ABC Landline interview with Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek

SUBJECTS: Murray-Darling Basin Plan, Water for the Environment Special Account

KATH SULLIVAN, HOST: Hi, I’m Kath Sullivan. A key commitment of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan can't be met, according to a new report. The plan initially required 2,750 gigalitres of water to be returned to the environment and so far, more than 2,000 gigalitres have. But a target to deliver an additional 450 gigalitres to the Basin by 2024 is falling dramatically short. An independent panel legally required to report to the Federal Minister says less than three gigalitres have been recovered. The report was provided to the previous government last year, but publicly released a few days ago. Earlier, I asked Water Minister Tanya Plibersek to explain what happens if the target isn't met on time.

TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has been with us for almost a decade, and I think it's completely unacceptable that this key part of the plan has been left to drift for such a long time. The Water for the Environment Special Account shows us that the money is there to deliver on this commitment - what's been missing is the will to do it. I think it's important that we work together across the Basin states to deliver in full on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. It's interesting that Liberals and, in the past, Nationals, have also said that they support the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in full. Now it seems, that we've got the Liberals and the Nationals fighting each other, the South Australians fighting other states and territories. It's not acceptable. We have a plan. We should stick to the plan.

SULLIVAN: To your government's response, though, when Anthony Albanese stood up in Adelaide in April and said that a Labor government would deliver the 450 gigalitres, did he intend to deliver that by June 2024?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, it's always been our intention to deliver the full Murray-Darling Basin Plan in full and on time. I think the fact that we're now dealing with information that the previous government kept secret does complicate matters. But I haven't given up hope. I am really determined to work with state and territory Basin Ministers to deliver what all of the states and territories have actually signed up to do.

SULLIVAN: Well, all of the states have also signed up to a strict criteria about how the 450 gigalitres of water can be recovered. Are you expecting that you may have to scrap that?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I'm going to work very cooperatively with the Basin State Ministers to deliver on the plan. That does mean looking at some of the settings that the previous government put in place. I am open-minded about how we achieve that and I'm still in the consultation phase with the relevant Ministers and with other stakeholders. But what we know from the Productivity Commission review of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, from independent reports from the Water for the Environment Special Account Report that I've just tabled, is that a number of the barriers that the previous government put in place really have worked against returning water to the system. I think you could call it brown tape introduced by the National Party in particular, to stop water being returned to the Murray-Darling Basin System.

SULLIVAN: Well, the second review of WESA has suggested it could cost almost $11 billion to see the 450 gigalitres recovered in full. That's not on time, and that's potentially shifting the parameters for the efficiency projects. Do you have $11 billion to spend?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I think this is another example of the problems of the brown tape that the Nationals have wrapped around the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. We know that there are efficient ways of returning water to the system and there are more expensive, less efficient ways of doing it. And it seems like every opportunity they got, the National Party made decisions that would make it more expensive and more difficult to return water to the river system. Now, that's terrible for the environment, but it's also not good for the communities that live along the river system.

SULLIVAN: It's not just the National Party. I mean, it was Victorian Labor Water Minister Lisa Neville who really led the charge to set that strict criteria. The Victorian government doesn't want to see any more water recovered at the cost of communities either.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I don't see it as being water recovered at the cost of communities. Communities benefit, the environment benefits, farmers benefit, all of us benefit when we meet the objectives of the plan, which is to return a certain amount of water to keep the river system healthy. We've got to remember what was happening before the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. We had a river system in crisis. The people who relied on that river system and the environment that relied on water flowing, all of that was in crisis. If we didn't have the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in place, 2019, the driest year on record, would have been a catastrophe for our river system. As it was, it was very, very difficult, but the river system survived. So when it comes to the role of state governments, I expect every state and territory to do what they signed up to do. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has been around for almost a decade. States and territories made agreements, the Commonwealth made agreements. We need to deliver on those agreements.

SULLIVAN: Yes or no - will Labor seek to repeal the cap on water buybacks?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Voluntary water buybacks are definitely on the table. I have said that we are considering a whole range of measures and I'm not ruling things in or out at this stage.

SULLIVAN: Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek.

END