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Iconic Toorale is gone, with no environmental benefit

There's a new national park in the far north west of NSW, but there are huge dark clouds hanging over Bourke, and in indeed Australian agriculture, as a result of the $23.75m purchase this week of the iconic western Warrego property, Toorale Station.

Federal Minister for Water, Penny Wong, and her new NSW counterpart, Carmel Tebbutt, might be celebrating their purchase along with the media and conservation organisations which campaigned long and hard for the Government to buy the property.

But the consequences of this purchase have enraged, saddened and frustrated not just the upper Darling community, but farmers everywhere, because for $23.75m the water from "Toorale" will do little to return water to the Murray Darling Basin; it won't be much of a national park; it takes an iconic and a highly productive farming operation out of production forever; and levels a huge economic blow at a struggling outback community.

None of this purchase makes sense, apart from keeping some Greens and city-based journalists happy.

If they'd taken just a day to have lesson 101 in "how the rivers flow" they would have found this property does not achieve what the Government wants it to.

"Toorale" is a floodplain property. The water in its storages cannot possibly be returned to the river, despite what SA Greens rookie, Sarah Hanson-Young, will have you believe.

While the Government says 14,000 megalitres in "Toorale" storages are available for immediate release, in practical terms this simply cannot happen without huge losses.

Future water savings are negligible given Toorale's water comes from overland flow. It can't be measured, and isn't reliable. Hardly bang for the tax payer's buck.

Meanewhile the economic consequences will hit Bourke like a tonne of bricks.

As Queensland Senator, Barnaby Joyce, said today irrigation properties can be purchased "but the effect of that purchase goes far beyond the farm gate".

"And even that could be tolerated if there really was a discernable difference to the nub of the problem in the lower lakes and Adelaide," Senator Joyce said.

"For every dollar of income that is lost directly from irrigation another $4-6 are lost to the local economy, so the Aboriginal people of Bourke can rest easy that the extent of our genuine approach to the apology to the indigenous people of this nation can well and truly be reflected in that we are now intent on destroying their local economy and leaving them in destitution."

The NSW Government won't pay rates on "Toorale" to the Bourke Shire Council, depriving the town of money that would have supported a full time member of staff.

The cost of managing the new national park could be as high as $3.2m a year, going on State charges to manage country at $36 a hectare a year.

Jobs will go, and the already battling town will become more ghost-like as locals and business owners look to a future elsewhere as their prospects dry up – or are sold up, in this instance.

And food security. Penny, can you please explain where Australians are going to get their lamb, bread and beef from in future if local production is going to be taken away from us?

In this whole environmental debate, food security has not entered the equation because those driving the debate for the Government to buy "Toorale" have always had the luxury of being able to purchase what they like when they like it – without having to think about who produces it and how it is produced.

Community anger about this sale is bubbling, and the sad thing is farmers are reeling at the thought that this is just the start.

As someone said to me today, this is a front page story, but not because it is so wrong. The city media think it is right, and we as a nation should be outraged. Iconic properties should not be taken from production when there is clearly no benefit.

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Posted By: LUCY SKUTHORP on 11/09/2008 5:19:16 PM | Comments (19)

Comments

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I wont pretend to know a lot about this.. but I have one comment to make.. you ask "where are we going to get our lamb bread and beef from if local production is halted?".. this is a fair question, but where are we going to get those things from if the murray darling dries up? I really don't know what the solution is..

Posted by Liam Oakwood on 11/09/2008 8:07:08 PM

So many whingers! There will be no jobs if the Murray Darling completely dries anyway! People can relocate, but our ecology is not so flexible.

Posted by Bob on 11/09/2008 9:12:36 PM

As a Bourke business owner and life time resident I am more than angry at the purchase of Toorale which time will show will acheive nothing like the benefits many uninformed people have been stating... But now it has happened it is not too late to at least dampen the blow by not turning Toorale into a National park with everyone losing, but take the water and then re-sell it as a grazing only enterprise.. at least there will be some benefit left.

Secondly why has no-one asked why the CAP has not been applied to Queensland. Barwon Darling irrigators had 67pc of their irrigation quantity confiscated, without compensation , a major blow to Bourke which no-one seemed concerned about. To make a real impact why haven't the Queensland irrigators been forced to give up 67pc of their irrigation the same as we have in NSW ...

