ID :
11264
Wed, 07/02/2008 - 10:30
Auther :
Shortlink :
http://m.oananews.org//node/11264
The shortlink copeid
Crucial Murray-Darling deal likely soon
(AAP) - The deal to save the nation's largest river system is due to be clinched on Thursday - and experts warn it's the last chance to get it right.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's meeting with state premiers in Sydney is scheduled to
finalise the rescue plan for the parched Murray-Darling basin.
The initial deal to rescue the prime agricultural reason was announced with much
fanfare in March after 14 months of negotiations.
It covers nearly $13 billion in federal funding for the basin, which covers four
states and a territory.
Mike Young, professor of water economics at the University of Adelaide, said the
final agreement would be crucial.
"We have a river which is screaming for help," he told AAP.
"This is Australia's attempt to get river management right and the rest of the world
is watching Australia."
The Murray-Darling deal will take the form of an historic Intergovernmental
Agreement due to be signed at Thursday's Council of Australian Governments (COAG)
meeting.
It will establish how the basin is to be run as one entity, instead of separately by
the states.
And it will govern how the $12.9 billion river rescue plan will proceed over the
next decade, including $3.1 billion for buying back irrigators' water rights.
Prof Young said key issues to be addressed in the agreement were what the pace of
water reform would be, how water would be allocated, and how much water would be set
aside for the environment and for evaporation.
Governments had to consider whether the current four per cent cap on water trading -
which limits the amount of water which can be traded out of regions - would be
scrapped.
With the cap in place the government could struggle to buy back large volumes of water.
Prof Young said a sleeper issue was whether companies who planted tree plantations
should be made to pay for (or limit) their water use.
Emissions trading could lead to a proliferation of plantations because they could
net carbon credits.
Prof Young said plantations usually took water for free because they intercepted it
on the way into the river system.
But he said plantations' water use needed to be factored in to efforts to save the
Murray-Darling.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's meeting with state premiers in Sydney is scheduled to
finalise the rescue plan for the parched Murray-Darling basin.
The initial deal to rescue the prime agricultural reason was announced with much
fanfare in March after 14 months of negotiations.
It covers nearly $13 billion in federal funding for the basin, which covers four
states and a territory.
Mike Young, professor of water economics at the University of Adelaide, said the
final agreement would be crucial.
"We have a river which is screaming for help," he told AAP.
"This is Australia's attempt to get river management right and the rest of the world
is watching Australia."
The Murray-Darling deal will take the form of an historic Intergovernmental
Agreement due to be signed at Thursday's Council of Australian Governments (COAG)
meeting.
It will establish how the basin is to be run as one entity, instead of separately by
the states.
And it will govern how the $12.9 billion river rescue plan will proceed over the
next decade, including $3.1 billion for buying back irrigators' water rights.
Prof Young said key issues to be addressed in the agreement were what the pace of
water reform would be, how water would be allocated, and how much water would be set
aside for the environment and for evaporation.
Governments had to consider whether the current four per cent cap on water trading -
which limits the amount of water which can be traded out of regions - would be
scrapped.
With the cap in place the government could struggle to buy back large volumes of water.
Prof Young said a sleeper issue was whether companies who planted tree plantations
should be made to pay for (or limit) their water use.
Emissions trading could lead to a proliferation of plantations because they could
net carbon credits.
Prof Young said plantations usually took water for free because they intercepted it
on the way into the river system.
But he said plantations' water use needed to be factored in to efforts to save the
Murray-Darling.
