MEDIA RELEASE

As irrigators and environmentalists continue to question the impacts of the proposed Basin Plan, one sector stands to profit handsomely from the inevitable reduction in water diversions, according to water rights and environmental advocacy group, Fair Water Use (Australia).

The group’s coordinator, Ian Douglas, commented today, “Managers of water investment funds are eagerly anticipating the rich pickings that stand to be made from snapping-up high security water entitlements prior to implementation of the Basin Plan - and some have already begun to do so.”

“Australia’s laissez-faire attitude to management of its water resources continues to amaze overseas observers and is causing speculators to rub their hands in anticipation”, he continued.
 
Dr Douglas added, “Under the guise of “water reform”, the ongoing privatisation of Australia’s water resources has laid out the welcome mat for those purely seeking to derive profit from ownership of our water, and sadly the Basin Plan will unwittingly facilitate such profiteering.”
 
“These entities have little if any interest in promoting wise use of water and will merely seek to sell to the highest bidder, irrespective of the use to which water is put – and in so-doing will increasingly price many Australian farmers out of the market, in favour of offshore-based agribusinesses”, he concluded.
 
Irrespective of the laudable aims of the Basin Plan, Australians are rapidly coming to the realisation that privatisation of their water directly threatens the nation’s water security - and must demand the right to voice their opinion on the current water reform process via referendum at the next federal election.