Victorian floods a ‘perverse impact’ of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan: Nationals MP

Nationals MP Sam Birrell says he is a “huge critic” of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan rollout and the Victorian floods are a “perverse impact” of the plan. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised financial support for flood-affected communities across Victoria at a press conference in Melbourne yesterday. “I’ve been a huge critic of the way the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has been rolled out – this is just another one of those perverse impacts of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan,” Mr Birrell told Sky News Australia. “The Murray-Darling Basin Plan involves taking a lot of water away from irrigation to be held by the Commonwealth … to be used when and if people decide they want to use it for environmental works. “Storage like Eildon was built to hold irrigation water … if that’s sitting there waiting for environmental use … it sits there in Eildon, and then when we get a rain event like this, potentially that can cause Eildon to flood and spill. “I just think we’ve got to have a really good look at how these storages are managed into the future and whether … engineering solutions can be put together to make sure we can create what’s called a bit of air space so that those storages aren’t full so that if we do get a rain event like this, the water’s got somewhere to go and not potentially towards a place like Rochester.”