Interim Report
1.1
On 14 August
2006, the Senate resolved to amend the Standing Orders of the
Senate to adopt changes to the Committee system that mean that this Committee,
the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport (RRAT) References Committee will
cease to exist as a separate Committee under its current Chair and membership
on 10 September 2006.
1.2
On Monday 11
September 2006, a new Committee, the Legislative and General
Purpose Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport, under a
new Chair and with a new membership will take the place of this Committee.
Since the RRAT Committee is in the middle of inquiring into the current
reference on water policy initiatives, the Committee decided to make an Interim
report to the Senate on its work up to this point.
Terms of Reference
1.3
On 14
September 2005, the Senate referred the following matter to the
Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee for
inquiry and report by the last sitting day in March 2006:[1]
The impact on rural water usage of recent water policy
initiatives and the possible role for Commonwealth agencies, with particular
reference to:
- the development of water property titles;
- methods of protection for rivers and aquifers;
- farming innovation;
- monitoring drought and predicting farm water demand;
and
- the implications for agriculture of predicted changes
in patterns of precipitation and temperature.
1.4
The Senate agreed to extend the time for presentation
of the report to 22 June 2006
and when the Committee found it impossible to hold public hearings because of
its commitments to other inquiries, the Senate granted a further extension to 30 November 2006.[2]
Conduct of the Inquiry
1.5
Advertisements calling for submissions to the inquiry
were placed in The Australian on 12 October 2005, 26 October 2005 and 9 November 2005.
1.6
In addition to advertising in the press, the Committee
also wrote directly to a number of interested individuals, organisations and
state and Commonwealth agencies advising of the inquiry and inviting submissions.
1.7
The Committee has received
59 written submissions in response to its advertisements and 58 of the submissions are publicly available on the Committee's
website at:
www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/rrat_ctte/rural_water/index.htm
A list of all
submissions received is provided at Appendix
1.
1.8
The Committee notes
that a significant percentage of the submissions received has come from
individuals and organisations representing the Lower Balonne
floodplain, Culgoa and Brewarrina areas and have highlighted specific problems
in relation to the allocation of water in South West Queensland.
1.9
To date, the Committee has held three hearings in the
following locations:
Canberra 7 March 2006
Toowoomba 2 August 2006
Canberra 16 August 2006
1.10
The Committee has taken evidence from 41 witnesses,
including individuals with an interest in water policy issues, representatives
of industry organisations, environment groups and community organisations. The
Committee also took evidence from representatives of government bodies – Commonwealth,
state and local. A list of witnesses who have given evidence to the Committee is
provided at Appendix 2.
1.11
The Committee will hold further public hearings as its
inquiry is not yet completed. It has scheduled a fourth public hearing, to be
held in Canberra on 15 September 2006.
Major issues before the Committee
1.12
Managing our water resources is a difficult balancing
act. We are a growing nation living on a dry continent with extremely variable
rainfall patterns, and recent years have brought water supply security problems
to a number of our cities, agricultural industries, and major rural centres.
The challenge for policy makers is how to best balance competing demands for a
limited precious resource in a manner that ensures the sustainability of the
resource, equity among competing users, predictability and security of supply
for our industries and populations, and still guarantees the survival of
treasured environmental assets. The issue is made more difficult by the
complexity and uncertainty of the science of assessing the resource, and
predicting the impacts of drought and increased climate variability. Ultimately
we need to be able to make good decisions on the basis of incomplete
information that can guide us safely into an uncertain future. We need flexible
and adaptable water management systems that can deliver equity and certainty to
all users. At stake is the viability of our cities and towns, our industries
and our ecosystems, our very way of life.
1.13
The 59 submissions to the Committee's
inquiry and the evidence that it has gathered to date at its public hearings
have addressed the following issues:
- The undeniable impact of drier climate
conditions on water resources throughout Australia
(with the possible exception of the Northern Territory).
- The social implications for downstream users of
over allocation of rivers upstream – allocations often made by another state
than the one in which the downstream river dwellers reside.
