Dissenting views over Victoria's constraints management plan proposals

The Constraints Measures Program (CMP) explores how enhanced natural river flows could be delivered, 'piggybacking' on natural flows, while managing risks and impacts to public and private land, infrastructure, stock, crops and people.

The government has just released its final Constraints Feasibility Study, Technical Report and accompanying technical papers, which took two years to complete.

It found the majority of committee members recommended a detailed business case be developed.

But committee members Yea beef producer Jan Beer and livestock and crop grower Richard Sargood, Corowa, NSW, said the project was "neither feasible nor technically achievable.

Ms Beer, representing the Upper Goulburn River Catchment Association and Mr Sargood, of the Murray River Action Group, said they represented the views of landholders on the Goulburn and in the Hume to Yarrawonga catchments.

"There were no beneficial impacts from relaxation of constraints beyond Torrumbarry," they said.

Modelling presented to the committee showed relaxing constraints to 40,000ML/day (up from 15,000ML/day) between Yarrawonga and Wakool and to 14,000ML/day in the Upper Goulburn, had no benefit due to "attenuation and evaporation," they said.

"The Murray Darling Basin Plan is fundamentally a politically motivated plan, with the Constraints Management Strategy (2013) devised by the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA), in order to deliver greater volumes of environmental water downstream, with the aspirational assumption of achieving "enhanced environmental outcomes" predominantly in South Australia," the dissenting report said.

The authors found intended 'enhanced environmental outcomes' at the end of the system, as shown by the modelling delivered to the Constraints Consultative Committee, were not achievable.

"The beneficial environmental impacts of relaxing constraints in the mid-Murray and Goulburn tend to decrease with increasing distance downstream of the Barmah Choke," they said.

The authors found it was "morally reprehensible" to recommend proceeding with a project that was not feasible, in that it could not achieve the legislated objectives.

Under the contentious Water Amendment (Restoring our Rivers) legislation, up to 750 gigalitres of water could be recovered for the environment, through buybacks.

"The relaxation of constraints policy is the vehicle, which is to be used to deliver this vast volume of water," Ms Beer and Mr Sargood said.

"[It is] water which will be removed from the productive consumptive pool, thus endangering our food producing industries, manufacturing and processing plants, the nation's food security, the viability of the Goulburn Murray Irrigation District (GMID), along with damaging the Victorian economy and ripping the very fabric out of rural towns and communities in the entire Southern Connected Basin.

"To progress the constraints relaxation project, places landowners, communities and major rural towns and cities such as Shepparton, Seymour, Echuca in a particularly parlous and vulnerable position as the intent of this policy is to flood private and public land in order to deliver the proposed overbank environmental flow targets."

Ms Beer said the general tone of everything that was presented at committee meetings was consistently biased towards relaxing constraints as a feasible option, leading to a recommendation from most committee members that the project should proceed to the next stage.

"There were only three people on the consultative committee who had any 'skin in the game', that is who stand to be impacted by relaxed constraints or man-made environmental flood flows.

"We felt that our views and comments have been over-ridden by the majority of the committee, and the recommendations in the draft report did not reflect our opinions, or the majority of the people we represent hence this dissenting report.

"In fact deliverability is the elephant in the room that no-one, neither bureaucrats nor politicians will publicly acknowledge."

Storage of up to 40 per cent of environmental water in Hume and Eildon weirs meant that downstream communities were extremely vulnerable to increased flooding, particularly in wet years, when less environmental water was used, they said.

The dissenting authors recommended Ms Shing adhere to the original principles and policy, that all river flows remained in channel and that Victoria would not inundate private land without prior consent from landholders nor compulsorily acquire land or easements for the purposes of lifting constraints.

A Victorian government spokesperson said it was understood that there would be a wide range of views on the issue.

"But our position remains the same, any constraints measures need thorough and detailed community input," the spokesperson said.

"We will not be rushed into such a complex project without community engagement or knowing the full costs and benefits."