Read more: Darling plan overlooks communities: report 

Possibly one of the most insulting images was of Federal Member for Nicholls and Federal Water and Agriculture Minister David Littleproud laughing over a beer as they tried to sell the announcement following the meeting. What has changed? Basically nothing. The MDBP will still be pursued to its completion. Another 450 GL will still be removed from basin communities. Now some 10 years into the MDBP the devastation already caused by the flawed plan are more than evident yet our politicians of many different persuasions are determined to take even more water ignoring the evidence and submissions put to the Senate Inquiry into the MDBP several years ago. The so called selling point of the recent announcements is that water will not be taken from farmers, but it will still be taken nonetheless. It will be taken from community programs to deliver water savings. Have these projects been given extra funding or will they be funded out of the crumbs left for on farm modernisation projects?

However you look at it less water will be available to communities and more water will be used for the folly of trying to flush the Coorong with freshwater despite physical constraints of the river, or will be used to damage the environment with constant high river flows and overly regular flooding of areas such as the Barmah and Gunbower forests for example. With more water going down the river this will increase competition for the diminishing pool of water on the temporary water market creating a further win for speculators, investors and brokers whilst simultaneously destroying irrigated agriculture. Also worth noting is that we have seen several times now that a major speculator in the water market is the CEWH trading environmental water even though allocations hadn’t been met for irrigators returning many millions of dollars to the government.

Read more: Pushing basin plan with ministers

One of the many buzz phrases used to support the trading of water is that the highest value end use will be the commodity most able to purchase temporary water. This has already proven to be a failed ideology costing the GMID at least $500 million annually in losses. Yet the kicker in the tail of the announcements coming out of the MINCO meeting in Melbourne is that with a reduced pool of water driving up temporary water prices the ultimate highest value end use for water is domestic water supply which coincidentally is most able to recover costs because it can be recovered by relevant water authorities and councils via fees and rates.

Are the politicians conveniently hiding behind the claims of environmental flows as an alternative to making the tough decisions on meeting the growing populations' demands for town water supplies? So much easier for government to not have to argue with environmental groups and rely on their faithful voter base rather than address the tough issues. A question that needs asking is who is benefitting most from the MDBP? It isn’t agriculture, it isn’t communities and businesses and it isn’t the environment.

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