- The lack of a definitive database and measuring
tools relating to surface water resources (although good work is being done
right across the country to fill in the gaps in many areas).
- The lack of understanding
of our groundwater resources and their inter-relationship with surface water
resources.
- The early development of a water trading regime.
- The relationship between rural and urban water
needs.
- The role of recycling in meeting the water needs
of the city and the farm in a drier environment.
- Calls for greater protection (and in a few cases
greater regulated use) for Australia's
pristine northern rivers.
1.14
The committee is still considering these difficult
issues. During the period of the inquiry the level of public concern about the
security of our water resources has become increasingly apparent, and the issue
has featured in the media on a daily basis.
Drought and Climate Change
1.15
The issue of the impacts
of a lack of rainfall on the sustainability and security of our water
resources has emerged as a significant policy challenge - whether it is
considered to be the result of drought, part of a long-term cycle of climate
variation, or the direct result of climate change. While the exact scope and
extent of this change may be uncertain and disputed, it is clear that any
significant change in rainfall and temperature patterns could leave a major
hole in our water accounting processes that has major implications for our
resource management policy, legislation and practice. We need to give serious
consideration to the implications this could have for our agricultural
industries, the sustainability and limits on growth of our cities, and develop
adaptive management options which allow us to respond to likely scenarios in a
timely manner.
1.16
Regardless of whether current weather conditions in
most of Australia are perceived to be a long period of drought or the result of
permanent climate change[3] as is the case in south west Western
Australia, the impact on water resources has been quite severe. CSIRO's Professor
Michael Young
told the Committee that:
As a rule of thumb, if you have a decline in rainfall, normally
the decline in water available for use is roughly twice the reduction in
rainfall A 15 per cent
reduction in rainfall, which is what a lot of people are talking about, means a
30 per cent reduction in yield... This is a general rule of thumb; you would need
to run the models everywhere. [4]
1.17
His caution in predicting the availability of water in
such changed conditions is dramatically illustrated by the situation in
southern Western Australia (including the Perth region) where a 21 per cent
reduction in rainfall has resulted in more than a three-fold reduction in
run-off. The CEO of WA's Water Corporation, Dr
Gill told the Committee:
There has been a phenomenal shift of climate and weather in the
south of WA and it does appear to be unique worldwide... there seems to be no
other place that is drying quite as fast as the south of Western
Australia... We have had to cope with that over the
last 10 years. It has been a trend, we now know with the best of hindsight, for
about 30 years.
For the last eight or nine years the rainfall has been down by
about 21 per cent on what it was up until 1974, and the run-off has been down
by 64 per cent. Actually now it is becoming clear that for the last four or
five years, since 2001, we seem to be down still further. [5]
1.18
In such a situation, it becomes crucial to manage the
water available so that it yields the maximum benefit to both urban and rural
users — a balance
towards which the WA Water Corporation has made some progress. One of the ways it has done this by engaging in
water trading with a group of rural irrigators at Harvey,
south of Perth. The arrangement includes
payment in kind through replacing open irrigation channels with a pipe network
that makes water delivery to the farmers more effective by eliminating loss to
evaporation.
1.19
The Committee is firmly of the view that such examples
of urban-rural cooperation on water initiatives can be of great benefit to
those who engage in it and it would like to urge water authorities around the
country to look for opportunities to develop similar approaches.
1.20
Dealing with the issues of reduced supply, increasing
demand, and competition between a range of urban, rural and industrial users
requires an integrated strategy that combines demand reduction, increased
efficiency, flexible trading schemes (like this example) and the exploration
and development of potential new water sources to ensure sustainable supplies.
The WA Water Corporation has shown some foresight in responding to the
seriousness of the situation in the south-west of WA.
