David Uren and Asa Wahlquist
November 06, 2006

AUSTRALIA’S water crisis has deepened with a warning from Snowy Hydro that it will not be able to meet its minimum flow down the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers.

Water trading has been suspended down the two river valleys as John Howard on Saturday called an emergency meeting with the premiers of NSW, Victoria and South Australia for tomorrow.

The commonwealth is expected to propose buy-backs of water rights and emergency allocations to irrigators most seriously affected, at the hastily called meeting.

NSW Irrigators Council chief executive Doug Miell said Snowy Hydro had advised the council that October flows into the system were only half the level of the previous record low. “It really does require a major rethink of how the water that is available is allocated,” Mr Miell.

Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Water Malcolm Turnbull, whose name is being canvassed for a broader environment portfolio in a ministerial reshuffle, said yesterday that the meeting was broader than the Snowy Hydro issue and would tackle the availability of water across the southern river system.

However, irrigators are counting on Snowy Hydro flows to provide a minimum stream.

Although the agreement governing Snowy Hydro allows the electricity generator to reduce flows below an agreed minimum in time of drought, the warning that it would do so will focus concern about the terms under which the scheme was corporatised.

Mr Turnbull said the Snowy usually provided only 1000 gigalitres of the 11,000 gigalitres flowing into the Murray, with the bulk of the total flow coming in winter and spring.

Since June, water from sources other than the Snowy had totalled little more than 500 gigalitres.


Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, who was not invited to the water summit, yesterday called for a special meeting of the Coalition of Australia Governments involving all states to deal with the water crisis.

He has also requested that his deputy, Anna Bligh, be included in tomorrow’s summit.

Mr Howard called the summit on Saturday after new data showed flows into the Murray-Darling Basin this year were the lowest on record, leading to warnings the three dams underpinning the basin’s southern irrigated farmlands would run dry within six months.

He said the meeting would discuss what immediate action could be taken. “The serious water situation in the Murray-Darling Basin requires a collaborative response from both federal and state governments,” Mr Howard said yesterday.