Troubled Waters: The Biennial Review of Australia's National Water Reform

The National Water Commission has today released "Australian Water Reform 2009" - the Commission's two-yearly assessment of progress in implementing our national water reform. The blueprint for water reform, the National Water Initiative was agreed to by the Australian Government and state and territory governments in 2004.

Releasing the report, Commission Chair Mr Ken Matthews said, "This independent report shows that, despite some progress, the pace of water reform has slowed on almost every front."

Overview

According to the chair of the National Water Commission Ken Mathews, some progress has been made possible due to the enactment of the National Water Initiative. Some aspects of establishing water trading have been successful, particularly where it has provided irrigators with alternative options. But, in general, much of the promise of reform is unfulfilled, and problems with overallocation and environmental degradation are only likely to be exacerbated by the onset of climate change. According to Commissioner Mathews:

Today, 40% of the local water plans promised by state governments are still unfinished, and many existing water plans have been suspended due to deepening drought and low flows in southern Australia. In its most disturbing finding, the report concludes that governments will not meet the central commitment they made under the National Water Initiative to "fix" overallocation by 2010. Government commitments to tackle overallocation date back to at least 1994. What makes these findings even more concerning is that we now know that climate change has raised the bar on water reform. Reduced water availability makes improved water management more urgent than ever for our water-starved rivers and hard-hit irrigators. By staying the course on water reform, we can give hard-pressed irrigation communities the clarity and confidence they need for long-term planning in a climate-changing world. Further and faster reform is also essential if we are to give Australia's rivers and wetlands their fair share.

The Commission's report, however, does welcome an unprecedented national attention to water, together with unprecedented budgets, and commends the Commonwealth's actions in buying back water for the environment. In its recommendations to the Council of Australian Governments, the Commission has called on governments to reset their commitments under a renewed round of national water reform.

Water Planning

In its findings in relation to water planning, the Commission found that:

Local water plans need to be ‘stress tested’ against climate change scenarios. The rules for how water plans will operate in drought conditions need to be spelt out publicly.
Water planning should more effectively include Indigenous interests.
It’s time to bring the mining industry into water planning processes.
The Basin Plan is an historic opportunity to improve planning in the Murray Darling Basin. Recognising this, as well as the need for greater clarity for stakeholders, the Commission suggests that the MDBA provide interim and progressively-refined guidance on the environmental, economic and social objectives likely to be targeted in the 2011 plan.

More generally, there is scope for further improvement in planning:

plans still tend to handle hydrology better than ecological issues
there is no agreed approach to understanding and balancing trade-offs between environmental and consumptive uses
drought contingency planning remains ad hoc and lacks transparency, which affects the security of water access entitlements
Indigenous economic, cultural and spiritual interests should be more effectively incorporated into planning
progress continues to be slow in identifying and addressing significant interception of surface and groundwater
in general, monitoring, review and reporting are underdeveloped, despite being essential elements of adaptive water management.

Recomendations

1. The Commission strongly urges the immediate acceleration of the development and commencement of water plans to allow water users to realise the full benefits of NWI reforms. The Commission considers it is now timely for parties to reset and publish realistic timeframes for the rollout of remaining water plans. However the Commission considers that accelerating the pace of water planning should be balanced against quality, and particularly the quality of community consultation.

2. The Commission recommends that, as plans approach their renewal date, jurisdictions review existing water plans to identify information gaps. Identified gaps should be prioritised and addressed effectively and the results of new research should be incorporated into new and existing plans.

3. The Commission recommends that all future water plans consider explicitly the impacts of climate change on water resources and the environment, and are sufficiently resilient to accommodate a broad range of climate change outcomes.

4. The Commission recommends that all jurisdictions develop and publish processes for effective engagement of Indigenous people in water planning. Parties should ensure that all new water plans (including statutory reviews of existing water plans) provide for Indigenous access to water resources by at least incorporating Indigenous social, spiritual and customary objectives and strategies for achieving those objectives. Jurisdictional processes should also make clear how Indigenous groups can pursue their legitimate economic objectives.

5. To reduce the potential for further erosion of security of existing water access entitlements, the Commission recommends that significant and potentially significant water interception activities be immediately identified and quantified, and a process for addressing them clarified within the next six months. This will enable jurisdictions to meet their commitment to include any proposals for additional water interception activities above an agreed threshold size into existing water access entitlement regimes by no later than 2011.

6. The Commission considers that all water plan objectives need to be specific and measurable, and plans should incorporate monitoring arrangements specifically designed to measure performance against each objective, which in turn will enable improved adaptive management.

7. The Commission recommends that jurisdictions and national agencies further invest (taking account of work already underway through the COAG work program) in best practice guidelines, streamlined processes and training to improve the quality, the effectiveness of the processes, and the resilience and community acceptance of water plans.

8. The Commission recommends that all existing and new plans be tested to ensure that they clearly define how water will be allocated to various categories of users and the environment under the full range of inflow conditions (including sequences of dry years), and to ensure that plans adequately specify how systems will be operated in times of extremely low water availability. This should include publicly defining the exceptional circumstances in which a plan would be suspended or qualified, the processes and principles then to be followed, and the arrangements for reinstatement of plans when conditions improve.

9. The Commission recommends that the MDBA further clarify the intended planning processes and ground rules for the development of the new Basin Plan in consultation with affected parties, to engage stakeholders in what the new plan will involve, to better manage expectations, provide more certainty, and facilitate a more cooperative approach with the MDB jurisdictions. In particular, the Commission recommends greater public consultation, progressive release of background and issues papers and, where possible, interim, progressive guidance from the MDBA on specific environmental, economic and social objectives or outcomes likely to be targeted in the plan.

10. To account for delays in progress to date and new developments, the Commission recommends that NWI parties revise and resubmit, within six months for accreditation by the Commission, their jurisdictional plans for implementation of their NWI commitments. Download the Water Planning Review here.