The real economic, financial and human cost of water buy backs

Presentation by Geoff Kendell at the Water Forum: Saving the Basin from the Highway to Hell

CluBarham, Barham NSW, Australia Tuesday 31st March 2026

Geoff is the Water Forum convenor, and Co-Chair Central Murray Environmental Floodplains Group Inc, Cohuna Victoria

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Entitled:

What Governments Call Water Reform

The real social, economic and human cost of Basin policy and water buybacks in Southern Riverina and Northern Victoria.

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Good afternoon and thank you for being here.

Today, I want to speak plainly about what governments call water reform.

Because what governments call reform, our communities know as a highway to hell.

Through Basin policy and water buybacks, our river towns have been divided, weakened, and stripped back year after year.

The damage is real. It is economic. It is social. It is human.

And make no mistake — you are standing in the epicentre of that destruction.

This region, between Wakool and Deniliquin in New South Wales and Kerang and Cohuna in Victoria, has carried the burden of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

In fact, 83 per cent of the environmental water recovered under the Basin Plan has come straight out of the Southern Basin.

That water was taken from productive communities. And the consequences have been devastating.

For years, governments and the public had little understanding of what this Plan was doing on the ground. They didn’t live through the pressure. They didn’t feel the loss. They didn’t carry the mental anguish.

We did.

The Southern Riverina was hit like a Category 5 cyclone. Nothing was left untouched.

In Wakool Shire, irrigated agriculture was the largest part of the regional economy in 2011, producing $95.8 million in output.

Since then, the area has lost:

164 gigalitres of water entitlements

1,254 people

1,518 full-time workers

an agricultural workforce down 57.8 per cent

non agricultural private workforce down 42.2 percent

and critical social infrastructure, including their football, netball & tennis clubs.

 

When water leaves a district, it does not just hurt farms. It tears through the entire community.

And Northern Victoria tells the same story.

The Goulburn Murray Irrigation District was once one of the most vibrant irrigation systems in Australia.

We once used around 2,200 gigalitres of water.

Then came the $13.4 billion Basin Plan and a $2.5 billion modernisation project. Farmers were promised greater efficiency and lower costs.

Instead, many saw operating costs rise sharply — in some cases triple.

Then water buybacks took more users out of the system, leaving fewer people to carry the cost burden.

Today, with only around 750 gigalitres being used, the damage is everywhere.

Our region has lost:

• the Kerang Prime Lamb Market, once the 3rd biggest in Victoria 228,000 head
• the Kerang Prime Beef Market the 8th biggest in Victoria 34,000 head gone
• more than 60,000 dairy cattle gone
• over 1500 workers
• and over $1.3 billion a year in flow-on regional income
• Hay suppliers have lost 90% of their business.
• Wool buyers have lost 60%.
• Kerang once supported 10 stock and station agents. Today, only three remain.

 

And the damage does not end there. Major commercial and service businesses have shut down.

The Gannawarra Shire — once the third most productive region in Victoria — has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. Over the same period, it has lost 40% of its student population.

This is not adjustment. This is not reform. This is economic and social collapse.

And for years, governments told us there was no social or economic damage.

That was false then. And it is false now.

When the Sefton Report finally forced them to admit the truth, they still failed to deliver real support. There was:

• no serious adjustment package
• no proper transition plan
• no meaningful recovery strategy
• and not even a dedicated mental health specialist for the region

 

Then came the so-called Sustainable Communities Program.

Three hundred million dollars over four years, spread across three million people.

That is just $25 per person, per year.

And even that is misleading, because ordinary people never saw the money.

Victoria got nothing.

But the hardest truth of all is one governments still refuse to face:

Suicide.

They avoid the subject because it exposes the human cost of their decisions.

The Millennium Drought caused immense pain. But what followed has been every bit as destructive — years of insecure irrigation water, failed crops, failed pastures, stock losses, government-imposed overbank flooding, financial pressure, and relentless emotional strain. And on top of that, communities have had to endure the growing impact of water trading by those who do not farm the land, but profit from it for shareholders.

Farmers have worked in isolation, in extreme conditions, watching their livelihoods dry up in front of them.

They have paid the price. Their families have paid the price. Their communities have paid the price.

In rural Australia, men take their own lives at around double the rate of those in the cities.

For people aged 18 to 44, suicide is the leading cause of death. For those 44-54 the second leading cause in our regions.

According to Primary Health Network figures, over the 14 years of the Basin Plan:

• the Murrumbidgee region recorded 463 suicides
• the Murray region recorded 1,053 suicides

 

Many in this room will know someone behind those numbers.

So, when governments say there has been no social or economic damage, they should be made to answer this:

How many deaths does it take before they admit the truth?

And the danger is not over.

Any further loss of water from our system could spell the end of irrigation in Northern Victoria.

Every megalitre removed pushes costs higher for those who remain.

And this is not just a regional issue.

Less water means less Australian food and fibre. That means higher prices for:

• milk
• butter
• cheese
• meat
• fruit
• vegetables

 

It weakens our food security. It weakens our ability to trade. And it weakens the national economy.

When people hear 3,200 gigalitres, the number means very little.

So let’s make it real.

It is roughly equal to:

• one Port Phillip Bay
• plus two Sydney Harbours
• or more than the full capacity of the Hume Dam

 

And if that water were used in agriculture, it could produce:

• 84 million tonnes of rice
• or 6.4 million tonnes of wheat
• or 640 million kilos of beef
• or 48 million tonnes of tomatoes
• or 9.478 billion litres of milk

 

And if you take milk alone, at a retail price of $1.65 a litre, 9.478 billion litres represents around $15.6 billion in economic value.

Yet even now, too much environmental water is still being modelled, not properly measured.

That is not good enough.

You cannot run a farm that way. You cannot run a water system that way. And you cannot run a country that way.

We need a new approach.

We need:

• honesty
• transparency
• measured evidence
• secure irrigation water
• real mental health investment that is properly funded, resourced and staffed
• and respect for the local communities who live this nightmare every day

 

Because despite all of this, there is still enormous upside in our irrigation industries.

We have:

• great soils
• a strong climate
• skilled farmers
• and in Northern Victoria, one of the best water delivery systems in the world

 

What we need is simple:

water security.

Australia is growing fast. That means we should be building more water security, more infrastructure, more food production and more resilience — not tearing it down.

We should be investing in nation-building projects: a pipeline from Lake Argyle to Adelaide, and the groundwork for Ken Jury’s A Better Way — solutions that would have been far cheaper, and far smarter, than paying billions for water buybacks.

No other country in our position would keep stripping away its own food and fibre base on the driest inhabited continent on Earth.

COVID should have taught governments a vital lesson: Australia must remain self-sufficient.

But they still have not learned it; just look at the current fuel crisis.

All we need is vision. The belief to succeed. And the courage to proceed.

So, I will finish with this:

We know the damage. We know the truth. We know there is a better way.

The only question left is: when do we start?

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