Water Amendment (Restoring our Rivers) Bill

Since 2012 the Murray-Darling Basin Plan (MDBP) has made progress to redress more than 100 years of water management policies and practices across a system that spans five jurisdictions, comprises 23 individual rivers and tributaries, and at a time when floods, fires and drought have underscored the urgent need for action.

There are many examples of major projects ‘blowing out’ in the final stages of their delivery because the easy stages have been delivered and the more difficult final stages often require much greater creativity, problem solving, trust and collaboration.

Now is not the time for scatter gun efforts. It is time to weave the many strands of progress from across the basin into a program of activity that targets the critical priorities that will ensure the plan’s success continues beyond 2027. More water does not achieve this outcome – the right water in the right location, with the right supporting infrastructure, operating rules and landowner agreements and with the right measurement, monitoring and compliance oversight can.

The Water Amendments (Restoring our rivers) Bill 2023 redefines the next steps at a critical point in the delivery of the Plan. The Bill will define the Plan’s legacy and future operational effectiveness.

For this reason, the final stages of the Plan must be defined by more than simply a ML target. he Restoring the Rivers bill must focus on the outcomes for the entire river system from the Culgoa River in Queensland to the Coorong in South Australia.

More time

C4GS supports the extended timelines, continued funding for delivery of the Basin Plan and the new timeframes for the MDBA’s reconciliation of 1 DCEEW, Water Amendment (Restoring our Rivers) Bill progress but would like to see project by project deadlines to optimise delivery.

The extended timelines represent a logical step after more than two years of Covid disruption followed by floods and for projects that are often in remote locations, require specialist skills and depend on seasonal access.

More accountability

C4GS supports the strengthened role and powers of the Inspector General of Water Compliance, that can help restore community confidence in the integrity of the Plan’s implementation and its ongoing operation.

The expanded powers must enable the Inspector General to enforce the completion and accreditation of all outstanding Water Resource Plans and compliance with SDLs. The Plans and SDLs underpin the agreed baseline for monitoring and measuring the progress by basin states, and the operating rules to protect and shepherd environmental flows through the system to target sites.

More funding

C4GS is seeking much greater clarity on the proposal to allow funds in the Water for the Environment Special Account (WESA) to be used for making any other payments to address any detrimental social or economic impact on the wellbeing of any community in the Murray-Darling Basin that is associated with a project or purchase referred to in paragraph (a) or (b) so as to offset any such impact.

The proposal not only acknowledges but also anticipates that amending the Water Act so that more options are available to deliver the 450 GL target, including on-farm and off-farm efficiency projects, voluntary buybacks and land and water packages1 will cause negative social and economic impacts. In doing so this dispels the myth that water buybacks are the most efficient and effective mechanism for recovering water for the environment.

The assistance criteria, funding and the risks to recovery, delivery, remaining water users and communities must be calculated and considered in advance - not after implementation of on-farm and off-farm efficiency projects, voluntary buybacks and land and water packages. This will ensure the cost-benefit assessment properly compared with alternative works and projects.

More options

C4GS does not support the amendments that will allow the expanded use of voluntary (nonstrategic) water buybacks, including.

• removing the 1500GL cap on Commonwealth water purchases

• removing the socio-economic neutrality test

• enabling water buybacks to recover the 450GL water efficiency target.

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With more than 2,100 GL of environmental water already secured, non-strategic voluntary buybacks may achieve a number, but they are not a prudent or reliable way lock in the legacy of the Plan and ensure its successful future operations in a changing climate.

Specifically, C4GS strongly opposes voluntary buybacks in the sMDB where most water users do not extract their water directly from rivers and instead rely on the network of man-made irrigation channels that underpin intensive food and fibre production and manufacturing.

Voluntary buybacks would scatter the purchases across the approx. 6000 km channel network with no opportunity to plan the reconfiguration or decommissioning of redundant or underutilised infrastructure to defray the costs for remaining water users or to optimise system efficiency. These impacts will also escalate the funds required for structural adjustment and compensation payments and simultaneously limit the opportunities for communities and businesses to plan their adjustment and transition.

Furthermore, the over reliance on the sMDB to restore the health of the entire system is already compromising the health of our local rivers, has recovered volumes of water that cannot be delivered even with further works, agreements with private landowners and changed operating rules, and cannot address the critically endangered areas of the basin. Water buybacks in the sMDB cannot address the repeated fish kills in the Menindee lakes and 400 days of no flow in the lower Darling-Baaka.

The overreliance on sMDB fails to spread the risk for environmental water in a rapidly changing climate. A more balanced approach across the entire system can deliver the promised environmental benefits for individual rivers and for the system as a whole – from the Culgoa to the Coorong.

To read our full submission, click and download the file.