Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee [Part 2], , 1:41:03 to 1:59:21
Officials discuss the impact of water recovery on food security and the scientific reporting used to evaluate environmental water outcomes.
Topics: Food security, Agricultural productivity, Water management
Speakers: Simon Banks, Phil Coates, Senator Malcolm Roberts, Speaker 19, Mr. Tony Chappel, Dr. Simon Banks
>> thank you, J. Thank you for appearing tonight. Uh, these questions should be pretty short answers. Has the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder undertaken any assessment of the extent to which Commonwealth environmental water holdings may affect Australia's capacity to maintain essential agricultural production and domestic food security. given the rapid growth in our domestic population and the need for agriculture to take a larger share of our exports to compensate for reduced manufacturing.
>> Thanks Senator. My name's Eduina Johnson um head of water policy division. So thank you for your question. So um what we've got and I see Mr. Coates has come to the table as well. What we've got is a set um of figures that compares gross value of irrigated agriculture product uh production in 20056 to 202021 and that was um a a slight increase from between $9 billion in 2005 to 9.8 billion in 202021 and that's due in the Maradala basin. Um nationally um for example the gross value of agriculture, fisheries and forestry production increased by 45% in the past 20 years in real terms uh from 69.3 billion in 20045 to 100.3 billion in 202425.
>> Okay, they're actual figures. Have you done any modeling of the tradeoffs?
>> Um so I can ask um Mr. the coach to talk about the modeling we did uh prior to um the uh purchase of the 450.
>> Yes. So have that modeling of the impacts on agricult agricultural production of uh the water purchases towards the 450 gig liters. Uh of the 300 gigs that's been approved for voluntary water purchase. uh the modeled impact of that is an impact of 122 million uh dollars peranom worth of agricultural uh production off a baseline of around 7 billion peranom uh in the Murray Darling basin itself. So it's about 1.8% of irrigated production there. Uh and uh yeah as my um colleague made the point that's you know the nationally the um total uh agricultural productions sort of hovering around that hundred billion dollar mark. So this question was um discussed uh at the Senate inquiry into the 2023 legislation and the advice of officials from the department of agriculture at that time was that um the scale of impacts from this marginal water purchase was not um such that would give rise to any concerns about uh impacts on food security or
>> what about rising production and falling manu riding rising population and falling um manufacturing? Well, I think
that Australia is and remains a country with a substantial um surplus of production and exports around 70% of our domestic agricultural um production. So um uh the department of agriculture again is leading that work on Australia's food security strategy and the discussion paper uh that they released on that um I think last year uh led with the comment that um the position of the a department Australia is a food secure nation.
>> Okay. Thank you. Has the Commonwealth environmental water holder modeled the interaction between its environmental water holdings and water availability for irrigated agriculture under prolonged drought scenarios?
Um in terms of the interaction between uh that those modeling results and um drought scenarios, we have uh again commissioned uh abears to do modeling of impacts of reductions in water supply in different climate sequences. Uh and that modeling um again confirms that the the overriding driver of changes in water prices and flow and impacts is is water availability. Um so uh yes impacts will be greater when if if water is less available.
>> So you've modeled climate variability and cyclical variability. So the
scenarios that we asked Abears to model were um not not a full climate sequence but just a simple um sort of I think it was quintile analysis of kind of what's it look like in the wetest 25% of years in the middle and in the dest um so they've produced a a report that sets out those figures which um we could provide for you.
has it assessed the potential impact on agricultural production of reduced consumptive water availability during periods of severe scarcity?
>> Yeah, I think that's the same severe scarcity as in extreme drought. The same basic set of parameters. I'd have the same I thought you the same report
>> excess going to Comwalth environmental water holder.
>> Well, I'm sorry. I'm I'm just talking about um water recovery under the basin plan which ultimately does find its way to the um of course the Commonwealth environmental water holder but this is within the within the water recovery target set out in the basin plan um and nothing beyond that.
>> Thank you. Has the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder consulted with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestries and Forestries sorry uh or Treasury about the economic and food security implications of environmental water management? Yeah, I
got to say it's probably not within the the remnant of the environmental water holder, but the department um has certainly consulted with the agriculture department on that. As I say, they provided evidence at the Senate inquiry into the restoring our rivers amendments in 2023.
>> Thank you. Has any assessment identified circumstances in which the management or temporary trading of environmental water allocations could reduce risk to essential agricultural production while maintaining critical environmental outcomes?
