Buybacks Driving Food Prices Up

Buybacks Driving Food Prices Up

For twelve years, farmers in Murray have been warning anyone who would listen: the Murray-Darling Basin Plan's constraint projects cannot deliver the promised 450 gigalitres to South Australia. Last week, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority finally admitted it in a closed-door meeting—the infrastructure needed to move environmental water downstream doesn't exist and won't work. Yet Federal Water Minister Murray Watt keeps spending billions buying back water that his own agency confirms cannot be delivered. This water sits uselessly in upstream storages, turning our communities into flood zones while achieving nothing for the environment. Meanwhile, the MDBA refuses to publicly state what they've privately conceded, protecting political careers over our livelihoods.

Here in Murray, we're not just talking about water—we're talking about the food bowl of Australia. As irrigation water gets stripped from productive use without functioning delivery systems, our dairy, grain, rice and horticulture production contracts. That flows directly to your checkout. Higher grocery prices. More imported food. Less resilience when drought or global supply shocks hit. Our population is growing rapidly, yet we're deliberately shrinking domestic food production based on a plan the government now admits doesn't work. I'm demanding Premier Minns withdraw NSW entirely from the Murray-Darling Basin Plan unless Federal buybacks stop immediately. The MDBA has admitted the delivery system has failed. Every dollar spent on buybacks is taxpayer money wasted—destroying regional communities, undermining our food security, and driving up the cost of living for every Australian family.