1.21
In other innovative (at least in the Australian
context) approaches to ensuring a reliable water supply for Perth in a drying
climate, WA Water Corporation has constructed a large desalination plant at
Kwinana, about 40 kilometres from the city, which is due to come on line in
November 2006 and which will supply 17 per cent of Perth's water needs. It is
also exploring other possibilities, including extracting water from the
south-west Yarragadee —
a big aquifer about 300 kilometres south of Perth. There is however a high level of community concern
around the use of this aquifer and its possible impacts on both the water
security of the south-west and the local environment.
1.22
In no other Australian capital city has the reality of
drier climatic conditions had as dramatic an effect on water policy initiatives
as it has had in Perth, although many of our
other cities and major rural centres also face growing water problems.
However, the South Australian government has used innovative approaches in
rural areas to conserve water in the face of rising temperatures and
evaporation. It told the Committee in its submission that an independent
assessment of the situation in South Australia
(by Professor Peter
Cullen) found that:
There has been considerable public investment in water delivery
systems to farms that sees most water piped rather than transported in open
channels".[6]
1.23
Dam levels for many capital cities around the country
present a challenging picture. Only Darwin (89%) and Hobart
(76%) have reasonably high levels of water in storage. Perth
(29.98%) has now taken major steps to address its water supply shortage. Brisbane
with a dam level of 28.13% faces a difficult situation and has not yet developed an integrated approach to securing its water
supply. The country's most populous city, Sydney
faces a dwindling 41.4% dam level. Canberra
(49.36%) an inland city which does not have the same options as the other
capital cities, faces different challenges to the two remaining coastal cities
which, with dam levels of 46.9% for Melbourne
and 54% for Adelaide have a
slightly longer timeframe before facing a crisis situation.[7]
1.24
In all capital cities with the exception of Darwin
and Hobart, some water restrictions will be in force this
coming summer. The situation is equally bad or worse in most rural and regional
areas, except for the far north of the continent where tropical rains are a
replenishing source of water.
1.25
Analysis by CSIRO suggests that the implications of
climate change for the Murray Darling
Basin are likely to be significant.[8]
Initial evidence suggests climate change poses the greatest risk
to our shared water resources in volume terms. Climate change could potentially
reduce stream flow by 1,100 GL in 20 years (5% of annual flow) and by 3,300 GL
in 50 years (15% of annual flow).
1.26
The committee is concerned that the potential
impacts of climate change may not been sufficiently factored into water
entitlements and management plans, and intends to give further consideration to
their flexibility and adaptability.
Water Recycling
1.27
Australia's
record on the use of recycled water is very poor by international standards,
particularly given our low rainfall. Sydney
is arguably the worst city at recycling, with only 3% of wastewater recycled,
and 75% (450 billion litres) going out to sea as barely treated sewerage. However,
the NSW Government has committed to increase the current level of recycling
more than fourfold from the current 15 billion litres a year up to 70 billion
litres a year by 2015. To date, projects that will yield 15 GL a year are
currently under construction or have been commissioned. In addition,
the recently established Water Savings Fund ($130 million over four years) has
contributed $26.2 million to Councils and businesses for water recycling
projects. The third round of funding is expected to commence in 2006. A
number of state regulations have recently been amended to encourage
recycling and during the current session of Parliament new legislation for
third party access will be introduced to enable the private sector to access
effluent in Sydney Water
and Hunter Water
pipes for recycling.
1.28
Israel, which has a similar Mediterranean climate, recycles
70% of its water. Given the sustainability limits on Australian supplies
together with increasing demand as our nation grows, it is inevitable that we
will have to embrace water recycling on a much greater scale. There are a range
of different approaches to water recycling for industrial, agricultural,
non-potable and potable uses, and substituting recycled water of a quality fit
for use can free up existing supplies for higher quality uses, keep down
treatment costs, and help address public concerns about water safety.
