Northern Basin water recovery taskforce to visit Dirranbandi, St George, Chinchilla and Toowoomba

But locals remain skeptical of the meetings, saying they are sick of going in circles. 

Members of the taskforce will hold small round table meetings and intimate discussions with farmers, community groups and councillors in Dirranbandi (tomorrow) and St George (Thursday) to discuss the recovery. 

Meetings will be held in Chinchilla and Toowoomba on January 17 and 18.

Following recommendations from the Northern Basin review last year, the recovery total was reduced from 390 GL to 320 GL with 38 GL still to be recovered from the Condamine-Balonne.

The taskforce was established by Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce in November last year to offer recommendations on how to remove the remaining 38 GL.

Department of Agriculture and Water Resources taskforce head of water, Paul Morris said they were interested to hear from the community about what the impact of the recovery had been so far. 

“Certainly our aim at the moment is to listen to them, get ideas as to how we might go about recovering the water and hear from them in terms of what their concerns are so that when we put our report to the minister later in the year he will have that information,” he said.

“If to the extent that having people listen to them puts them at ease to a certain degree than that would be good but ultimately our aim is to get information from them to understand what the situation is on the ground and make sure that the government also understands that.”

Dirranbandi irrigator and president of Smart Rivers, Frank Deshon said the meetings just seemed to be going over old ground. 

“Everyone has had enough,” he said.

“They know where we stand on all these issues. We have put forward proposals where we believe there is solutions to the Basin Plan but it’s all falling on deaf ears.

“We have got better things to do with our time then to just keep going round and round in circles.

“If it is beneficial I will give credit where credit is due but we just seem to be going over old ground all the time, continuously.” 

He said the community wanted answers particularly with regards to the environmental benefits.

“We know the socio-economic disastrous effect it has had on our community so let’s have a look at the flip side and see what that 66 GL (already recovered) can do down the river to environmental benefit,” he said.

“I’m just skeptical of going any further down this track until they can measure what good the water they have recovered to date can do.”

Balonne Shire Council Deputy Mayor Fiona Gaske will meet with the taskforce and said she hoped no further socio-economic impacts would be felt by the community during the remaining recovery. 

“If their discussions give rise to talk about further water buybacks from the Condamine-Balonne I would be extremely concerned as to how this could be achieved without causing further pain for our community,” she said.

“I appreciate that the Deputy Prime Minister is concerned about the socio-economic impacts on our community however at the moment I feel that further pain is inevitable and that the taskforce has an impossible task really in terms of providing solutions that aren't going to affect us any further.”

Readers who would like to meet with the taskforce are encouraged to email northernbasin@agriculture.gov.au or call (02) 6272 5110.