For a meeting at 4pm on a Wednesday afternoon the Narromine Irrigation Board pulled a good crowd. Chairman Martin McKinney light-heartedly put it down to the rain - always good to get the farmers off their tractors and into a meeting. Perhaps. Alternatively it might have been the Federal Government’s plan for water.

Under the plan is Restoring the Balance in the Murray Darling Basin - a $3.1billion fund to buy water entitlements from willing sellers. The Government says purchasing water from irrigators will restore over-allocated river systems back to health. It is also a vital component in saving the drying Lower Lakes, which for the Government, has come to symbolise the disastrous effects of climate change.

For Narromine the policy will bring about sweeping changes the likes of which the irrigation industry has never seen. The less optimistic believe it will threaten the very viability of irrigation schemes in the Murray Darling Basin, the area’s farming and by default, rural communities like Narromine.

Wednesday’s meeting was about modernising farming water practices. But before the Western Land Planning consultants could talk about efficiency the members discussed the Government’s water buybacks. A few questions were asked however until the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission decides how the water trading rules will operate the board has very few answers.

But you only have to look west, to Bourke, to see what effects the policy may have on a town like Narromine. Last September the NSW Government, with help from the Rudd Government, bought the historic Toorale Station and the water rights attached to it. According to Bourke Shire Council’s general manager, Geoff Wise, the purchase has had damaging consequences.

“Very simply it has had a negative impact,” Mr Wise said.

The loss of permanent workers from Toorale has had “all kinds of ramifications on the local community’’.

“From a morale point of view the district has basically said it has happened we have to move on... there is not a lot of point dwelling on the negative,” he said.