Australia’s Water Minister Signals Potential to Extend Murray-Darling Basin Plan Deadline

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek speaks during a stand-up in the Press Gallery at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on March 24, 2021. Sam Mooy/Getty Images

Minister for Water, Tanya Plibersek, has signalled that the Labor government may extend the 2024 deadline for delivering 450 gigalitres of water back into the Murray-Darling Basin after having recently labelled the target as “challenging.”

Speaking on Sky News on July 28, Plibersek blamed the Coalition for abandoning the targets while in office, saying that the Coalition had only returned two gigalitres during the decade they were in government.

“We’ve got a 2024 deadline to get the other 448GL. It’s challenging—I’m not going to pretend it’s not, it’s challenging,” she said.

“I’m looking at every option; every option is on the table to get to that target.

“But can I say in almost a decade the previous government returned 2GL for environmental uses for South Australia in particular, so in almost 10 years the previous government got two out of the 450 that they promised.”

Under the AU$13 billion (US$9.1 billion) Murray-Darling Basin Plan, which received bipartisan support in 2012 under the Gillard government and then legislated in 2013, a promise was made to South Australia that 450 gigalitres would be returned to the state as a condition for them signing up.

Plibersek added that she has been working with her South Australia counterpart Susan Close about how they could reach the target collaboratively.

Additionally, during question time in parliament on July 28, Plibersek said that Labor had contracted as much water—an extra two gigalitres—for the Murray-Darling Basin in two months than the Coalition had in the past decade.

However, NT News reported that the Coalition had in fact contracted 23.3 gigalitres to be returned while they were in power, despite only two gigalitres having being officially delivered.

Back-tracking on Key Election Promise

Nationals leader David Littleproud and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young have accused federal Labor for being in “breach” of a key election promise.

During the election campaign in the lead up to the May federal election, prime minister Anthony Albanese promised to deliver the 450 gigalitres in full by June 2024.

“There are tools available to the minister right now to start returning large volumes of water efficiently and cost-effectively to the environment,” Hanson-Young said, adding that federal Labor should lift the water buyback moratorium introduced by former Nationals leader Bar­naby Joyce so that farmers who want to sell their water back into the environment could do so.

“Any suggestion of delaying the water promised to South Australians will not go down well in the lower reaches of the Murray,” Hanson-Young said.

Littleproud also accused Plibersek for not understanding water policy, and said the water minister has instead shown “utter disrespect and disregard to the trauma that Basin communities have endured through this plan.”

According to a September 2020 report (pdf), water availability from drought, as well as commodity prices, trade barriers, and exchange rates are key issues affecting basin communities.

Plibersek has also promised to deliver a promise made by the Coalition in 2018 to provide $40 million that would allow indigenous communities in the Murray-Darling Basin to buy water for cultural and economic benefit.

Tanya Plibersek’s office has been contacted for comment but did not provide a response at time of publication.