1.29
The Committee held a public hearing in Toowoomba, a
city that has experienced water restrictions since 1992 and the only Australian
city to have considered a serious direct potable reuse proposal, that is, a
plan to recycle waste water to supply one quarter of its water needs including
all domestic uses and drinking water. The reason Toowoomba
considered this plan is that the city currently has just enough water
for two years consumption and according to Toowoomba's mayor:
There is both depleting rainfall and depleting run-off. We get a
bit of rain and it fills the catchment, but before we get the next bit of rain
it has dried out and we have to go again, so our catchment never stays wetted
up enough for us to get run-off. We have seen a fairly substantial lack of
run-off over the last 30 years. I should tell you that our major dam in the
last 15 years has run over on only 16 consecutive days on one occasion. In the
two previous years, it ran over on 285 days.[9]
1.30
The Committee's visit took place on 2 August 2006, just 4 days after the
people of Toowoomba had rejected the recycling proposal in a plebiscite by a
vote of 68 per cent to 32 per cent. Concern was
expressed in the hearings that the period for consultation was too short to
allow an effective public education campaign, and that an alternative solution
to secure the city's water supply was not put forward. The direct
potable reuse campaign had been conducted intensely for three months prior to
the referendum and the idea had first been talked about less than 10 months
before the vote. Toowoomba's mayor told the Committee that in her opinion,
three or four years were needed to educate the public about the scientific aspects
of the issue under consideration. The plebiscite decision effectively leaves
the city still searching for a solution to an increasingly pressing problem.
The irony is that legitimate public concerns about the health and safety of
their water ultimately led them to reject a water source which is arguably
cleaner than their current supply.
1.31
Direct potable reuse is only one of a range of
approaches to water recycling, and systems based on the substitution of
recycled water for industrial, agricultural and other non-potable uses (such as
watering parks and gardens) are more likely to receive public endorsement in
the shorter term. The Chair and Chief Executive
Officer of the National Water Commission, Mr
Ken Matthews, sees water recycling as one of key policy areas that
has to be addressed by the National Water Initiative. He told the Committee:
there is a need for more widespread and objective consideration (of
water recycling) across Australia.
Surely Australia,
as the driest inhabited continent in the world, should be an early adopter of
new and cost-effective recycling technologies that are now becoming available.[10]
1.32
It appears that in the first instance, using
recycled water for watering parks and gardens and for industrial purposes will
prove more acceptable to the public than using it for domestic purposes.[11] Twin-pipe
or 'purple pipe' domestic systems, which use recycled water for non-potable
domestic purposes (like flushing toilets or watering gardens) are another
less-controversial option for new developments, but the cost of retro-fitting
such systems to existing suburbs is prohibitive. Western Australia's Water Corporation is currently involved in a joint
project with CSIRO to research the possibilities of managed aquifer recharge,
in which recycled water is infiltrated into an aquifer. The method increases
water storage in the aquifer, to make more water available for irrigation and
other uses and also to preserve water levels in wetlands that are maintained by
groundwater. The intention is to initially use the aquifer's water for watering
parks, ovals and golf courses.[12]
1.33
Ideally, recycled urban wastewater should be available
for use not only in cities and for industry but where possible, it should add
to the volume of water available for irrigation in rural areas. This is
happening to some extent already, for example in South
Australia as explained by the South Australian
government in its submission to the Committee:
Trials involving the storage and recovery of treated wastewater
for irrigation of horticultural crops are currently being undertaken at Bolivar
on the Northern Adelaide Plains and in the McLaren Vale area.[13]
1.34
Elsewhere in the country treated town water is
routinely returned to various rivers and streams but a concerted effort should
be made to make this the norm rather than the exception. More importantly, town
and shire councils should not be reluctant to reveal this to ratepayers since
it would assist in making the concept of using recycled water more acceptable,
and would constitute an important step in encouraging judicious use of a
precious resource that is becoming scarcer in many areas through reduced
rainfall at the same time as a growing population means that demand for it is
growing.
1.35
Toowoomba's mayor, Councillor Thorley, argued that seeing an advanced water recycling
plant in operation would help people make a decision based on facts rather than
emotion.[14] In the Committee's view,
there is a case for governments to invest in one or more water recycling plants
around the country as part of a community education project designed to raise
the awareness of the Australian public in regards to how a water recycling
plant would work and how safe the water would be.
