The depressing outcomes reported by the Wentworth Group are the inevitable result of the policy decision to abandon buybacks. That is, the voluntary purchase of water entitlements from irrigators who are willing to sell those entitlements. Buybacks are by far the most cost-effective method of securing additional water for the environment as well as providing a direct benefit to farmers, who can use the proceeds to reinvest in dry-land agriculture or to assist a transition out of agriculture. The abandonment of buybacks, combined with a failure to address the needs of irrigation-focused communities in the Basin, represents the worst of all policy worlds.