An Oaklands farmer has called the government's decision to introduce water buybacks "a political game" that will have devastating consequences for farmers and regional communities.
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"It's all about politics, it's all about Plibersek being able to say, 'give me the top job, look what I've done to get the basin plan completed' - that's all she wants to do," Geoff Moar said.
The new plan extends this deadline to December 2027 and provides more options to delivering the remaining water, including buybacks.
Victoria was the only state that refused to sign up to the new plan.
Ms Plibersek argues the amendments would safeguard the basin, which is projected to see a 30 per cent reduction in water flow by 2050 due to climate change and drought.
"This plan delivers more time, more money, more options and more accountability," she told Parliament.
Mr Moar, also the chair of the Murray Regional Strategy Group, said Ms Plibersek had bypassed the "neutrality test", a safeguard in the original basin plan to ensure farmers and basin communities didn't suffer socio-economic impacts from water buybacks.
"If you delete the neutrality test, she (Plibersek) can do what she likes," Mr Moar said.
"We're feeling very vulnerable and very concerned that the irrigation community will be drastically affected by what is happening."
![Bethanga Bridge, Lake Hume. Picture by Mark Jesser Bethanga Bridge, Lake Hume. Picture by Mark Jesser](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/205593064/277c1c4d-70e7-4f90-bbc8-f9237c6eb394.jpg/r0_0_3950_2221_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Upper Goulburn River Catchment Association representative Jan Beer said water buybacks couldn't be done without "creating a social and economic disaster".
"Plibersek is an idiot for what she's doing," Mrs Beer said. "If she wants to ruin Australia's food security and destroy agricultural production, she's going to do a bloody good job of it by doing this."
"If she buys back 450Gl - and she can buy back more than that if she wants to by changing the legislation - it will wipe out the rice industry.
"It will help destroy the dairy industry further; it will reduce wheat production and destroy fodder production for the beef and sheep industry.
"They have no idea what an economic disaster it will cause."
Mrs Beer said the excess environmental water stored in the Hume and Dartmouth dams will cause flooding.
"Those weirs will be even more chock-a-block with environmental water, which they can't deliver," she said.
"The idea was to send the 450Gl to South Australia, and they can't deliver it there because to get water to South Australia in the volume they propose, you would have to create a major flood like we had in 2016, which was an economic disaster for many people."
The Greens support water buybacks but want more stringent oversight mechanisms and rolling targets to ensure the water earmarked for the environment is recovered this time.
The Opposition is opposed to buybacks, saying it would jack up water market prices and have a flow-on impact on the agriculture sector.
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Member for Farrer Susan Ley challenged the independent member for Murray, Helen Dalton, on Wednesday, September 6, to ensure NSW does not allow buybacks.
"We have a local independent member for Murray who's spent much of this year doing photo ops with or on behalf of the New South Wales government," the deputy Liberal leader said on ABC radio.
"Can I say that Premier Minns and the Water Minister Rose Jackson have taken her for a ride. They've dumped her on a side road ... they've asked her to find her own way home because she has not been able to impact the one thing that matters to us most, which is water."
Ms Ley said as a result of Victoria not signing the new plan, NSW will be targeted for buybacks.
"The Victorian government stood firm ... they won't be coming to Victoria to buy water," she said.
"You know where they'll be coming. They'll be coming to the NSW Murray and Murrumbidgee, and that frightens me, alarms me and makes me incredibly angry ... but I am up for this fight.
"But I don't think our local state member is up for this fight."
Mrs Dalton hit back, saying, "Susan Ley doesn't seem to know how politics works".
"The Minns government is a minority government," she said. "They rely on independents like me to pass the laws they need to pass.
"Trust me, when independents like me talk, the government is all ears.
"My Private Members Bill does exactly what Ley wants, and that is stop the buybacks.
"Susan needs to focus on the rivers and the farming families that depend on the rivers and not on party politics."
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