1.36
The reason why this would make sense is that, while the
issue has been decided in Toowoomba, it is highly likely that at some future
date, other cities and regions may wish to consider putting recycled water to
uses that have not been contemplated previously in this country. Politicians of
all persuasions are on the public record as backing this idea.[15]
Water Property Titles and Water Trading
1.37
Australia
does not have a single definition of a water property title in use across the
continent in the way that the Torrens title defines the
right to land ownership. Each State and territory has its own system of water
rights and the Australian government has pursued the National Water Initiative
without expecting all the participating governments to agree to a national
standard before participating in the Initiative, a move that has ensured that
the NWI could get off the ground. At this point
in the process it is too early for the committee to comment on how the NWI
process is working.
1.38
There are no less than 438 types of regulated surface
water entitlements in the three south eastern states through which the Murray
river flows.[16] Professor
Michael Young told the Committee that "in an idealised world you need no
more than two access entitlements per system". In his view, Australia
is perfectly placed to devise "a flawless, perfect water entitlement and
water management" system that could be copied all over the world. [17]
What is water trade all about?
1.39
The major challenge for water property titles
and allocation systems is how to define property rights to ensure the long-term
sustainability of the resource. Australia currently faces four major challenges
in making this work - how to develop a uniform approach to water entitlements
and water trade across state and territory borders (particularly in the Murray-Darling
Basin); how to equitably reform over-allocated
systems; how to best manage allocation of water to the environment; and how to
account for the impacts of climate variability and drought on water
availability within these systems.
1.40
The major benefit of water trading schemes is that
(when well designed and implemented) they can provide an efficient and
cost-effective way of reallocating limited resources to ensure highest value
use. Under ideal circumstances a well-designed, robust trading system should be
flexible, adaptive, transparent and equitable. It should deliver security and
economic efficiency, along with low trading and administrative costs.
1.41
The Murray Darling Basin Commission told the Committee
in its submission that trade in annual allocations is more common than trade in
entitlements.[18] Trade in annual
allocations is also referred to as 'temporary' trade, whereby a 'share' of a
water access entitlement is sold to the farmer who is able to realise the
highest return on the amount of water available. Temporary trade has enabled
farmers to draw the maximum benefits from their water allocations at a time
when they face low rainfalls in the Basin. It has been particularly useful in a
prolonged dry period.
1.42
The difficulties posed by the lack of a uniform system
of water property rights, as discussed earlier, may be a key factor in
discouraging more robust trading in water entitlements. A reluctance to trade
water permanently "out" of a region, especially in a period of
climate variability may also be at work.
1.43
Nevertheless,
the Committee sees merit in standardising water rights both to facilitate trade
and also because it is currently assessed as part of a property valuation for
the purposes of selling and mortgaging a property. It is therefore imperative
that that right to water should be defined in a standardised way that would be
acceptable to all involved, whether bankers or interstate farmers.
Effects of over allocation of rivers
1.44
One of the biggest and most difficult issues facing all
the governments involved in the National Water Initiative is the need to
resolve problems associated with over allocation of rivers, especially now that
the country faces long periods of drought and reduced water flow in many
rivers, especially those of the Murray
Darling Basin.
1.45
More than a third of the submissions received by the
Committee dealt with this issue whereby those living downstream of the river,
suffer the consequences of over allocation of water licences to irrigators in
the upper reaches of that river. Those water licences have in most cases been
allocated with very little understanding of the long term climatic history of
the region, the size and fluctuations of the river flows and the consequent
effects on the licensees and on those who farm further downriver.
1.46
About 31% of submitters from Queensland
and New South Wales expressed
their concern and frustration at the parlous state of the lower reaches of the
Birrie and Bokhara rivers, the Culgoa, Condamine-Balonne
and the Lower Balonne floodplain in north
west New South Wales.
