Murky water over buyback deal

THE company at the centre of a controversial multimilliondollar water buyback donated $55,000 to the Liberal Party before the 2013 election.

The Coalition is under pressure to explain why former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce signed off on the 2017 deal to pay $79 million to Eastern Australia Agriculture for water without an open tender process. News Corp can reveal EAA donated to the NSW Liberal Party in 2012 and 2013.

At least one of the donations was made while current Energy Minister Angus Taylor was listed as a director of the company’s parent company, Eastern Australia Irrigation.

Mr Taylor was a director of EAA from June 2008 until November 2009, and a cofounder and director of EAI until 2013, when he stepped down before entering Parliament that year.

Calls are growing for a royal commission into the management of the Murray-Darling Basin plan, while Labor is demanding the Government release documents that would shed light on its decisions.

EAA was given the money in 2017 in return for 28.7 gigalitres of floodwater from two Queensland properties. Mr Taylor has said he had no role in the water buyback decision, while Mr Joyce said he had no involvement in determining the price of the deal or the vendor when he ticked off the agreement as agriculture minister.

Some water experts have questioned whether the deal was value for money, despite the Government saying it paid a fair market price.