Murray plan 'could cost 10,000 jobs'

The federal government is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to restoring
environmental flows to the Murray-Darling Basin, a conference dedicated to the
system's future has heard.
A leading water economist told the Australian National University forum on Friday
that plans to return up to 4000 gigalitres of water per year to the basin's rivers
could result in 10,000 job losses.
But at the same time, an ecologist argues a High Court challenge is inevitable
unless much deeper cuts to irrigators' entitlements are made to protect precious
wetlands.
Economist Quentin Grafton calculates thousands of people are likely to be put out of
work if between 3000 and 4000 gigalitres are returned - although new jobs could also
be created to offset some losses.
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) has previously estimated about 800 jobs
will go as a result of boosting environmental flows.
"They are somewhere between 8000 and 10,000 jobs (that will be lost)," Prof Grafton
told Friday's conference.
"That's not trivial, but at the same time it's not 50,000, it's not 150,000 (which
are) some numbers I've read."
Prof Grafton, from ANU's Crawford School of Economics and Government, said the
buybacks will cost the commonwealth an average $300,000 per irrigator, or $5.5
billion in total.
"Those amounts of money into the basin communities will also generate jobs," he said.
The economist also argued that farmers and communities managed to survive the recent
drought "by acting in ways that increased their productivity".
Entitlements were slashed by 70 per cent between 2001 and 2008 but "that was
associated with less than a one per cent decrease in the gross value of irrigated
agriculture production", Prof Grafton said.
He said the MDBA's proposed basin-wide reduction in surface water use of 27 to 37
per cent was "much lower".
The conference was told that six per cent of the Murray-Darling Basin is made up of
wetlands and that some 6000 square kilometres are internationally important and
protected under the 1971 Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
Environmentalists argue 4000 gigalitres isn't enough to save them all, with the
authority suggesting that a 7600 gigalitre reallocation is needed for that.
An ANU ecologist, Jamie Pittock, believes if the government doesn't act on its
Ramsar obligations "then we will see ongoing dispute including legal disputes".
"There is a legal argument to be made to the High Court that because the Water Act
is predicated on fulfilling our obligation ... if the basin plan sets targets that
do not do that, that is not a faithful implementation of the treaty and therefore
the courts should intervene to ensure those treaty obligations are respected," he
said on Friday.
At the same time, more than 500 people gathered in the South Australian Riverland to
meet basin authority officials.
There weren't any angry scenes as seen in NSW earlier this week when protesters
shouted abuse and burned copies of the authority's guide.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said the government is keen to hear irrigators' views.
The man likely to chair a parliamentary committee which will examine the human cost
of cutting water use warned the authority's final plan wouldn't be approved if it
produced bad outcomes.
"If it's a bad outcome, it won't get through this parliament," independent MP Tony
Windsor said, adding he would stake his job on that prediction.
Flinders University's Chris Miller told the conference that, apart from the
parliamentary inquiry, "we actually need to have a similar kind of process that
takes place throughout the basin in the different communities".
"One of the problems to date is that the discussions have taken place primarily away
from the communities," Professor Miller said.
"We need ... a bottom-up discussion."



------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This email is intended for the use of the addressee only. If you receive this email
in error, please delete it immediately. This email may contain information which is
confidential and/or legally privileged. You must not use or disclose the contents of
this email, or add the sender's email address to any database, list or mailing list
unless you are expressly authorised to do so. The statements or views expressed in
this email are those of the individual sender and are not those of Australian
Associated Press Pty Ltd (AAP). These statements are not binding on AAP, except
where the sender expressly and with authority, states them to be. AAP is unable to
review the contents of all the email on its system. To the extent permitted by law,
AAP disclaims all liability for any loss or damage caused by the contents of this
email. www.aap.com.au