THE future of the barrages, up-water over-extraction and the potential impact of water buybacks on local communities were some of the issues to come out in the early consultation of the SA Royal Commission into the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
In the past few months the commission, including commissioner Bret Walker, had been travelling across the MDB, with consultations held in Murray Bridge and Renmark, as well as further upstream, including Broken Hill, NSW, Mildura, Vic, and St George, Qld, ahead of the first hearing in Adelaide on Monday.
The royal commission was established by the former SA government in January to question the effectiveness of the Basin Plan after allegations of water theft arose.
At Monday’s hearing, Mr Walker said a key focus was on the lawfulness of the MDB Plan and the practice of determining the environmentally sustainable level of take.
Commission senior council Richard Beasley said the issues of buybacks was a concern in many areas.
“It’s fair to say that everywhere we went, the Commonwealth scheme of buying water entitlements from entitlement holders was at least unpopular with people other than sellers,” he said. “It was generally (thought to) damage the economy and social fabric of local communities, causing a loss of jobs.”
The over-extraction of water by cotton growers in the northern parts of the Darling and the unregulated development of permanent plantings were of most concern in Mildura, while in Renmark, the issues of floodplain harvesting and the salinity of Lake Victoria were raised.
Mr Beasley said the complexity of the basin made it “impossible” to sum up every view of the Basin Plan heard during the consultations.
“One thing, however, was a unanimous view, everywhere we travelled in the Basin, was that water theft was unacceptable,” he said.
Mr Walker said the outcome of the commission would have “particular and peculiar governmental interest to South Australia” as well as NSW, Vic, Qld, ACT and the Commonwealth.
