There hasn’t been much commentary about the government’s announcements on the Murray-Darling plan – notably, the beginnings of large-scale buybacks of water rights – in the blogosphere so far; Quiggin thinks it’s good because they’ve announced they’re going to start buying back water; the only problem is that they’re not buying back enough. However, the ABC comes to the rescue with a a lengthy report from the Landline program.
There’s lots to chew on in this report – for one thing, it makes the excellent point that while rice may be a water hog, it’s one of the only things grown in the basin that can be planted after it’s clear how much water is available. And the stupidity of holding water in Queensland and northern NSW, much of it to just evaporate, while the Coorong dies is fairly dramatically illustrated.
But arguably the most interesting point in the whole report is that only around 100 GL – that is, 100 billion litres – of water allocations are traded annually. That’s a lot of water, no doubt. But at least an order of magnitude more than that needs to go back into the system, and needs to go back now. Not in a decade’s time. Now. If the government starts buying back water, the higher prices will undoubtedly cause more farmers to put their water allocations up for auction. But you’d have to wonder whether enough water will be voluntarily put up for sale to meet the river’s requirements.
The academic quoted in the report argues that the only fair thing to do would be to buy back all allocations, compensate farmers, and let them start again; but I can’t see that one flying. But compulsory water buybacks look inevitable if the Murray-Darling system is to be saved. And if you reckon you’ve heard screaming and yelling from the farm sector about the possibility of voluntary water trading, wait for the howls to start if and when the government proposes compulsory acquisition…
There’s plenty more in the report if you’ve got the time to watch it. Thoroughly recommended if you’re at all interested in the future of our most important freshwater system.
Peter Cullen, just before he left us, made the point on ‘Lateline’ I think, that annual crops should be given preference over perennials. Perennials require water merely to be kept alive in drought conditions and yet will not produce anything that or those years. That cuts out citrus, avocado and grapes just to name 3 major crops that have produced very little in the past couple of years despite having massive quantities of water poured on them.
The higher prices envisaged under a buyback of course amount to a direct subsidy.
Since I bought my licence a decade or so ago the price has more than tripled, so if it goes up even higher I could make a huge profit [relatively], particularly if I was the owner of a licence in the vicinity of a billion litres or so. There are 3 such in my eyesight now, so somebody is about to make a huge profit.
Not that I mind that, stop the buggers from using the water. But I won’t sell mine, I have already refused several offers, some from the govt., because I don’t trust them to allow the water to end up in the river and not somewhere else.
The other problem is that irrigators will only sell the water they are not using.
So the buyback will be on paper [mainly], it won’t translate into actual physical water in the river.
For example a major wine company I know was not using a few meg of water on one of its licences. So they donated it to the govt which proudly announced to the public that this water had been ’saved’ for the river. Which it hadn’t. Because it only existed on paper.
If the water actually physically existed, say for example it was setting in a dam waiting to be released downstream and then, after release, it was not used for irrigation but was used for the river, then we would have a saving.
But that won’t happen.
In actual fact the opposite is happening.
Water, which I didn’t use last year because because of quota restrictions, can be added to my quota this year.
I can double my quota usage this year.
I have [or had, I think I threw them away] the letters from the govt suggesting I apply for ‘carry over’ water which will became available shortly.
Except, of course, the water doesn’t exist. Somebody is playing silly buggers. Mind you it does mean that whatever increase in water coming down the river, if any, will be snaffled by the irrigators as ‘carry over’ at no cost [not even an admin fee for the application].
And, of course, if I want to increase the amount of water I actually use, I can buy licences for extra from elsewhere. Water that is not being used elsewhere can be purchased and used somewhere else. So the actual amount of water being taken out of the river increases even though official figures don’t show that. If I have a licence for 100 meg and a quota of 32% then I can use 32 meg of water. So I buy another 100 meg from someone who isn’t using it and use 32% of 200 meg. More water out of the river. And its a business cost so I don’t pay full tote odds.
Assuming the water actually exists in the river, but nobody really cares about that. The only way the actual quantity of water being taken out of the river can be measured is to have meters on all the pipes and that has only been compulsory for a few years and there is a gap between the intent [measure the quantities used] and the application.
Which is why I sit here and watch the river die.
Thanks for the explanations, H’sD. It helps us non-irrigators when listening to some of these programs.
Interesting. I wonder if there are figures on the amount of unused water allocations in the system?
The Landline program was interesting mostly for the perverse effects that the success of Australian wine overseas has caused – those grape vines all sucking water but not producing any fruit really should be ploughed back in, but the investment of time that the producers in question have got invested in their vines makes doing so a real problem. As they said, some farming decisions are simple (wheat or rice this year depending on how much water is available) but de-vining or de-stocking country is that much harder that it distorts the decision process. Of course, the cockies always say that drought is perverse and in the good years they do OK so hand over some more interest rate subsidies as I’ve got to pay off my new header/stock yards/last years overdraft.
There are also some very real animal welfare issues surrounding water use and availability for livestock which the program didn’t cover, but probably should have.
“Interesting. I wonder if there are figures on the amount of unused water allocations in the system”
Yes….somewhere, for the states individually I think, not overall. I found it online in a SA ministerial govt report a couple of years ago but dammed [little joke there]if I can find it now. It was the first time I had seen stated officially that which I had heard around the place, namely: “the total amount allocated is greater than the amount of water in the river”. But don’t quote that until I find the source again.
