Guide to the National Water Commission's Assessment

The National Water Commission has released its comprehensive assessment of water reform progress in Australia, calling on governments to stay the distance on their reform commitments.

Launching the report today, Commission Chair Ms Chloe Munro said, 'This independent report shows that actions under the National Water Initiative have made water use more efficient, sustainable and secure - and this helped Australians weather the worst drought on record.'

This report is the third biennial assessment of the National Water Initiative (NWI) undertaken by the National Water Commission.

It reviews the extent to which the initiative has improved the sustainable management of Australia's water resources and contributed to the national interest. The assessment also reports on impacts on regional, rural and urban communities.

Drawing on the findings in its 2011 assessment of the National Water Initiative (NWI), the Commission has recommended 12 critical actions to reinvigorate Australia's water reform agenda and ensure that wise stewardship of our water resources remains a national priority.

The Commission's recommendations address gaps, shortcomings and new issues. They also propose a new suite of incentive mechanisms, together with necessary investments and assessments, to regain and sustain water reform momentum.

Summary of Findings

The NWI remains robust and relevant in 2011 and has delivered significant, tangible benefits for Australia.
The initiative has catalysed substantial improvements in the way Australia manages its water resources, expedited and directed ambitious reforms, and built a national commitment to common objectives.
However, the NWI is yet to fully deliver its intended benefits, including the primary goals of sustainable and efficient water management.
Success requires strong leadership in the face of difficult decisions to balance economic, social and environmental outcomes, and to nourish real engagement with communities.

Water Planning

The quality and extent of water planning in Australia have improved. The water planning cycle can take up to 15 years, so the benefits of improved practice will take time to flow across all regions and plans.
The water plans and environmental management arrangements established under the NWI are improving Australia's capacity to maintain important environmental assets and ecosystem functions and to support economic activity. They have not yet had time to deliver fully their intended outcomes or to demonstrate their efficacy over the long term, including during periods of climatic extremes.
Despite the effort to recover water for the environment in some areas, many water resources are still not being managed sustainably. Nationally, there has been disappointingly slow progress in the explicit identification of overallocated and overused systems and in restoring those systems to sustainable levels of extraction.
The NWI provided communities with a clear blueprint for reform to which all governments were committed. NWI principles had, and continue to command, strong stakeholder support from a wide range of perspectives. However, delays in delivering on NWI commitments, inconsistent implementation and poorly managed community engagement processes have weakened community confidence in water governance systems.

Summary of recommendations

Leadership

The National Water Commission calls on the Council of Australian Governments to recommit to the National Water Initiative as the guiding blueprint for sustainable water management in Australia and to task the Standing Council for Environment and Water to drive these reforms as a priority. COAG leadership is essential to reinvigorate national water reform.
All NWI parties must resolve to stay the course on their reform commitments and give priority to delivering the significant unfinished actions identified by this assessment. This is critical to reap the full benefits of past efforts and to meet the continuing imperative of increasing the productive and efficient use of Australia's water and ensuring the health of river and groundwater systems.
Governments around Australia should engage with their constituents to develop a shared understanding of why water reform is still vital to build resilient communities, productive industries and sustainable environments.
All levels of government should strengthen community involvement in water planning and management, recognising the value of local knowledge and the importance of regional implementation, and review institutional arrangements and capacity to enable effective engagement at the local level.

A maturing agenda

Australia needs a stronger and more contemporary urban water reform agenda. The Commission recommends that COAG develop a new set of objectives and actions to provide national leadership for urban water management.
Water quality objectives should be more fully integrated into the reform agenda, with better connections between water quality and quantity in planning, management and regulation to achieve improved environmental outcomes. There is also a need for a more coordinated and structured approach to urban water quality regulation at a national level.
Greater coordination of water management and natural resource management initiatives would yield significant gains, for example by better aligning the development, implementation and review of water plans and catchment plans.
The Commission urges states and territories to review their existing mining and petroleum regulatory arrangements to ensure that water resource impacts are addressed explicitly, and that those extractive activities are fully integrated into NWI-consistent planning and management regimes.
It would be prudent at this stage to analyse the nature and materiality of potential changes to water use as a result of climate change adaptation and mitigation initiatives. Water management policies may need to be elaborated to operate more effectively in the context of these new initiatives.

Making it happen

Evidence-based decision making and good stewardship of Australia's water assets rely on robust science and socioeconomic information. The Commission reiterates its call for a national water science strategy, backed by sufficient investment to deliver the required capacity. To support improved water management, the Commission also recommends that water service providers and governments state publicly their commitment to resource adequately and implement fully the National Water Skills Strategy.
Renewed political commitment will require a refreshing of the approach to national reform. The Commission proposes that each of Australia's governments commit to a program of specific actions every three years, based on agreed national priorities and jurisdictional priorities underpinned by the NWI commitments, together with explicit levels of resourcing to implement the program. In the interests of accountability and transparency, the Commission calls on COAG to recommit to oversight of water reform progress by an independent assessment body.
The Commission urges COAG to consider a new approach to incentives to encourage the delivery of nationally significant water reforms.