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June 17th, 2013 
THE governments of Queensland, NSW and South Australia are being urged to stop delaying and sign up to a federal agreement to kick start the Murray-Darling Basin plan.
The landmark plan was enshrined into law in November but Victoria and ACT are the only basin states to sign up to an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) on how to implement the water reforms cost effectively.
South Australia is expected to sign within days but NSW and Queensland are still hesitating.
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) said there was no surprises in the IGA, and expressed dismay that some states were still playing politics with the issue.
The federal government could intervene without an IGA and force the states to comply, but the ACF’s Jonathan La Nauze said this would be a “costly and awkward exercise”.
“Really, it would be far smoother and in everyone’s best interests if it was done cooperatively,” he told AAP.
“It’s really about getting on with the job.”
The ACF says NSW is trying to have “another bite at the cherry” by insisting there’s a cap on the amount of water buybacks permitted under the plan.
Buybacks were a sticking point in negotiations over the plan, with the coalition, farming groups and irrigators claiming the strategy for reclaiming water sucked the lifeblood out of basin communities.
One condition of the IGA was that all basin governments agreed not to push for buyback caps or any other measures that could act as barriers to trade.
“NSW are refusing to sign that (IGA) because it’s running counter to their political campaign around trying to undermine the compromise that was struck last year,” Mr LaNauze said.
It was “politically significant” that Victoria – a big upstream state that had serious concerns initially with the plan – had been the first to sign up to the funding model, he added.
After more than a century of bitter disagreement between the states, Australia’s first national plan for the Murray-Darling Basin cleared parliament last November with bipartisan support.
The plan aims to balance the water needs of the basin’s natural environment, its 2.1 million residents and the farmers who produce more than one-third of the country’s food.
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