>> I'm not familiar of any modeling of of >> This is about changing rules around access to um
>> you recently announced a temporary trade
be um as the Commonwealth environmental water holder I can offer some uh perspectives on that and we trade is a uh is an option um in terms of my responsibilities. Uh the core focus uh of um manage management of the Commonwealth portfolio of environmental water is uh to protect and restore the environmental assets of the Murray Darling Basin and that's what we're uh we're focused on. Have we done modeling uh of what that looks like um from a a production perspective? No, we haven't. Our our core focus is on uh returning that water uh to the environment. We've got um really good evidence through over 15 years of science that really demonstrates uh exactly what can be achieved um through uh the carefully planned and adaptively managed water through um as the season unfolds.
>> Have you got a report illustrating that work or detailing that work? Uh,
Senator, the most recent report um we have on our website is a basin plan is a basin, sorry, not basin plan, it's a basin umwide evaluation. Uh, the most recent uh year that that work is uh so that's considering the environmental outcomes uh that we've achieved from um the management of water. The most recent year that that's available for is 24 202425. And that's because it does take some time at the end of the water year to sort of go through and um do the analysis of the results to understand uh and and attribute uh the outcomes to the use of the common water. But that that certainly demonstrates um and provides the evidence of the outcomes that we can
achieve. Does it als and this is not being cheeky but does it also include evidence of and reports on the excesses of water that have caused harm to the
Senator in terms of excess for uh that causes harm to the environment. I'm not like like we use the water uh to protect and restore the environmental assets um not to cause harm to the environment. Um and and again I think um what we've been able to demonstrate through the management, the planning and and as the season unfolds, we adaptively manage the water to make sure that we're contributing to positive outcomes. And that that might be um supporting water bird breeding um or providing habitat for water birds. Um can be to support the uh the movement uh of native fish or the breeding of native fish. Um uh building resilience of um our rams wetlands. So the internationally important Ramsar wetlands and we've got evidence that really shows that you know those sites that have received environmental water on a more regular basis are in a much healthier uh condition going into a drought but also coming out of droughts.
>> Following Thank you. Following on from the Guer Valley temporary trade of 15 gigal liters, will the Commonwealth environmental water holder consider further temporary trading of environment water allocations to reduce risk to essential agricultural production for Australia's future food security?
>> So Senator um we've got a range of tools that are available that's delivery of the water within the year to achieve environmental outcomes. uh we uh think about our carryover uh and again that's um water that can we can use uh next year um to achieve environmental outcomes and then as you uh refer to trade um we can uh I can basically sell uh temporary uh allocations or annual allocations um to uh also achieve environmental outcomes in terms of the guider we um basically uh look to tray uh sell up to 15 gig lers of order. Uh an important part of our I suppose transparency around our trade activities is uh I'll update our trade intentions on a quarterly basis. We'll consider a range of factors um in updating those uh trade intentions and that will be notification when they're updated and publicly announced. That's our notification to the market of the intentions over the next quarter. Uh and then we go into a process of sort of further understanding and detailing the sort of opportunities for trade uh in places that we've identified um we've we've considered we're considering trade through our trade intentions.
>> Okay, just a minor addition to that. Will the
>> this be close to your last then we'll go to a short break and then we'll finish off water.
>> Okay, thank you. Will Chube be looking to review their water trading process to adapt to agricultural planting windows?
>> So, Senator, my focus is about um protecting the uh protecting and restoring the environmental assets of um of the Murray Darling Basin. Um trade is uh is a tool that we can uh utilize um to uh achieve environmental outcomes and that's on the basis that the proceeds of trade um can be used to be invested in environmental activities or projects that also um that basically support the long-term outcomes that we're trying to achieve uh with environmental water.
>> But if you're going to sell it, can you sell it at the best time for farmers? Uh
look all those are considerations in terms of the trade intentions you know there's market considerations prime primary is environmental do you know what are the environmental demands at any particular time what do we need in terms of uh water perhaps for the next water year so we're thinking about our carryover uh and uh and then obviously thinking about you know from a value for money perspective um what's the best opportunity in terms of um of potentially selling alloc applications. They're all considerations that go into the mix. Uh and then what I'll do is uh notify the water market through our trade intentions uh of what we're current what we're considering and and our trade intentions at the moment are considering water uh trade in the Guide to the Gold and uh and Namo catchments. Uh we're currently in a process right now of uh updating those trade intentions and um when that's uh publicly available it will be uh we'll publish that on the uh on the website.
>> Thank you. Thanks J.
>> Thank you Senator Roberts. Um we will take a very short break now for 5 minutes uh which will be by way of comfort stop rather than tea break. We'll be back here in exactly 5 minutes and then I'm going to Senator PCO in our we go. Thank you, broadcasting. Um, it's