News Latest News Legal and Policy Frameworks for Collaborative Water Planning in Northern Australia
Legal and Policy Frameworks for Collaborative Water Planning in Northern Australia
The third volume of the Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge (TRaCK) Research Hub's Collaborative Water Planning Project is now available. The report, entitled
provides readers with an understanding of the main objectives of national water reform in Australia, and the critical role that is assigned to the water planning in this process.
It then provides a cross-section of the three Northern Australian jurisdictions' legal and policy frameworks implementing these water reforms. The report was written by Poh-Ling Tan from the Water Planning Tools Project. In summary, this volume introduces and analyses the legal and policy framework within which collaborative water planning exists.
It reviews the legislation, case-law and policy on water planning, with a focus on the process of planning more than on the content of plans. The analysis starts at the Commonwealth level looking at the Constitution and its role in water planning. More recent policy and legislative aspects of water planning and water law reform are explored, including:
- the National Water Initiative;
- Native Title and Cultural Heritage legislation;
- water security planning and the Commonwealth Water Act (2007);
- legislative requirements at a State level; and
- generic features of water legislation.
A description and analysis of the water planning legal framework state by state is also included. This state-by-state analysis emphasises aspects germane to collaborative water planning referred to in earlier volumes of the Collaborative Water Planning Project, including public participation, socio-economic values, Indigenous participation, tools for tradeoffs and monitoring and evaluation of the water planning process.
It then provides case studies of the water planning legal frameworks for Queensland, Northern Territory, and Western Australia. It uses New South Wales as a bench-mark in these studies, as water planning commenced in that state in 1998 and the process has gone through revisions, thus providing opportunity for learning. The report is written for readers who do not have a legal background but are particularly interested in water planning in northern Australia.
