South Australia has been warned it will not be able to appease irrigators by negotiating its way out of a restrictive water-allocation cap.
The warning from Murray-Darling River Basin states comes despite massive inflows into the system.
The Queensland, NSW and Victorian governments yesterday rejected giving South Australian irrigators above-allocation entitlements for the rest of the financial year, insisting the state remain within a 67 per cent cap it negotiated with the other states during severe drought conditions early last year.
The hard line from the other basin states came a day after respected water experts such as Mike Young questioned whether the already full southern reaches of the Murray could absorb two significant peaks of Queensland floodwaters expected in South Australia within the next three months.
New Victorian Water Minister Peter Walsh had little sympathy for the Rann government.
“South Australia has received its full entitlement, but irrigators are on just 67 per cent because the Rann government made the decision last year to recognise carry-over without the storage capacity to honour that commitment,” Mr Walsh said yesterday.
“South Australia has been extremely critical in the past of the way in which upstream states manage water.
“They have been very strongly of the opinion that as much water as possible should be used to flush the Lower Lakes and the Coorong. It would be hypocritical of South Australia to now want to change those rules to suit its own purpose by allocating unregulated flows to increase irrigators’ allocations.”
Full allocations for Victorian and NSW irrigators on the Murray and Murrumbidgee river systems were restored last month.
However, the Rann government has said it cannot provide South Australian irrigators with 100 per cent water allocations because of an agreement with other states to not increase general allocations above the 67 per cent, forcing irrigators to spend millions a month buying water.
A spokeswoman for Queensland Natural Resources Minister Stephen Robertson said: “Like other jurisdictions, South Australia is expected to utilise water within its cap.”
A spokeswoman for NSW Water Minister Phil Costa also said the Rann government had to manage its allocations to ensure compliance with the cap.
South Australian Acting Water Minister, Jennifer Rankine, acknowledged that “to overallocate or breach the cap … would undermine South Australia’s position as an exemplary user of water”.
“The issue is not as a result of there being insufficient water available to the irrigation community in South Australia, but rather the distribution of that water during the transition from drought arrangements,” Ms Rankine said.
