Water held back by the Federal Government should be released to irrigators in the Murray Darling Basin to arrest further job losses.
That’s the message from Member for Farrer David Farley who said a decision by major local employer SunRice to slash working hours for its workforce in Leeton and Deniliquin showed Labor and the Greens had gone too far with water buybacks.
“Water has become prohibitively expensive in the Basin thanks to buybacks, and this is despite the fact that more than enough water has been recovered for environmental flows under the Basin Plan,” Mr Farley said.
“Employers like SunRice can’t maintain their workforces at current levels if they have no crops to process, and this is a direct result of water prices going higher thanks to government buybacks.”
Mr Farley said that last week he’d asked the Commonwealth to release surplus environmental water, as per the rules, to irrigators in time for spring planting.
“Even unions were in Canberra last week lobbying for more water in order to protect jobs in Farrer,” he said.
“One Nation’s policy is to restore the balance to the Basin Plan that was lost when Labor and the Greens teamed up in 2023 to take more water from irrigators and river communities.”
