Tuesday, 11 August 2026

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (23:53): (2667) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Water, and the action I am seeking is for her to put a halt to the nine projects under the Victorian Murray Floodplain Restoration Project, or VMFRP. The VMFRP is the Victorian Labor government’s creative attempt to meet their environmental water obligations under the Murray–‍Darling Basin agreement. These projects have selected a small number of wetlands along the Murray to see if they can survive with less water. The so-called water ‘savings’ that these projects generate will be used to offset the government’s failure to return water to other parts of the system.

Naturally, being Victorian Labor, these are big infrastructure projects that cost an extraordinary amount, have no plan for funding them and have no evidence base to back them up. Three years ago the Productivity Commission released an analysis of the VMFRP, describing all nine projects as poor value for money and unlikely to be delivered on time due to budget blowouts and deliverability challenges. In 2024 Labor’s Minister for Planning Sonya Kilkenny rejected the Burra Creek floodplain restoration project, concluding that the engineered, managed flooding would cause unacceptable habitat loss and damage over 300 large old trees.

Just last month Wadi Wadi man Vince Kirby won a historic legal victory in the Supreme Court regarding the Nyah flood plain restoration project. Vince argued successfully that traditional owners were not properly consulted by the Victorian government, resulting in a flawed cultural heritage management plan and erroneous approval. He is taking on the Labor government again over the same failures on the related Vinifera flood plain restoration project. The Friends of Nyah Vinifera Park are supporting calls from traditional owners and calling for an end to these artificial engineering projects that use pumps and pipes to create unnatural flooding. Instead they are campaigning for genuine First Nations water rights and the removal of physical constraints to allow natural river flows, which is exactly what the science shows works and what stacks up economically.

But when it comes to water, this Labor government has form on ignoring the evidence. In 2023 the Murray–Darling Basin Authority commissioned and published a peer-reviewed report from the University of Adelaide which concluded that the studies relied upon by successive Labor water ministers to justify their Murray–Darling Basin policies were of low quality and not fit for policy advice. As of today not one of the nine sites is operational, and yet Labor are persisting with this expensive failing agenda. These are projects that will sacrifice our river red gums, birdlife, fish and river ecosystems, as well as the communities that depend on them, because Labor is putting the interests of the deep pockets of big corporate agribusiness ahead of everyday people and the environment. I urge the new water minister to do what her counterparts have not and listen to the evidence and traditional owners and put an end to the VMFRP.