GOVERNMENT has mixed messages on water, writes PETER WALSH

The Brumby Government has been arrogant and reckless in its latest attempt to gain legal authority from Parliament to take water for the north-south pipeline.

This legal authority should have been established before the work commenced - not when half the pipes are in the ground.

By introducing an amendment to the Eildon-Goulburn Bulk Entitlement, Premier John Brumby thought he could blackmail the Victorian community into accepting a raw deal for the environment and food producers, and one which reflects a litany of broken promises.

The Bulk Entitlement Order fails in three core areas.

First, the Brumby Government had not established a proper audit process for water savings made from the Food Bowl Modernisation Project.

Water savings would instead be audited by a means decided by the Minister.

This is despite the Auditor General's observations that the government's measure of water savings in the FBMP when first announced lacked "rigour".

The Coalition believes Parliament must approve the audit process.

Secondly, water previously committed to the Snowy and Murray rivers through agreements with the Commonwealth and other Murray-Darling states would be looted and redirected to Melbourne via the north-south pipeline.

Thirdly, the Brumby Government promised savings from the Commonwealth-funded Stage 2 of the FBMP would be split 50:50 between food producers and the environment.

Now they have backtracked by saying these savings will be distributed "based on future negotiations with the Commonwealth".

John Brumby should not have been surprised his game of water blackmail would be unanimously rejected by the non-Labor parties.

As a matter of principle, the Coalition moved to disallow parts of the Bulk Entitlement during the last sitting of State Parliament, a principle supported in the Upper House by the Greens and the DLP.

The ball is now in the Government's court. The Coalition has sought to be constructive by leaving the door open to future negotiations, but  latest rhetoric about not making concessions is far from promising.

The Government's treatment of the FBMP and the north-south pipeline has always been a cynical exercise that has put politics before the water needs of Victorians, the environment and food producers.

At the 2006 state election Labor promised it would never pump water from north of the Divide, but less than a year later it broke that promise.

The pipeline was announced before the completion of a business case, and with construction now almost complete there is still no independent audit established that can identify whether the water savings will exist to pump to Melbourne.

Now that the Government is under the pump, the Premier and the Water Minister are lashing out with bizarre and mixed messages.

First they claimed indifference, boasting the Water Act would be used to bypass the Bulk Entitlement.

Then they threatened funding could be cut to the FBMP because they couldn't use their Bulk Entitlement changes. This later changed to claims the disallowance would not "imperil" the project.

Now we have Minister Holding stating that the Bulk Entitlement will be re-issued - but with no concessions to the detail, only clarification of points.

The Coalition will not kowtow to the Government's game of water blackmail and scare tactics, nor allow the Premier to renege on his commitments to Victorians.