COMMONWEALTH GIVES GREEN LIGHT TO 8000 ML WARREGO WATER AUCTION

Queensland will go ahead with an auction of 8000 megalitres of water from the Warrego River after Prime Minister John Howard said there was no objection to the sale, Water Minister Craig Wallace said today.

Mr Wallace said, in a letter to Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, Mr Howard admitted the 8000 ML was “a small volume relative to the system as a whole”.

The Prime Minister’s March 25 letter continued: “As this proposal is consistent with the approved water sharing plan for the Warrego, I can advise that the Commonwealth Government has no objection to the Queensland Government proceeding with this sale.”

Mr Wallace said: “I welcome the Prime Minister’s concession that Queensland water planners and irrigators got it right on this issue.

“Our water planning for the Warrego was not flawed,” he said.

“In fact, Queensland does the most comprehensive water planning in Australia.”

The Prime Minister said in the same letter that Resource Operations Plans in the Condamine Balonne and BorderRivers could proceed without further delay.

The Commonwealth dropped its insistence that the ROPs be subject to a CSIRO review before they were finalised.

The 8000 ML Warrego allocation is less than 1.5% of the rivers annual flow.

If there is low flows or no flows in the Warrego the allocation cannot be taken.

Nearly 90% of the average annual flow of the Warrego passes over the border to NSW.

Of the total take of water from the Murray-DarlingBasin, NSW takes 55%, Victoria takes 34%, South Australia gets 6% and Queensland takes 5%.

Media inquiries: Paul Childs, Craig Wallace’s office, on 0407 131 654.