In addition, a number of submissions portrayed a similar situation in the Lower
Lachlan river again in New South Wales.
1.47
They argue that, even when the drought situation in
their region over the last 10 years is taken into account, the lower reaches of
those rivers on which they depend are being destroyed as a result of over allocation
of the water available to irrigators 'upriver'. One witness, Mr Fessey, pointed
out that even when there is more rainfall in the area than there was 25 years
ago, the Lower Balonne river and its floodplain are now drier because of the
large amounts of water that are being diverted upstream, especially in times of
flood, because of an erroneous assumption that water flowing over the banks
would otherwise be wasted.[19]
1.48
As a result, access to this water has been granted to
the irrigation industry generally with no requirement that it be metered or
accounted for in any way (and free of charge in Queensland), further
encouraging the building of off-river storages, the numbers of which have grown
exponentially since the mid-eighties.
1.49
In his submission to the Committee, Professor
Richard Kingsford
of the University of NSW,
explained that one of the reasons behind the failure to consider during the
water policy development stage the massive impact of diverting floodwater
before it reaches the lower floodplains is that:
Most of Australia's
legislation for river was derived from English legislation where rivers are
considerably different. So until relatively recently most of Australia's
legislation, policy and management left out floodplains, the vast majority of a
river. In NSW, floodplains equate to about 88% of a river's area and more than
95% of this is owned by landholders who will be affected by changes in river
flows.[20]
1.50
Many of those floodplain landholders are part of the
36% of submitters to this Committee's inquiry who are facing financial hardship
and in some cases, possible ruin as a result of water being diverted away from
the floodplains. For some, even water for their daily needs is threatened and
they face having to abandon farming in areas where their families have farmed
for generations. Many express feelings of frustration at being cheated by a
system over which they have no control.[21]
1.51
The irrigators in
the upper reaches of the Condamine-Balonne argued that all the water flowing
over the banks in times of flood is "wasted" and that they are doing
the community a favour by storing it. In fact, the over-flow is essential to
the survival of the river downstream, its floodplains and the landowners who
depend on them. Water that infiltrates into the flood-plain contributes to
aquifer recharge which also ultimately impacts on downstream flow.
1.52
The following graph from Professor
Kingsford's submission illustrate the
dramatic increase in the number of private dams and in dam storage capacity in
the Condamine-Balonne catchment area.
Growth in off-river storage in the
Condamine-Balonne catchment area
Provided
by Prof. Richard Kingsford, (Uni.of NSW), Submission No.9, p.7
1.53
The situation of these northern NSW floodplain farmers
is mirrored in the lower reaches of the Murray river
where according to the South Australian government submission:
Drought-like flows are now experienced in the lower reaches of
the River Murray 60 per cent of the time, compared with 5 per cent before river
regulation and development.[22]
1.54
Diversion of flood waters to storage for irrigation has
an economic and social impact not only on floodplain farmers and the
communities in which they live but also on the original dwellers of the
floodplains, the indigenous peoples of the river area. The Committee will address
this matter at its next public hearing and therefore it reserves further
comments on this issue for its final report to the Senate.
