INSTEAD of highlighting the failings of governments and authorities to ensure water use compliance in the Murray-Darling Basin, SA Murray Irrigators chair Caren Martin felt Monday night’s ABC Four Corners program “demonised” the industry as a whole.
“The program made it seem like non-compliance was an industry-wide problem, when not every irrigator is like that,” she said.
“And if irrigators aren’t being compliant, then why has it taken Four Corners to expose that? It’s up the MDB Authority to make sure people are abiding by their responsibilities and that metering is being done properly.”
Ms Martin believes the authority should also be better monitoring the actions of the NSW government.
“That’s their job,” she said.
“That’s why the Water Act 2007 created the independent authority, because the state governments weren’t doing the right thing.”
Ms Martin said a big problem was that, unlike irrigation in SA, NSW had only just begun to monitor and measure water use.
“We (SAMI) were always concerned that Darling flows were unregulated when the basin plan came in and NSW has been playing catch up since trying to regulate those systems,” she said.
“That is what should be reported on – NSW’s progress on regulating and monitoring with accuracy, not picking on a select few irrigators.
“It is disappointing that in 2012, in the lead up to the basin plan, that the federal government and MDB Authority didn’t do more work in that area.”
Another issue Ms Martin had was the report’s claims of taxpayer-funded environmental water being “stolen” by irrigators.
“Most irrigators are just taking their legal entitlement so if the state governments have over-entitled then that should be investigated,” she said.
“If irrigators are not reporting their usage properly or their meters aren't adequate, then that definitely needs addressing, but there should have been compliance letters and government officers follow it up.”
Stock and domestic irrigator Trevor Harden, who lives at Clayton Bay on the Lower Lakes, agreed, saying the program was “sensationalist journalism”, and any claims that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was “under attack” was alarmist.
“One senior bureaucrat acting unprofessionally doesn’t spell the end of the plan,” he said.
“I am glad that has been exposed and it needs to be followed through, along with the tampering of meters, but extractions in the Barwon-Darling have very little implications on the efficacy of the basin plan – it equates to a very small amount of the overall MDB flows that make it to SA.
“People need to remember that the Council of Australian Governments are meeting regularly and all governments say they are still on board with the plan.
“The basin plan is still in transition, so NSW should just be considered a work in progress and the rules are going to have to be continually monitored.”