VICTORIA’S Water Minister Tim Holding has accused the federal Opposition of selling the state’s water interests down the river after Brendan Nelson raised the possibility of using compulsory acquisitions to supply lakes at the Murray’s mouth.
Mr Nelson yesterday criticised Council of Australian Governments ministers for their lack of action on the Murray Darling Basin, urging solutions, such as compulsory acquisition of farmers’ water entitlements, to address the lower Murray crisis.
The Victorian Government became dead-locked with the former Howard government over ceding states’ powers in the Basin, claiming Victoria’s allocation regime is the most conservative, and it would not concede to compulsory acquisition.
Mr Nelson said the failure of the COAG meeting to agree on decisive action - such as raising the limit of water moved out of an irrigation district from four to six per cent - showed they lacked any sense of urgency. He said the COAG plan would ensure nothing was done until 2011 and stressed a rescue plan must be delivered next year. “There is water that can be released and, obviously, there are licences that need to be urgently bought back further up the river,’’ he said.
Mr Nelson also criticised the Victorian Government’s plan to take 75 gigalitres out of the basin for the north-south pipeline But Mr Holding hit back, calling the criticism hypocritical when Adelaide already had two pipelines taking water from the Murray.
He said the State Government was acting to ensure 3.5 million Melburnians did not run out of water, while still making the largest investment in Victoria’s irrigation system in history.
Mr Holding said the $2 billion Foodbowl Modernisation plan would save 350 gigalitres of water for the environment, some of which would find its way to the Murray lakes.