Socio-Economic Report Released for Murray Darling Plan

The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) has released the first major report it has commissioned to bring the best science and knowledge to developing the Basin Plan. The Authority's centrepiece task is to develop a major Basin-wide plan to implement this. A draft will be issued for public comment and consultation in mid 2010 and the final will go to the Commonwealth Minister in 2011.

The technical document - "Socio-Economic Context for the Murray-Darling Basin - a descriptive Report"- was produced for the Authority by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) with additional data from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) and the Bureau of Rural Sciences (BRS) Under the Water Act 2007 the MDBA is obliged to consider the socio-economic impacts of the Basin Plan on communities throughout the Basin.

The underlying data in this report set a base line of information which can be updated and analysed to progressively monitor the circumstances of Basin communities. The report summarises the available information on the broad social and economic circumstances of Basin communities and describes the context in which Basin water resources are used. Some of the findings are:

• In 2006, 3.4 million people, or 17% of the Australian population, lived in communities that are directly reliant on Basin water
• The resident population of the Basin had grown by 3% to 2.1 million since 2001 compared with 6% growth nationally
• Over 77% of the Basin population lives in urban centres, small towns and rural localities, with the largest 19 of these growing by 30% between 1976 and 2001
• The population living in small rural localities and ‘rural living' declined by 1.7% between 2001 and 2006 to about 27% overall, while populations in larger urban centres grew by 8%, suggesting there is a slight regional urbanisation trend occurring
• Around one-third of businesses within the Basin are in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector, with this sector employing about 11% of the basin workforce in 2006
• Between 2001 and 2006 the proportion of the Basin population working increased overall while unemployment rates dropped
• Average taxable income and net household worth are lower than the rest of Australia
• There have been average annual declines of own unincorporated business income over 2001-02 to 2003-04, at a time when most of Australia showed growth in this classification
• Some urban centres and towns in the Basin have a relatively high degree of dependence on ‘agriculture and food manufacturing' for employment, up to 30% in some small towns
• While employment in agriculture in these towns declined between 2001 and 2006, from 34,989 to 30,543, employment in other services such as ‘government administration and defence' and ‘health and community services' increased by 43% and 21% respectively (outside of Canberra).

Future reports will provide more detailed social and economic information and regional and community profiles.

A copy of the report is available on the Authority's website here...