Crowds gather in Deniliquin, Griffith and Leeton to protest Murray Darling Basin Plan water buybacks

Darren DeBortoli “This level of incompetence is off the charts.”

Member for Murray Helen Dalton (right) was part of the largest of the water buyback rallies, held in Griffith (left). Image: The Riverine Grazier / Margie McClelland.

By Krista Schade - November 29, 2023

Massive crowds gathered at three simultaneous rallies in Deniliquin, Griffith and Leeton last week.

The protests against water buybacks to reach Murray Darling Basin Plan targets was a National Farmers’ Federation initiative, supported by the Speak Up Campaign.

The rally included trucks, tractors and farm equipment, driven to each gathering by angry farmers and irrigators.

Member for Murray Helen Dalton addressed the rally in Griffith.

“Premier Minns must do everything he can to protect rural NSW,” she said.

“His water minister Rose Jackson hasn’t stood up to protect us yet, but she still can.

“It’s not too late for Rose to do the right thing.

Ms Dalton slammed the buyback measures as “ill-conceived.”

Well-known in Hay, Darren DeBortoli was one of the 1,000-strong crowd at the Griffith rally.

“Fourty-four per cent of the south east of South Australia was swamps in pre-European times,” he told The Riverine Grazier.

“There were no natural waterways discharged to the sea.

“All this water debate has been going on. In the 1990s South Australia, with the help of $200 million dollars of federal government funding, started draining the region.

“The last drain was cut in 2011 so when the Water Act was developed and all the politics about the Murray Darling basin were going on, they were still digging drains. So now there are no fresh water inputs going into the Coorong and so it becomes hyper saline.

“And guess who they blamed? The eastern states!

“This level of incompetence is off the charts.”

Mr DeBortoli runs the active Facebook page ‘Murray Darling Basin Myths.’

Speak Up Chair Shelley Scoullar told the gathered crowd of 700 people at Deniliquin the “community deserves better”.

She reminded those present that at a previous local rally more than a decade ago, then Water Minister Tony Burke fronted a crowd of thousands and promised mechanisms to protect communities from impacts of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

“But now, current Water Minister Tanya Plibersek is prepared to tear up the protections, abandon communities and not even have the courage to front them,” she said.

She also pointed out that the government’s own data showed more than 3,200 job losses attributed to previous water recovery in the Southern Basin.

Mrs Scoullar said job losses due to water recovery are a clear case of government policy decisions leaving Basin communities worse off and undermining their capacity to adapt to change, much less prosper.

Minister Plibersek said she is committed to looking at options including on and off-farm efficiency projects and voluntary water purchases to deliver the target of 450 gigalitres for the environment.

"The Restoring Our Rivers Bill will rescue the Murray-Darling Basin Plan by allowing more time, more options, more funding and more accountability," she said.

"I don't want to see all this water bought - that's why I am extending timeframes to give basin governments more time to finish their water saving projects."

Member for Farrer Sussan Ley was unable to attend the rally, but threw her support behind the protests.

“Thank you to everyone,” she said.

“You've got off your tractors, you've left your farms, you've travelled to show the rest of Australia what we mean.

“I am working incredibly hard, as are so many people across the Basin, to overturn this ridiculous change to the Basin Plan that is being rammed down our throats by this awful, awful government.”