The Murray Darling Basin Plan isn’t working for the Australian nation -It is time to look towards establishing a “Water Accord”. Our country desperately needs a larger and more productive economy to broaden GDP, taxation base, help governments fund essential services and better manage our long-term debt servicing and obligations. That debt has surpassed $1.1 trillion. It leaves Australia’s 10-year bonds at 5.27 per cent. The country’s interest payments, according to the Treasury’s budget, are at around $58 billion annually and has overtaken the cost of education, defence and the general public service. What is a Water Accord? An Accord represents partnership. It brings Basin states, irrigators, Indigenous and environmental stakeholders, regional communities and commerce and the Commonwealth together as equal participants in shaping the Basin's future. More importantly, it helps shape regional communities in food security and food Affordability. Water in the hands of a farmer is instant economic stimulation and instant underwriting of regional value adding capacity. A megalitre of water continues working for the Australian economy well beyond the farm gate. Unlike a plan, which is often perceived as a top-down directive, an Accord is built on negotiation, shared ownership and mutual commitment. Australia must prepare for the challenges and opportunities ahead. Those challenges include population growth, drought and geopolitical uncertainty. New demands upon water all need to be in the nations forward planning. Water is no longer simply an agricultural issue. We know the pitfalls of a Plan. While there is broad support for maintaining a healthy river system, the process of achieving that goal has too often been characterised by division, uncertainty and distrust. For more than two decades, communities and commerce across the Murray-Darling Basin have been disenfranchised from decisions affecting their livelihoods that have been made for them rather than with them. The productive capacity of the Murray-Darling Basin will be critical to feeding Australians, supporting export markets and strengthening our sovereign resilience. The value of irrigation extends far beyond the farm gate. Productive water underpins food processing, manufacturing, transport, logistics, wholesaling, retailing and exports. Every megalitre employed productively creates economic activity throughout the supply chain, generating jobs, investment, and wealth across regional and metropolitan Australia. Water and water infrastructure are vital. In addition, securing Australia's future requires more than protecting existing productive capacity. We should be actively investing in the appropriate infrastructure across the Basin needed that would come with an additional 2000 gigalitres of water. That infrastructure would be in the form of new storages, modernised irrigation networks, efficiency projects and strategic water security assets. Financed through 50-year intergenerational funding models, these nation-building investments would spread costs fairly across the generations that benefit from them. By moving from imposition to partnership, and from conflict to cooperation, we can build a Murray-Darling Basin Water Accord that underwrites healthy rivers, thriving communities and a stronger national economy for generations to come.
