Offsets not yet on the table: Lovell

By Tyler Maher

Nov 30, 2023

Acknowledged: Member for Northern Victoria Wendy Lovell acknowledged the recent rally in Shepparton to protest against amendments to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Photo by Geoff Adams

Victorian Water Minister Harriet Shing was non-committal when quizzed on potential offsets to proposed water buybacks as part of the amended Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

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Member for Northern Victoria Wendy Lovell posed the question in state parliament question time this week as to whether the Victorian Government was prepared to offset water buybacks in Victoria to discourage Commonwealth-sanctioned buybacks and ensure no water was lost from food production.

Ms Lovell proposed that the offsets could come from an equal transfer of water from the Victorian Environmental Water Holders holdings into the irrigators pool.

“The Victorian Water Minister Harriet Shing must stop putting Labor first and Victoria second. It is time she stood up to the Commonwealth Minister Tanya Plibersek by finding a way to prevent water buybacks in Victoria,” Ms Lovell said.

“Buybacks will devastate Victorian communities in the Goulburn and Murray River irrigation area including Shepparton, Cobram, Echuca, Kerang, Swan Hill and Mildura. Irrigators need a minister who will fight for them and if Harriet Shing can’t deliver, she should resign.”

Ms Shing failed to give any assurance that she intended to intervene in any way to stop buybacks, but did speak extensively on the devastating dangers buybacks and the loss of further water pose for communities in the Murray-Darling basin.