The Australian Government committed $3.5 million over 2 years in the 2025–26 Budget to develop the Feeding Australia: National Food Security
Strategy. This was part of an election commitment from the Federal Government, backed by NIC and NFF.
The Government has now published a discussion paper for feedback, with submissions closing on 24 September 2025.
NIC will be providing a submission, and we encourage our memebrs to do the same. We will share our draft submission with you shortly.
The IGWC has published the Sustainable Diversion Limit Compliance Report for 2023-24, while the MDBA has published their Registers of Take.
The IGWC report found "All 78 SDL resource units assessed for the 2023–2024 water accounting year were found to be compliant. Those water resource areas without an accredited WRP (for the full water year), were also seperately assessed as compliant. Our analysis shows
water usage is actually 12% below the SDL.
The National Irrigators’ Councilshares the concerns of stakeholders regarding the halting of licenced environmental water
delivery in NSW but emphasises this is a dispute between the State Government and the Commonwealth Environmental Water holder, not
irrigators.
We have just put in our submission for the third Water for Environment Special Account (WESA) review - take a look.
Our key recommendation: "The Independent Panel take a broad view to examine the policy settings and decision-making on the use of
WESA funds to achieve enhanced environmental outcomes with consideration of socio-economic impact - to ensure WESA can be used
transparently to target priority environmental investments. We encourage you to explore the option to amend the WESA to ensure it can be
used transparently to target priority environmental investments such as community-supported constraints measures and investment in non-flow
complementary measures as evidence within the 2025 Basin Plan Evaluation and Sustainable Rivers Audit."
Thank you to our members who have contributed to this piece of work, and taking the time to provide feedback.
OneBasin CRC and the Australian Water School hosted on webinar on "the impact of climate change on crop irrigation requirements across
the Murray-Darling Basin".
We haven't had a chance to watch it yet, but you can view the recording online.
Here's the outline:
Irrigated farming in the Murray–Darling Basin faces increasing challenges due to a warmer and drier climate. With water supply
decreasing and irrigation demand rising, farmers need better insights into future water needs to sustain their crops and investments.
Understanding these changes is crucial for medium to long-term planning and for making informed decisions about crop choices and water
sourcing.
Join a panel of experts who are modelling the future irrigation needs of key crops in the Murray–Darling Basin under various climate change
scenarios via a One Basin CRC funded-project.
Join our panellists as they explore:
- Using existing climate, soil, and crop data to calculate potential changes in irrigation demand;
- How crop water requirements might change over the mid to long-term; and
- Initiatives to help farmers and irrigation suppliers plan for a future with higher temperatures and less water.
The 2025 Ricardo Water Markets Report was published this week. The report has really useful data on water markets, including on Cth water
buybacks. Worth a look!
Some quick facts:
Estimated value of commercial allocation trade in major southern MDB trading zones: $235 million
Annual average southern MDB allocation prices: $115 per ML in NSW Murray (above Barmah) to $177 per ML in NSW Murrumbidgee
Estimated value of major southern MDB entitlement on issue (including environmental and Victorian water corporation
holdings): $31.9 billion.
An interesting statement: "While the 605 GL SDLAM recovery is legislated under the Basin Plan, the recovery of the 450 GL
additional environmental water is an in-principal agreement between Basin states and the Commonwealth. In its first term, the Albanese
Government had pledged to recover the full 450 GL; however, there is no legislated requirement for this."
If there's one video those working in water must watch this year, it's this - Professor Forest Reinhardt from Harvard Business School talking to Andrew McConville at this years River Reflections Conference on water property rights (watch from 45 minutes
into Day 1).
Let us know your favourite quotes!
One of our favourites (1hr 18mins in) - in response to a question on what a future Basin Plan should look like: "If the subsequent
versions of the Basin Plan, can make water more and more like a normal commodity... just as if you own a piece of land... I think
that the more you can make water rights look like normal property rights, the more effective the system will be. I come from a country
where we can't even get to the starting line of that kind of thing."
The NIC team produced a quick overview of the MDBA's 2025 Basin Plan Evaluation and Sustainable Rivers Audit, saying (published
24 July, here)
the key findings were:
Environmental Targets met and overall positive environmental outcomes from the Basin Plan, despite some poor findings (native fish);
Strong points for the need for complementary measures;
Problematic socio-economic impact assessment, with changes not attributed to water reforms (e.g., external factors), or downplaying the
significance of the impact due to the method.
There are 32 documents published, some many hundreds of pages long – we continue to review in detail.
