A sign proclaiming "a terrorist couldn't do a better job of destroying our rural communities" was just one of the many strong words aimed at the nation's decision makers during protests this week.
Rallying against the government's Murray-Darling Basin water buyback legislation, farmers, small business owners, community members and local government representatives in Griffith, Deniliquin and Leeton made their message clear:
No more water buybacks from farmers – there is a better way.
Accusing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek of being "gutless", the communities on the frontline of the government’s rewrite of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan have demanded the government instead embraces "the many options to improve river health without killing jobs and hollowing out Basin communities".
Organisations including the National Farmers' Federation, NSW Farmers, NSW Irrigators' Council, and National Irrigators' Council say the Water Amendment (Recovering Our Rivers) Bill 2023 is a complete and unnecessary rewrite of the 2012 Murray-Darling Basin Plan that had bipartisan and Basin State support.
They say this new ‘Plan', which is now before the Senate, abandons socioeconomic safeguards and expands buybacks without any consideration for Basin communities still struggling to recover from the impacts of water buybacks more than a decade ago.
NFF president David Jochinke said people in these towns are furious and they have every right to be.
"The government is tearing up the deal it struck with them and nobody has fronted up to talk to them about it," Mr Jochinke said.
"They’re making their voices heard today and the government needs to listen.
"The government’s approach so far has been lazy and divisive. Their tunnel vision on buybacks means we’re overlooking smarter ways to achieve a healthy river."
Last month, the Productivity Commission warned that in the absence of a plan for water recovery that includes all options, including those suggested by industry and communities, the government risks being seen as just chasing a volumetric target detached from environmental outcomes.
In recent years, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics has also analysed the effects of water recovery on water prices and the irrigation sector.
They found recovering water through buybacks or on-farm irrigation efficiency projects puts upward pressure on water prices, adding an estimated $72 per ML per year to water allocation prices in the southern Murray-Darling Basin.
"The scale and complexity of the water recovery means that achieving sustainable water use will always involve wider economic effects, including negative consequences for some farms and communities," the report said.
"Buybacks are the least expensive recovery mechanism but can have flow-on effects to regional economies as a result of reduced irrigated agricultural production."
Griffith City Council Mayor Doug Curran said they want to make sure they don't see a repeat of what happened to the community a decade ago.
"We had buybacks in 2012 when the Murray-Darling Basin Plan first came out and it decimated our confidence, it decimated our population and our economy," Cr Curran said.
"Anywhere that is irrigated is under threat by a government that seems hellbent on getting this [water] back through buybacks, as opposed to coming and meeting with us and talking through what solutions we might be able to put forward to them.
"Don't, based on an election cycle, make a decision that will satisfy some people, but decimate communities.
"We know that there was overallocation in 2012, but that overallocation has gone now. We've already lost 2500 gigs out of the entire system, another 450 gigs could push us over the limit."
Local farmer Glen Andreazza said the government needed to realise water was the lifeblood of communities right across the Murray-Darling Basin.
"You take enough blood from a human, they will die. Take enough water from an irrigation area, they will die too," Mr Andreazza said.
"Water is our lifeblood, we need it and communities won't survive without it.
"We've done the heavy lifting in the past 10 years, there's no more left. We've just recovered from the last 10 years of buybacks and now to have another one slapped on us is just going to be devastating and demoralising to everybody."
Mr Andreazza's message to politicians was to leave the socioeconomic safeguards in place.
"We need that left there for the protection of communities all along the Murray-Darling Basin, because we don't know who this is going to hit," he said.
"We need the Senate to vote against the Bill and add some common sense into the whole process.
"This issue is potentially one of the biggest reforms in Australia and there's been absolutely no consultation, especially in this town, and I don't believe in any other town that it's going to have a big impact on."
NSW Irrigators' Council CEO Claire Miller said the people directly affected by these decisions must be given a voice and they must be heard.
"It’s time for the Senate to step up and do what the government seems incapable of doing: listening and supporting a pathway forward that delivers healthier rivers without gutting communities."
