'Riddled with flaws': Group lashes water bill framework

Those are the thoughts of the Southern Riverina Irrigators Group on the draft framework behind the Restoring our River Bill, which was passed by Federal Parliament at the end of 2023.

The Restoring our River draft framework has the power to deliver 450GL of additional environmental water under the Basin Plan.

However, the group's chief executive Sophie Baldwin said it was "so riddled with flaws it should sink without trace".

Ms Baldwin said there was no way Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek could deliver this amount of water due to constraints in the system making that impossible.

"This farcical framework proves the 450GL is all about political gain and ideological fantasies and has nothing whatsoever to do with environmental outcomes and sustainable communities," Ms Baldwin said.

"Irrigation generates wealth for the Australian economy while feeding the nation, but just as importantly, it also underpins the success of our rural communities and keeps families in the area and, without it, we are nothing.

"Ms Plibersek talks about sustainable community programs as if they are the savior for us all, while the reality is something very different.

"If you take away water, which is the key economic driver of our rural communities and replace it with nothing, but a new park or football shed, it soon becomes pointless when people move away because there are no jobs and business close down."

Ms Baldwin said the Riverina doesn't want community adjustment.

She said thriving communities would only remain with a strong irrigation sector.

Ms Baldwin referenced the town of Wakool where in the early 2000s she said 34 per cent of the available water was purchased through buybacks.

"Total employment fell by 54 per cent and, within a decade, we had the closure of the Burraboi school, the football and tennis club folded, we lost the dairy industry and enrolments at Wakool Primary School fell from 50 to under 10," she said.

Ms Baldwin said the draft framework appeared to be be a document little detail and no substance.

"It does nothing but reiterate my view that Ms Plibersek thinks the fairies are going to ride their unicorns into the supermarket and put staple food products on our supermarket shelves," she said.