Murray Darling Basin

Water is Essential to Life

The Murray Darling Basin supports two million Australians, producing $25 billion in food and fibre to feed and clothe the world. In a time of a growing world food shortage, both natural and man-made, basin agriculture must be treated as a resource for the world’s benefit.

Our native flora and fauna have evolved adaptive and resilient strategies to survive during drought. Over-watering under the Plan’s current negligent application is causing black water and killing native vegetation and habitat rather than saving it.

The world food crisis requires an updated plan which will restore our productive capacity allowing Basin farmers to once again feed and clothe the world.

Misguided environmentalism and mismanagement of our water resources has left the Coorong and Menindee Lakes as disaster zones, stripped of their former beauty. One Nation’s science-based approach will repair this damage without the need for taking any further water from irrigators.

The Murray Darling Basin Plan is Broken

During my campaign to return to the Senate in 2019, I learnt of the hardships that farmers all over the Murray Darling Basin were experiencing through the recent drought.

Astonishingly, Federal and State bureaucracies were wasting the water needed to sustain our farming communities through these tough times. Precious water was being wasted on disastrous, failed environmental projects at the expense of productive farming.

Upon being re-elected one of my office’s priorities was to understand the water crisis from the farmers’ perspective, listening to and learning about how the MDBA’s plan was working, and not working, in practice.

To get the knowledge needed from many perspectives, I undertook extensive travel through Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia over five trips.

There is an overwhelmingly consistent message; ill-conceived, politically motivated and unscientific government policy is causing the water crisis engulfing our rural region

It is clear we need to address many serious faults within the current MDB plan. This is our plan to repair the damage the Plan has caused and to return prosperity to the Murray Darling Basin.

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1.
RESTORE THE COORONG
Originally rainfall in South Australia’s South East flowed into the Coorong wetland & Lower Lakes, maintaining water quality. Yet from 1864 to 2011 South Australia built drains to divert this flow away from the Coorong into the southern ocean. This created productive farmland out of swamp land while causing the Coorong to become hypersaline. In 2014 the South Australian Government started a project to restore natural environmental flows away from the ocean back into the Coorong and Lower Lakes.

One Nation will provide full funding from existing MDB funding to complete Stage Two of the South East Drains Restoration Project. The 400+GL of surface and acquifer flows created will count towards the remaining MDB Plan acquisition.
2.
NO NEW WATER ACQUISITIONS
Projects currently underway when added to the new basin inflow from the South East Drains Restoration Project will complete water
acquisition.

No further water should be taken from farmers or communities in any State.

2.
3.
PROTECT THE MENINDEE LAKES
Menindee Lakes are an internationally significant wetland known as the Kakadu of the South. Fed by Queensland tropical storms, they hold water 8 out of every 10 years. The MDBA has drained the Lakes twice in a failed attempt to flush the Coorong and keep the Murray mouth open., decimating this amazing wetland. Menindee water should be used for the wetland, local irrigation and to support South Australian water entitlements.

One Nation will protect the Menindee Lakes, terminate the “new” Menindee plan, restore South Australia’s water storage and protect local water use
4.
TRANSPARENCY IS CONFIDENCE
Low quality data on water inflows, outflows and takes in the Basin make it easy to find fault with other valleys who may actually be doing the right thing. This undermines trust in the Plan.

One Nation will restore transparency and confidence in the Plan by measuring all Basin inflows and outflows and publishing the data.

4.
5.
END WATER SPECULATION
The Water Act mandates a transparent register of water trades. The MDBA spent $30m in 2012 trying to implement a register, failed and then simply gave up. In 2021 One Nation introduced an amendment to require the register be created and the Liberals, Nationals and the ALP voted this down. Water should not be owned by foreign corporations.

