Last year, the Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal, NSW (IPART) held an inquiry into NSW Rural Water’s maximum customer levy charges for its management services.
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They visited Coleambally as part of that process to talk to customers in the Murray and Murrumbidgee Valleys.
IPART has now released its four year draft determination report to 2021.
As part of the analysis the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) charges are in the spotlight as they continue to justify their role in regulated river operations.
The MDBA originally promised to streamline administration with a charter of natural resource management in the national interest.
However IPART’s report recommends increasing the MDBA’s charges for high security water users in the Murray Valley by a whopping 35 per cent over four years.
The MDBA was established under the Federal Water Act 2007 as the principal government agency in charge of managing the Murray Darling Basin.
WaterNSW who are our NSW river operators will be able to pass through the extra costs incurred by the MDBA in the Murray Valley.
Rural communities are expected to bear the brunt of increasing prices when there is little transparency around MDBA behaviour.
Rather than streamlining we have extra buck passing and cost shifting.
Environmental outcomes are questionable as the MDBA’s overriding mindset is to acquire an unwarranted amount of water.
We continue to see problems in our river systems such as native fish kills, black water events, river bank subsidence, drowning native vegetation, exploding carp numbers, cold water pollution, nutrient disturbance, frequent algal blooms and unprecedented flooding.
To add insult to injury the 350 plus MDBA team has been conspicuously absent from the southern connected system for an extended time with no apologies.
So why are we as southern irrigation communities paying for an extra organization which continually tests our patience and our pockets?
We would all like to see increasing efficiency in administration with the promised reduction of bureaucratic cost burdens.
The actual outcome seems to be yet another government entity picking winners and losers, pits valleys and communities against each other and expects all of us to pay them for the privilege.
Regional communities are now, more than ever, calling for a fair water pricing policy actually delivering on all the promises realising the future potential of the basin, productively and environmentally.
We need a focus on real outcomes, not dubious numbers.
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