Today’s publication of the Murray Darling Basin Authority’s (MDBA) 2025 Basin Plan Evaluation and Sustainable Rivers Audit has found the
health of the Basin has improved, advising that “water for the environment is essential, but on its own is likely not sufficient”
[MDBA Overview]... The National Irrigators’ Council has described many parts of the Evaluation as refreshing and
a wakeup call needed to shape thinking in the Basin going forward and is calling for more quick thinking on how to determine and prioritise
a package of strategic environmental investments in these complementary (non-flow) measures to inform next steps on the Basin Plan, given
the Evaluation found this as a missing piece of the current Plan puzzle. [...]
Basin communities fear socio-economic impact assessments soon to be released by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) will water down
the true impact, overlooking community and industry-level data, in their Basin-scale assessment. “Basin Plan legislation requires 5-yeraly
Evaluations, but at a Basin-scale”, said Zara Lowien, National Irrigators’ Council (NIC) CEO, “we know the most severe impacts are felt at a
local community level, and within specific industries, but these impacts get smoothed out when the assessment zooms to the Basin-scale.” [...]
NIC Members agreed to a specific Position Statement on the reliability of water access entitlements to provide a clear message to
Governments on how decisions impact water property rights, as represented and agreed in the National Water Initiative.
This position statement was prepared in conjunction with our guiding principles.
NIC Members agreed to amend and update our Aboriginal Water Position Statement, and agreed to the following Position Statement titled 'enabling Cultural objectives in water management'.
This position statement was prepared in conjunction with our Murray-Darling Basin Position Statement and our Positon Statement on
reliability of water entitlements and our guiding principles.
On 26 June, members would have received an email with notice of two Special Resolutions for the upcoming General Meeting on 17th July
2025.
These include:
(a) A renewed Position Statement, retitled ‘Enabling Cultural objectives in water management’; and
(b) A new Position Statement on the Reliability of Water Entitlements.
We remind members that the General Meeting is for voting purposes only (on the blue box text), and no amendments can be made, now this
notice of special resolution has been issued. We thank those who have been involved in the design and review of these proposed policy
position statements.
Preparing for the 2025 MDBP Evaluation
We are preparing for the publication of the 2025 MDBP Evaluation, anticipated for mid-late July.
Given we may have some problematic socio-economic findings ('no measurable impact'), we are encouraging members to start preparing data. The
Evaluation is done at a Basin-scale, which means community and industry level impacts are smoothed over. This means, it will be a critical
time for us to have data to put on the table to stop an inaccurate or non-representative narrative forming.
We will be sending further information around shortly, including with key messages, to help us all get prepared.
In the meantime, some examples of the types of data we encourage you to start pulling together (and share with us), includes:
How much does your region/commodity contribute to GDP (most recent value, note trend will be upwards)
Has the area of irrigated production declined? Is there a trend (Note MDBA calculated this as part of their studies)
What is the population trend over time, can this be mapped to buybacks?
What did the MDBA’s own community reports say about your community?
Does a reduction in school age children match a reduction in education employment or other trend?
The Federal Government announced their invitation to Tenderers who hold eligible groundwater rights in the Queensland (Qld)
Condamine-Balonne catchment to submit a tender, for the sale of those water rights (either whole or in part), to the Australian Government
under Bridging the Gap. This is for up to 3.2 GL/y (long-term diversion limit equivalence; LTDLE) of groundwater comprising:
• 0.25 GL/y from the Qld Upper Condamine Alluvium (Central Condamine Alluvium); and
• 2.95 GL/y from the Qld Upper Condamine Alluvium (Tributaries).
A draft of our Consultation Expectations Guideline is now available for member feedback.
From our drop-in discussions, it was suggested that this forms a guideline to explain what we mean by good consultation, rather than a
'policy position' as such - but we want to hear from you on that!
You will see that this includes some key principles of our expectations, a scorecard to review consultations (linked to the principles), and
our commitments when engaging.
We intend to do a test of this scorecard, to develop some case studies of applying it in practice - stay tuned, and we will publish an updated version shortly (shared via our policy updates page in the members area).
This week, Dairy Australia released the first of its kind report using new independent, evidence-based, modelling has found continued
water buybacks under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan (MDBP) pose a severe, disproportionate, and avoidable risk to the entire dairy supply
chain and the region communities they sustain.
The results are clear and alarming: water buybacks, as currently proposed, are not just a policy tool – they threaten the viability of an
entire industry. Under two plausible buyback scenarios - the recovery of 302GL and 683GL - the analysis shows:
* reduced water availability
* significant increases in water prices
* sharp declines in farmgate milk production
* farm viability risks
* heightened risk of dairy processor closures, and
* community and supply chain impact.
Seeking member feedback on our draft position statement on Enabling Cultural Objectives in Water Management.
This forms part of our Policy Platform Update, and was developed following member discussion at our drop-ins - see page on members areas for more information, and to see all current drafts as they are updated.
Reminder - this is now the time to have your say in the design and development of our policy positions, we cannot make changes on voting day
at the General Meeting.
