No River Murray, no South Australia
The Murray-Darling Basin is the lifeblood of our state, writes Craig Wilkins, and we need to be the generation that saves it.
There is nothing more fundamental to life than water.
It is heartbreaking to see water tanks and dams across the state empty as we deal with the driest summer in 30 years.
South Australians have always been a little more water aware than most places. That comes with living in the driest state in the driest inhabited continent on planet Earth.
But simply being water wise can’t make up for a deep drought, which is devastating many parts of our great state.
And the less the rain falls directly on our soil, the more we become critically reliant on a healthy River Murray to bring water in from as far away as Queensland.
In an average year, around half of Adelaide’s water for drinking, industry, recreation and our gardens comes from the Murray. When our reservoirs in the hills dry up, that figure can be as high as 90%.
But that’s just Adelaide. The Murray also supplies essential water for the Barossa and Clare Valleys, and a pipeline from Morgan sends essential supplies to the Iron Triangle cities of Port Pirie, Port Augusta and Whyalla as well as servicing communities across the Mid North, Yorke Peninsula, and Eyre Peninsula.
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Murray water is also used to supply our urban rivers, like the Torrens and the Onkaparinga, with basic flows during dry periods – like we are experiencing now.
It is, and always has been, our state’s lifeblood.
Backing the river has been an electoral winner in South Australia ever since John Howard responded to the Millenium Drought with a groundbreaking national Water Act.
This month, federal water minister Tanya Plibersek flew into Adelaide and stood alongside federal colleagues including Senators Penny Wong and Don Farrell to update our state on how much more water we can expect to be returned to our parched riverbeds and floodplains.
Since the Albanese government passed the Restoring our Rivers Act in 2023 with the help of the Greens and crossbench members, there’s been a welcome shift towards more water purchased to keep our rivers and wetlands alive.
Irrigators have always bought and sold water, and now they can sell it to the government to return it to the environment where it’s needed.
There’s also been momentum to remove the constraints that prevented water from reaching the floodplains and backchannels that are home to so many of the Murray-Darling’s fish, birds and forests.
Commitment needed
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Labor is right to point out that the current federal government has done far more for the river in the last term than the previous Coalition government did in a decade.
However, the current Murray-Darling Basin Plan, which governs how the river is managed, is due to expire next year with no clear sense of what comes next.
Without a solid commitment from the next federal government to return the river system to health, any progress made so far is at serious risk of being lost. Especially as climate change and over-allocation of water for upstream mega-farms like cotton continues to rip away at the river’s resilience.
And that’s where the river can be deceiving. With an intricate system of locks and weirs and steady releases from upstream dams, the core river channel flowing through our state can often appear to be doing okay. But this hides a system that is struggling with declining water quality, fish kills, blue-green algae outbreaks and parched backwaters.
The clearest indication of disease is the continual need for dredging of sand at the Murray mouth, in a valiant attempt to keep it open to the sea.
We need to do better.
At present only 2 per cent of the wetlands in the Murray Darling – the life-giving kidneys that filtrate and keep the system clean – are receiving regular water for the environment to survive. But nothing can survive for years and years without a drink.
With the whole river management system up for review next year, South Australians are rightly worried that we might see yet another mismanaged plan, another devastating case of one step forward, three steps back.
Cranking up the desal plant will not compensate for a loss of river supply. Desal water is around five times more expensive. Imagine the impact of that on our household water bills and struggling businesses.
The next three years will decide the fate of our river. That’s well within the term of our next federal government.
That’s why it’s so important that SA voters hear from all parties and candidates about what they will commit to do to guarantee South Australia’s water security and the resilience of the River Murray ahead of election day.
The Murray-Darling Basin is the lifeblood of our state and millions of people rely on it for their health, community and livelihoods. Let us be the generation that helped save the Murray-Darling after years of neglect.
Craig Wilkins is the National Director of the Murray Darling Conservation Alliance and former head of the Conservation Council of SA.
