STRUCTURAL adjustment funds should flow to irrigation communities – not just irrigators selling back water – and some Murray- Darling Basin wetlands could be left to dry out while the system recovers.
Professor Mike Young put forward these bold ideas to more than 450 people at Monday's Griffith water forum as part of his plan for the Murray-Darling Basin, which has also been outlined to governments around the country.
The University of Adelaide Research Water Economics and Management head told the crowd, including frustrated irrigators, that as much as $3.5 billion in structural adjustment funding could be dispensed in a tender-based water buy-back scheme similar to last year's Coles-Myer share buy-back.
He admitted the Government would need to pay "well above market value" to secure water from irrigators, but said this should happen over three years, not be "dribbled out" during a decade of buy-back uncertainty.
Extract from The Land, Thursday, July 3.