Water for Sale: A Public Fraud

[duane]

I wonder how many of you realise the big scam committed on the public purse by the sale of water licences 10 years ago.

The Governments were advised that water in rivers and floodplains were ONE and THE SAME.

What happened? The Governments shut this advice down and sold licences from the river and the floodplains.

Clearly, this meant the same water was being sold TWICE. It was our water and now the licences were sold to the OPEN market.

We the public LOST a public resource,water and lost $$ big time.

Now an even bigger rort is being purpertrated on the Australian public purse.....we are being forced to BUY back our water for greatly inflated prices making these water barons rich at our expense. $3.1 billion has been allocated for buy back. And for what ...water that's not there!!!

The Government had NO right to sell it in the first place.

They lied about the water available and therefore overallocated it by 200% and more.

They created a huge market where licenses, which were sold could be traded on open markets and speculators like Cubbie look like cleaning up at our expense.

This is a GROSS derelection of duty of care of our precious environmental resource---WATER and we should ALL demand a PUBLIC outcry for such deception.

We should all demand that NO further $$$ be spent on virtual water and demand that Govts call in all the licenses thereby saving the country's public purse BILLIONS.


Controversial cotton producer Cubbie Station, which has long been accused of taking too much water from the Murray-Darling river system, is up for sale. Cubbie sits at the top of the Murray-Darling system near Dirranbandi on the border of New South Wales and Queensland. It is Australia's biggest cotton plantation and one of the largest private irrigation projects in the world, with a total land holding of 93,000 hectares. But the station's permits to divert and store more than 500,000 megalitres of water - enough to fill Sydney Harbour - upsets downstream river users in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. The latest valuation of the property is more than $450 million. Cubbie Group chairman Keith De Lacy says the company is selling up to reduce debt and recapitalise the business to pursue other farming opportunities. Recently Cubbie Station has come under financial pressure from banks. The international tender closes on September 30. The Federal Government has allocated $3.1 billion over the next 10 years to buy back water entitlements as part of its efforts to save the Murray-Darling Basin system. The Government says it is always open to buying water entitlements from willing sellers, but will not say if it will make a bid for Cubbie Station. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says purchasing the plantation's water entitlements alone may not be possible.
"As I understand it, the land and water entitlement for Cubbie are not separated, so that would create some problems in terms of purchasing water from Cubbie until those two entitlements are in fact separated." 'Government should buy'
Queensland's Natural Resources Minister Stephen Robertson says the Federal Government should consider buying Cubbie. "That is way beyond the capacity of any state government to give serious consideration to buying that property and retiring the water entitlements for the benefit of the environment," he said. "But that's where the Commonwealth has an important role to play - they've got a $3.5 billion water-buyback fund. "The Commonwealth should give consideration to this issue." The South Australian Government is calling on the Federal government to buy Cubbie Station. But SA Water Minister Karlene Maywald says certain conditions will need to be met. "We want to make sure that any water that is purchased for the environment does get to the environment, and that downstream users are not able to siphon off that water as it comes through the system," she said.
"I think it is critically important that the Federal Government negotiate with NSW to ensure that that doesn't occur on any of the purchases that they make for the environment." Queensland Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce says the proposed sale of Cubbie is a test of the Federal Government's plans to buy back water for the Murray-Darling system. "[It] would have been convenient if Penny Wong wanted to buy up water licences, then selective buying of parts of the water licences along the whole length of the system, it would be a good way to go about it. "If she wants to put her money where her mouth is, now's the time." 'Too expensive' However Liberal MP Bill Heffernan says Cubbie's water licences are not worth the prices being flagged. "The resource operating plan that's been issued in draft form, subject to a court challenge, is designed to give them a 469,000-megalitre water licence that hasn't been issued," he said. "The valuation of the farm is based on that licence being issued to them and then being sold back." South Australia's Independent Senator Nick Xenophon says the Government should instead takeover the Murray River system. "The risk is, based on the advice I've had from independent water experts, that if the water from Cubbie is purchased, it will simply increase the value of water licences in the Upper Darling," Mr Xenophon said. "[This] means that the Federal Government will have to buy water twice in effect and it won't mean anything for the lower reaches of the Murray.