Strong Support for National Water Audit
by Ian Douglas
In welcoming the call by Federal Greens Senator, Sarah Hanson-Young, for a national audit of water licence holdings, national coordinator of Fair Water Use, Ian Douglas, commented today, “We have longstanding concerns about the sale of water licences to overseas interests, as there can be little doubt that off-shore investors care less about the health of the Australian environment than the majority of our traditional farmers.”
Fair Water Use has been voicing concerns about this process for several years, and has been attempting to gain access to the database of water licences, but has been advised by the National Water Commission that such information is not publicly available.
Fair Water Use has been informed that water licences worth in excess of 300 million dollars are currently in the portfolios of off-shore interests. Recently, existing licence holder, United States-based company, Summit Global Management, announced its intention to acquire an additional 100 million dollars of water rights, focused on main systems such as the Murray-Darling.
Dr Douglas continued, “Australians are now faced with the double whammy of land and water licence purchases by overseas entities intent on using our all-too-limited water resources to enable mining operations on previously highly productive agricultural land; activities associated with a wide range of environmental and public health concerns.”
“As such actions place ever-increasing pressure on Australia’s already uncertain water future, Fair Water Use strongly supports the call for a comprehensive national water audit and extension of the powers of the Foreign Investment Review Board”, he concluded.
Further Reading:
- The Driest Inhabited Continent on Earth is Also the World’s Biggest Water Exporter!
- Who Owns Water?
- The Looming Global Water Crisis (Video)
- Water Worries
- Letters from Sri Lanka – The World’s Largest Water Harvesting Earthworks Project
We purchased a small block of land in the upper reaches of the Murray Darling basin, with the intention of producing something on it. Obtaining a reasonably priced water licence was going to be nigh on impossible, most likely thanks to these overseas investors pushing prices up.
Thanks Geoff. This is the same as we see with real estate – rich people buying up land/homes in beautiful remote villages, for their holiday homes, driving up prices so locals can’t afford to buy their own home in their own region. So it is with water.
Water really does flow uphill – towards money.