1.55
Over allocation results from lack of, or inadequate
knowledge about the rivers from which the water is taken. The need for broader
knowledge and more precise measurement of rivers was recognised by various
submitters to the Committee ranging from Engineers Australia to the National Water
Commission's Ken Matthews:
We do not know nearly accurately enough where the water is, what
it is being used for and what its state of health is, and that is not good
enough... Unless water can be monitored and measured, it simply cannot be
managed. Good water accounting is vital for not only economic purposes but also
environmental management and good policy formulation... In lay terms, water
planning is about getting all the parties around a table to try to reconcile
their sometimes conflicting demands—consumptive purposes, environmental
purposes and the implications for communities of different water use. [23]
1.56
The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
explained that one of the aims of the National Water Initiative (NWI) is for
all states to work towards fair and sustainable allocation of water and redress
as much as possible the negative impact of over allocation:
The over allocations are intended to be dealt with by all the
states, consistent with the National Water Initiative. The National Water
Initiative indicates that, if structural adjustment is required, the Australian
government will consider that on a case-by-case basis. In the meantime we need
to improve the information base, and we are seeking to do that.[24]
1.57
The problem on the ground is that it is unrealistic to
expect all river extraction to stop while the data is collected and the science
perfected. As a result, permanent water licences have been granted by state
authorities in the absence of adequate knowledge, history, understanding and
any precise measurement of the water available in rivers and lakes around the
country. In many cases, it is anybody's guess what the sustainable levels of
extraction are. Yet, as Professor Young
told the Committee, it is the very survival of the river that might be at
stake:
Conceptually, there is a base amount of water that all rivers
need... Some people—and this involves some value judgements—would argue that the
right way to do this, as the system gets drier, is to increase allocations to
the environment so you still have a river which supplies water for recreation,
for maintenance of flood plains and so forth. Alternatively, you can have a
system in which, as it gets drier, we lose all of those assets.
1.58
Not surprisingly in the face of a lack of solid data on
which to base and explain decisions, many irrigators are suspicious of changes
to access rights justified by reference to new or 'increased' knowledge. They
are demanding both an independent assessment of the new knowledge and:
greater specification of delivery rights (in terms of
timing, flow rates, and known constraints to delivery). [25]
1.59
The problem with this is that there is such uncertainty
surrounding the impact of climate change. According to the Murray Darling Basin
Commission, stream flow could be reduced by as much as 40 per cent in some
parts of Victoria.
Clearly, it would be unwise to specify absolute delivery rights in this context,
however it may be possible to provide access to
independent analysis and ensure meaningful involvement in the decision-making
process.
Improving
quality of water resources data
1.60
The National Water Commission's Dr Chartres told the
Committee that all states and territories continue to work towards improving
the quality of the data that they are contributing towards a national baseline
assessment of water resources that is being compiled by the Commission. The
Commission is planning to publish the first set of data (a level 1 assessment, comprising
management and planning status information) in September 2006.
1.61
The Commission is hoping to have a more comprehensive
set of data (a level 2 assessment comprising water balances for 50-70 water
management areas around the country) completed by early 2007.[26]
At the same time, it will also publish a nationally harmonised
methodology for river health assessment and the Water Account for 2004-05, prepared in collaboration with the
Australian Bureau of Statistics.
1.62
The Committee welcomes this development as it is very
keen to see more data about rivers and water collected and made publicly
available so that decisions about water allocations can be based on the best
available science. Data will always be incomplete but sound decisions about
flow rates, timing and the volume of water that each irrigator can depend on
must be made in response to each particular ecosystem and how much water each
river needs for its survival and for it to support a flourishing riverine
environment.
Capping
water extraction and diversion
1.63
At present, the people of the Border rivers area in
northern NSW and of the Condamine-Balonne area are kept in suspense and
extremely dry conditions while the Queensland government completes the decision
making process on the cap on surface
water diversions. It now seems that it will be at least June 2007 before they
know whether the outcome of that process will bring them some relief – some 12
years after the Murray-Darling Ministerial Council first agreed to a cap on
water diversions in the basin.
1.64
A number of submitters to the Committee argued strongly
that the cap should not apply to Queensland
because they are convinced that their
rivers either have no effect on the flow of the Murray
in the southern states, or because their rivers are not suffering as much as
the lower reaches of the Murray.
The Committee will return to this difficult issue in its final report.