One Nation will create a transparent and searchable register of water trades to out the speculators and restore fairness to the water market. Temporary water should only be available to irrigators using the water to cover water requirements for their crop
6.
THE ‘WATER FOR LIFE’ WEIR PROJECT
Town weirs hold water that is critical to rural towns and to the myriad of wildlife they support. Developing weirs to increase water independence of rural and regional centres will improve rural drought resilience while creating local employment. One Nation will implement a Water for Life program to raise dam weirs to hold 5 years’ supply. This will include local environmental projects like fish ladders and carp eradication. Funding will be provided from the Infrastructure Fund and be built through the local Council with a strong emphasis on local contractors.

One Nation will implement a Water for Life program to raise dam weirs to hold 5 years’ supply.

6.
7.
MANAGE THE LOWER LAKES AS FRESH EXCEPT IN SEVERE DROUGHT
The “Lower Lakes” – Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert – filled with fresh water from the Snowy in spring and early summer, and from tropical storms coming down the Darling. During extreme drought the Murray ran dry and sea water filled the Lower Lakes. This preserved the health of the river and kept the natural sulphur sediment in place.

One Nation believes the Lower Lakes need to be treated as primarily fresh, with periods of sea inundation only during the most extreme droughts.
8.
BUILD LOCK ZERO AND PROTECT ADELAIDE’S WATER
Protecting Adelaide’s water supply is a high priority. During extreme drought any seawater entry into the lakes must be prevented from moving up the Murray. This requires a new lock near Wellington. An upgrade to the pipeline around the Lakes is required to ensure continuity of fresh water supply for communities and agriculture. The barrages use concrete blocks as gates, these can be cheaply upgraded to water tanks to allow for much faster and more effective operation.

One Nation supports building lock zero near Wellington and upgrading water supply around both sides of the Lower Lakes and upgrading barrages for safer operation.

8.
9.
SHUT DOWN THE COMMONWEALTH ENVIRONMENTAL WATER OFFICE
Watering state land with federal water has led to terrible environmental damage in State forests. The Murray, Goulburn and Edwards rivers have suffered severe bank erosion and capacity reduction resulting from sending environmental and conveyance water through at the wrong times for bank health.

One Nation will shut down the failed Commonwealth Environmental Water Office and return all environmental water to the States.
10.
DOWNSIZE THE MURRAY DARLING BASIN AUTHORITY
With the work of acquiring environmental flows completed, the Murray Darling Basin Authority is no longer required in current form. The MDB Ministerial Council must assume responsibility for decisions which rightly rest with Ministers and not unelected bureaucrats. Virtual meetings allow issues like water allocations to be settled fairly by Water Ministers, as they did under the old Murray Darling Basin Commission. The new Office of the Inspector General of Water Compliance should now take over to ensure compliance with the plan.

The Murray Darling Basin Authority should be downsized to an information gathering and reporting role only.

10.
11.
IRRIGATION WATER IS ENVIRONMENTAL WATER
Water acquisitions have turned large areas of formerly watered land into wastelands incapable of harbouring the native wildlife found naturally on watered farms. During the drought farm dams and irrigation canals provided irreplaceable habitat and a water supply for native flora and fauna.

One Nation recognizes irrigation water has a triple benefit – irrigation, the environment and strengthening local communities.
12.
INCREASE WATER ALLOCATIONS TO FEED AND CLOTHE THE WORLD
The global food crisis, natural and man-made, is getting worse with famine starting to take hold in some countries. Australia has an obligation to use the agricultural gifts we have been given to feed and clothe those in need. Meanwhile fresh water is being sent out to sea over the barrages at three times the volume necessary to maintain river health. This is a deceitful and criminal waste.

One Nation will increase water allocations to at least 110% of entitlement to increase production in response to the world food shortage.

12.
13.
BUILD MORE DAMS
Dam infrastructure is not keeping pace with Australia’s population growth; we now have 10 million more Australians since we built our last major dam.

One Nation will build more dams for drought-proofing Australia

The strength of our policy is the fact that it comes from people on the ground who know the issues better than anyone.

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