Trev Randall

Posted by Trevor Randall on 12/09/2008 4:54:15 AM

She's a giggle all right. As a former neighbour of Toorale and having seen their operation first hand....I do struggle with some of the logic that went into the decision to purchase but I also struggle with some of the rhetoric as to the social significance of the purchase. Granted that Bourke is going to bear the financial brunt of the change but much beyond that.....doubtful. In terms of the water....no doubt. Toorale gets all of its irrigation water during high flows in the Darling......whilst Warrego water via the check dams supported the grazing side of the business and those check dams have been in place for generations...they ain't new. But in the end....the market wins. It is odd that Swire Group hasn't copped a pasting in the press for the lack of principles involved in selling to the Governments - perhaps that's just selective reporting - but who can blame them? There aren't too many other players out there interested in a big grazing property with an opportunistic and tiny irrigation enterprise substantially distorting the purchase price. Personally, I'd be cynical all round on this one, Lucy.

Posted by seano on 12/09/2008 7:39:13 AM

Seano, you raise a good point about Swire and Clyde not copping a "pasting" as you put it.

It is doubtful whether "Toorale" and indeed beautiful "Brewon", at the junction of the Macquarie, Castlereagh and Barwon rivers, would have been offered for sale under the previous leadership of David Boyd.

But with a changing of the guard to new managing director, John McKillop, there appears to have been a loss of the old community responibility and moral obligations and dedication to agriculture which once typified the company.

Indeed Clyde is part of the British-based Swire, but under David Boyd was a community engaged, local business supporter which pumped good money into the local towns, and supported lots of local employment.

David Boyd is also a strong believer in agricultural production and while still a Clyde director, would no doubt be devastated at the loss of "Toorale" from the company's hands, and from agriculture althogether.

It's a sad sign of a changing times at Clyde.

Posted by Lucy Skuthorp on 12/09/2008 9:17:39 AM

Get off your high horse and head down to the lower lakes. Have a look with your own eyes what has happened to the once mighty river murray. Its an national disgrace. Every heard of the term small steps? The purchase of Toorale is one small step forward. I do feel sorry for the people that are affected by this but dont think this is the end of it. There is more to come.

Posted by Roger on 12/09/2008 8:54:41 AM

Roger, you and the rest of SA need to stop pretending the lower lakes were always freshwater, as before the barrages were built they were brackish as Sturt found when he was unable to water his horses. If acid sulphate lakebed soils are being exposed then the barrages need to be opened to allow saltwater back in just as has happened naturally in previous droughts.

Posted by turbo on 12/09/2008 1:18:33 PM

I have been to the Lower Lakes recently Roger, & no doubt, there is a big problem there. Locals disagree on letting saltwater back in & building the weir. But common sense would suggest that the source of water to solve these problems does not lie in an unreliable entitlement on an isolated tributary thousands of kilometres upstream. I think, even if you shut down the entire Darling River extractions you still wouldn't put more than a week's worth of evaporation losses into those lakes. The Darling only contributes 15% of the Murray's flow in a good year. The southern systems are apparently all storing less water than they have already committed. It's a drought. We have had them before & the environmental impacts would have been far greater if the rivers had not been managed to supply flows & dried up as they used to. We are witnessing a lot of political symbolism to satisfy urban constituents. It is very worrying that productive agriculture is a scapegoat for the impacts of drought. All farmers should be concerned by this precedent. It won't take long for the governments to realise that the cheaper, more reliable licences in the southern systems will yield a far better $/L water equation. If I was sitting on a water-right in southern NSW or Victoria I would be re-considering my future in agriculture. If I had any salinity issues on my place or any 'environmental assets' nearby, I would consider myself to be a target because of lack of "sustainability." The die has been cast, farmers & their communities are being placed second, behind perceived environmental outcomes, real or otherwise.

Posted by trev on 12/09/2008 2:26:05 PM

So Toorale has now been slated as our State'e latest national Park. If I may put aside every other issue that has been raised, we have not just paid now for the purchase of this property, but will keep paying each tear for the on-going (?) management. For starters, who is going to keep on top of the feral situation, both floral and inverterbrate?

Posted by Right Decision? on 12/09/2008 4:37:20 PM

We all realise that time brings changes and the sale of Toorale is simply one more part of the process of various governments acquiring private properties and returning them to the national estate. For example, in its heyday Kinchega was a huge pastoral outfit which since being returned to public land fifty years ago has gradually restored the environmental balance of that part of the West Darling. The sale of Toorale was a business decision motivated by carefully considered self interest on one hand and the need to add to processes which address human and environmental concerns on the other. Toorale's sale though significant is not the first as we have seen and if the Murray-Darling crisis is to be fixed, it can't be the last.

Posted by Kevin on 13/09/2008 3:38:36 PM

It is a pity Roger didn't accompany explorer Sturt on his exploratory trip to the Lower Lakes. What apart from natural variability would he have blamed for the Lower Lakes being salty?

Posted by Dick on 14/09/2008 6:41:28 AM

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