Adelaide, South Australia, 3 October 2024: The Federal Government continue their pre-election rush, with a flawed buyback tender process designed to over-estimate irrigator interest in selling water to the Government as part of the Government’s relentless pursuit of buybacks to achieve the additional 450 GL of water under the Basin Plan. This is despite Minister Plibersek’s assurances that all other options, other than buybacks, were on the table.
“It’s clear this process is all about the Federal Government wanting to go to the election witha fake statistic that helps them to paint a picture, they are swamped by interest in buybacks,” said National Irrigators’ Council (NIC) CEO, Zara Lowien.
“The Federal Government have designed this process to coerce as many people as possible to express their interest and ensure the Government, have all the cards when it comes to the market information come next year,”
“It’s blatantly designed to give the Minister an inflated statistic of buyback interest to take to the election,” said Ms Lowien.
The tender documents state:
‘Only respondents who submit an EOI in this first stage of the multi-stage procurement process are eligible and may be invited to participate in any subsequent requests for tender in 2025, arising from this EOI.’
‘Any response under this EOI is non-binding and considered to be an expression of interest only.’
“We are concerned this approach will give false signals, said Ms Lowien “Not just about interest in selling water to the Government, but also to the rest of the market, which will lead to hyper-inflated water prices.”
“It is a risky approach to market, which is likely to artificially inflate prices and send misleading market signals, that will impact every water user.”
“Ironically, this will drive up water prices for the Government, making their buybacks even less value for money and is questionable market behaviour.”
“The Federal Governments processes are inconsistent with their own water market reforms,” said Ms Lowien, “It’s unacceptable to tell people they must ‘get in now, or they’ll miss out’ when we know that is not how the process has to work but in doing so, the Federal Government becomes the ‘sole holder’ of the most comprehensive southern Basin water market information, at the exclusion of all others.”
“Most concerning, is this new announcement comes only weeks after a scathing report from the Inspector General of Water Compliance that called out the Federal Government for poor conduct in previous tender approaches.”
“Participants need to be confident this is a fair and equitable and that the Federal Government has processes to mitigate market shocks, manage sensitive information and provide good faith negotiations.”
“The Federal Government is likely to say this risky multi-step approach is to inform socio-economic impact assessments now required by legislation but with no detail on their process and the exclusion of community vulnerability information in the previous round, we aren’t convinced. We would like to see genuine approaches by the Government to protect vulnerable communities and avoid concentration of purchases rather than the promise of early intervention community support funding, which still isn’t agreed with the states”.
“Time and time again, we’ve seen this Government put politics over process and it’s not good enough, said Ms Lowien, “Previously this Government announced initial ‘oversubscribed interest’ in other tender rounds, but then did not proceed to purchase that water, for a variety of reasons including concerns with value for money, or interest being withdrawn.”
“We’ve had enough of these stunts from the Federal Government.”
“This process is clearly about trying to create an illusion they are swamped by buyback interest, to sell their false narrative to the Australian people before the next election, when all they are doing is likely manipulating the water market, impacting every user and ignoring alternatives to achieve better environmental outcomes throughout the Murray Darling Basin.”
Ends.
Media Contact: Zara Lowien, CEO National Irrigators’ Council
ceo@irrigators.org.au
0427521399