What you have to do is take the amount of water in the river, which varies annually and seasonally, from the allocation [or the reverse] and then see how much is actually being taken out for the various purposes.
A skilled net searcher should be able to find it in the mountain of reports online.
But don’t believe ANY of the figures quoted.
Strange things happen to measured amounts between the river and the media releases. Trust me on that.
I’m confused. I didn’t see the Landline program but wrt grapes the MDB recently scored a record crop of grapes, something in the region of 300 000 tonnes. It is by far and away the largest grape growing area (cf Hunter Valley at 20 -25 000 t) and my guess is that most of it would have to be drip irigation ie very efficient when compared with the other perennial crops discussed in relation to Peter Cullen’s preference for annuals if irrigation cropping is to be kept in the MDB. I’m not arguing that grapes be retained but it would be interesting to tally up how many prestigious labels come from the region and, ipso facto how much grape juice gets trucked elsewhere. Maybe the industry needs to recognise some limits to growth as a consequence of water limits in the ‘food bowl’ of Australia.
For pablo
This is the sort of thing that Cullen is/was referring to.
http://www.southaustralia.com/RiverlandWineFood.aspx
-”In the Riverland we crush 60 per cent of South Australia’s wine grapes which equates to 30 per cent of the Australian crush. We’re home to Berri Estates, the southern hemisphere’s largest winery and distillery”
-A lot of it is NOT drip irrigated.
-To avoid salt build up near the vine roots irrigators occasionally double/triple water the vines so that the water can go back underground into the river … complete with salt.
-the water quality we are talking here is not in thew same league as Hunter Valley.
-Most of the River Murray proper flows through semi desert areas, and watering is most intensive at the driest, hottest, windiest time of the year.
-And the Mildura region upstream is, AFAIK, even larger.
-And if you like your red wines I suggest you may find Hunter Valley reds just a little bit more upmarket than river red.
-MOST irrigation products are exported, we could reduce irrgation down to half existing production and have plenty for domestic use.
The Hunter Valley and the Riverland/Sunraysia regions are different worlds.
The ‘new’ Labor Murray-Darling Basin agreement is just as much smoke and mirrors as Howard’s last plan.
Even if they actually get to ’save’ any water by buying back water rights – half of that on paper saving is being returned to irrigators and not being returned as potential environmental flow for the dying river system.
The sad fact is there is not one government in Australia, in any of the three tiers, which really intends to act on water security or climate change.
They are all still doing fair imitations of Mizz O’Hara and intending to think about it tomorrow.
Kevin and Penny “I can say nothing for longer than you” Wong are intending to spend 3 Billion bucks and not achieve one Litre of flood mitigation work!
Naturally, the pseudo-left think this is great stuff because when the water is available, the party of millionaires and yuppies known in Australia as the Labor Party will be able to stop farmers producing some produce that they disagree with but that the masses throughout the world might want! SHH Don’t mention poor people and the prices of food as that would never do.
Up goes the price of water, up goes the price of food (to add to the insult to intelligence that bio-fuel is), up goes the price of everthing including bloody shopping bags; and the ‘Greens’ and thankfully soon to be extinct Democrats are hardly able to suppress their delight with the attack on standards of living. Look at the rubbish and the crocodile tears over the cost of petrol. Their religion demands carbon taxing! They want all working people to pay more much more! Time to talk about the weather and insist that water is ‘precious’ and that the river Murry is dying but nothing ought to be built in this land of drought and flooding rain.
Why not spend the money on as but one example the Clarence scheme? Then there would be no loss of production, as more water would have been added to the system as was done with the snowy scheme and the inevitable floods when they come will be able to be managed better.
But why stop there. Perhaps others at LP could inform us of their idea of the best priority for water redirection projects such as the Bradfield scheme that could open vast new tracts of land to help raise the world’s standards of living. After all the Chinese, Indians etc., will require lots of meat so there will be huge opportunities for farming in Australia. With construction cost falling so fast and counter cyclical projects regularly required to offset capitalisms recessions what could be better? A win all round with only the idiotic climate change cranks helplessly chanting that nothing can be done.
PS nice to see Kukri and Gladius growing again in Quorn, Pekina and Hawker etc
Can you point us to Mao’s thoughts on ecology and long-term resource management patrickm?
By the way, any wheat other than kukri would be a good sign – it’s what you plant when you’re not expecting any rain.
I can, FDB.
I see big pipes in the future, big Bradfield pipes. Siphon liquid from the Ord River Scheme to the Simpson Desert? It’s quicker by tube.
Can I say that hannah’s dad has provided enlightment to me on this issue. Thanks hannah’s dad. Most informative
wpd
Thank you.
“…to socialist, collective ownership in agriculture and handicrafts”
I think few would dispute that The Last Superpower collective are right into handicrafts. Or at least hand-tooled polemics, lovingly raised by hand to palm off on the masses as the seed of a new glorious morning.
Back OT. I feel the way forward here is for CSIRO to spearhead a Manhattan Engineering District-style project to create powdered water.
*rimshot*
Thank you, thank you. Don’t forget to tip your waitress. She’s taking me out after the show.