leave.
"At the moment, the ACCC proposals for termination fees won't provide a sufficient amount of money for irrigation schemes to continue running in perpetuity when members decide to leave.
"The Government has come in and is over-riding existing constitutional arrangements within those schemes which were designed to ensure these schemes, which have been running for decades, would not go down the gurgler."
He said the ACCC had initially set no termination fees or conveyance loss parameters but fortunately through the review process irrigators had made some ground, but there was still a way to go, Mr Wass added.
"We accept that water has to be allowed to trade, but the Government needs to acknowledge the full cost of buying that water, and that includes the cost of leaving schemes and maintaining infrastructure.
"In our valley, for instance, the ACCC has recommended a termination fee of 11 times the operating and maintenance charges per megalitre, but in this area we have the data to prove the termination fee needs to be 15 times that charge to guarantee the scheme's operation in perpetuity.
"The law says the impacts on remaining members must be considered but this approach does not do that.
"We fear the government is trying to get its environmental water on the cheap without paying the full cost of trade, which includes appropriate termination fees."
A spokeswoman for Senator Wong said the Government was committed to reducing barriers to trade and ensuring that the full benefits of an efficient water market can be realised across irrigation communities.
"To this end the Government has extended the statutory timeframe for consultation by the ACCC on its proposed water market and water charge rules prior to considering the ACCC's final recommendations," the spokeswoman said.
"The Government has committed an unprecedented amount of funds towards investment in the future efficiency and productivity of irrigation communities."
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff