Murray-Darling Basin Plan: Dirranbandi changes tack in fight for survival over water buybacks
Updated
Dirranbandi, a small town on the Queensland-New South Wales border, has been crippled by the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
But now the local council wants to reframe the debate over water buybacks as it continues to fight for the community's survival.
The Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) released its Northern Basin review late last year, finding that many towns in southern Queensland and southern NSW had been heavily impacted by the basin plan.
As a result, it recommended a reduction in overall water recovery targets for the northern rivers from 390 gigalitres to 320GL.
However, it left the Condamine-Balonne catchment still needing to recover a further 35GL from the region, a target that was strongly opposed in Dirranbandi, where the local school population had already halved and many workers had moved on.
Now, as the political debate over the Murray-Darling Basin Plan heats up, the Balonne Shire Council has decided to stop fighting over the numbers and step up the campaign for structural adjustment.
Mayor Richard Marsh and Deputy Mayor Fiona Gaske will travel to Canberra this week to lobby federal Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce.
"We need to go down to Canberra to remind them about what has happened to our community and that in the decision making going forward, we just cannot have any more impact in the Lower Balonne," Ms Gaske said.
"When we talk about recommendations and numbers and plans, for us it's about impact on our community and whatever we do to move forward.
"[You can] talk about cultural flow, talk about environmental indicators, but put our people first
"Understand that our community has been severely affected and in going forward, we cannot have any more impact on our communities," she said.
'Environment is winning over community'
The council said if the basin plan took more water, it wanted something back.
Greg Nicol, who runs an agricultural supplies business in Dirranbandi, said it was time the Government dealt with the socio-economic impacts of water recovery.
"I think morally, ethically and legislatively, they've got a responsibility somewhere within the Murray-Darling Basin Plan it actually says that there has to be a balance between environment and socio-economic.
"And at the moment, environment is winning … over community," Mr Nicol said.
In trying to reframe the debate, the local council said it was prepared to think outside the box, considering all options to help transition the economy, from boosting tourism to bringing a sheep and wool industry back to the region.
"As well as capacity building and implementation of those plans, we need help now too," Ms Gaske said.
"There are people here who are in dire straits.
"And it's not just about this bandaid.
"We don't just want people to fly in and pour buckets of money into our community and then fly out again, because that's not going to help us in the long term.
"It really is about having the capacity to develop sustainable infrastructure in agricultural industries and diversifying and then being able to keep that moving forward into the future," she said.
But solutions will need to come soon if the town is to be saved and, in the meantime, Mr Nicol said locals were tired of being treated as a curiosity.
"We very much feel like zoo animals.
"We just continue to get people coming out and poking at us and hoping that we smile maybe or give a funny expression or something and they go away we just need this fixed," he said.
Topics: agribusiness, water-management, environmental-management, dirranbandi-4486
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