Labor Murray-Darling Basin Plan water recovery brown tape plan kept secret

Despite Labor announcing money in the budget for environmental water recovery, including buybacks, the federal government's ability to use the funding is almost non-existent due to restrictions ushered in by the former government.

Water Minister Tanya Plibersek has repeatedly criticised the former government for tying its own hands with "brown tape" - which was "keeping the country dry" - by only approving environmental water recovery projects on the condition they had a neutral or positive socio-economic impact.

However, when asked if her government supported the socio-economic criteria or had plans to repeal it, Ms Plibersek did not directly answer the question.

Instead, the Minister pointed to a number of independent reports critical of the testing, including a recent Productivity Commission that found the "highly prescriptive" testing was blocking the delivery of the plan.

"One of the issues currently is there is no way of accounting for the positive benefits of water recovery," Ms Plibersek said.

"I don't think anyone would disagree that keeping the river running during drought - through strategic use of environmental water - was a lifesaver for communities. This sort of benefit is not considered in the current criteria, but is crucial for communities."

Nationals leader David Littleproud said it was clear Labor would attempt to ditch the socio-economic criteria, which he called a safety net for regional communities.

"It's the only way they can get their hands on the money [in the budget]," Mr Littleproud said.

"This will re-open the emotional trauma basin communities have faced. The reason that a safety net was added was because the original plan didn't consider the socio-economic impacts."

So far, only 2GL of the 450GL of environmental water has been recovered, but the socio-economic testing limiting the recovery can only be repealed with the support of the majority of basin state and territory governments.

NSW and Victoria, who would be the most heavily impacted by buybacks, along with Queensland confirmed they remain committed to the testing.

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South Australia withdrew support after a government report revealed the 450GL target could not be achieved by the mid-2024 deadline with the testing criteria in place, while ACT Water Minister Shane Rattenbury said given the slow progress, the basin states had to "review and rest" their approach, including considering whether the need for the criteria.

Ms Plibersek was asked if the government supported the 1500GL cap on buybacks introduced by the former government or would move to repeal it, but she did not address the question.

Mr Littleproud said the Nationals expected Labor to also try to revoke the cap and were preemptively engaging key crossbench senators on the issue.

The federal government can currently purchase another 269GL under the cap, which was legislated in 2015. The law could be repealed without the support of the states.

"Labor will ensure that the Murray Darling Plan doesn't have negative socio-economic impacts on communities," Ms Plibersek said.