1.65
Witnesses from the federal Department of Agriculture,
Fisheries and Forestry, the National Water Commission and (in the case of the
Murray river) from the Murray Darling Commission are optimistic that many of
the problems caused by over allocation can be resolved through negotiation and
through the National Water Initiative. The Committee agrees with those
witnesses that the processes for addressing the problems are in train but it is
concerned at the slow pace of negotiations while so many of the affected
graziers are seeing their livelihood disappear: several submitters talked about
being only able to support a quarter of the stock they once ran on their
properties.[27]
Protecting
Northern Rivers
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Many of the river
systems in Australia are over-allocated and degraded, suffering from the
excessive demands brought about by their proximity to our agricultural and
residential zones. Fortunately, this is not the case for the rivers in Australia's
tropical and semi-arid zones. Various submissions to the Committee (including
the Environment Centre, NT and WWF-Australia) have called on governments to
agree to grant special protection to those rivers that are still in a
relatively pristine condition to ensure that they do not suffer the fate of the
Murray.
1.67
Australia's
northern rivers have the advantage of not being in heavily populated areas
compared to the Murray. The Northern
Territory has some 140,000 kilometres of rivers and
creeks that are identified as being largely undisturbed. In its final report,
the Committee will examine the tools available to governments to ensure the
long term protection of all or part of those rivers for future generations.
Groundwater
1.68
As it becomes more costly and more difficult to meet
the growing demand for water from surface water resources, both urban and rural
users have turned to pumping groundwater as a way to solve water shortage
problems. While in some states some of these
bores are licensed, very few of these bores are metered making it extremely
difficult to track levels of extraction and develop data on sustainable yields.
There seems almost to be an implicit assumption that groundwater is limitless.
While great progress has been made in hydro-geology in recent years, it remains
a complex and inexact science. There is limited knowledge about the interaction
between surface and ground water in many areas, and we lack long-term data on
the effects of groundwater pumping on the sustainability of our aquifers.
1.69
With the help of
CSIRO, the Murray Darling Basin Ministerial Council has identified groundwater
extraction as one of the six significant risks [28] facing the Murray-Darling
Basin that could eventually reduce
the amount of water available in its rivers and streams.
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There is every reason to believe that the risk of
ground water extraction significantly reducing stream flow must also be real
for other aquifers in the country – not just in the Murray-Darling
Basin. The Committee will return to
the six risks identified by CSIRO in its final report.
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The issue here is that in addition to the immediate
negative impacts on groundwater stores, the long term impacts may be of greater
consequence:
In connected groundwater-surface water systems, there is
normally a time lag of years or decades between the start of groundwater
extraction and the moment the full impact of that pumping is felt in the
streams...even if all groundwater pumping were to cease immediately, there will
be an ongoing impact in streams due to historical pumping.[29]
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The Committee urges all governments to exercise the
utmost caution in granting licences for groundwater extraction in cases where
little is known about the aquifer in question. The data available is improving
greatly and it is important to wait until sound knowledge is available before
taking further action in this area.
1.73
The Committee was also very interested to hear of the
Managed Aquifer Recharge experiment currently being conducted in the Perth
basin where advanced treated effluent is being returned to the aquifer thus
avoiding depletion of that water resource. [30]
1.74
The difficulties posed by the lack of a uniform system
of water property rights, as discussed earlier, may be a key factor in
discouraging more robust trading in water entitlements. A reluctance to trade
water permanently "out" of a region, especially in a period of
climate variability, may also be at work. While trade in many areas is
dominated by a fear of seeing precious water resources taken out of a
particular region, farmers and irrigators are unlikely to pressure state
governments to agree to a nationally uniform standard in the immediate future.
1.75
Nevertheless,
the Committee sees merit in standardising water rights both to facilitate trade
and also because it is currently assessed as part of a property valuation for
the purposes of selling and mortgaging a property. It is therefore imperative
that that right to water should be defined in a standardised way that would be
acceptable to all involved, whether bankers or interstate farmers.
1.76
In this interim report, the Committee has touched on
some of the major issues that have been brought to its attention during its
inquiry to date. As indicated, the Committee is planning to pursue certain
issues further through forthcoming public hearings. It will make its
recommendations in its final report.
Acknowledgements
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The Committee thanks all those who have prepared
submissions or who have appeared as witnesses at its public hearings for their
contribution to its inquiry.
Senator Rachel Siewert
Chair
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