Australian Greens Minority
Report
Chapter 1: Response to the
Water Amendment Bill 2008
Introduction
The Australian
Greens believe that there are two fundamental problems with the approach
currently being taken by the Commonwealth Government to delivering a long-term
sustainable solution to the equitable sharing of limited water resources within
the Murray Darling Basin and therefore with the Water Amendment Bill 2008.
1.
Basin communities and
water users (including environmental advocates) have not been part of the
consultation and negotiation process for the new arrangements. The only key
stakeholders engaged have been the State and Territory Governments, leading to
some perverse outcomes (e.g. the definition of 'critical human needs' as
discussed below). A more consultative and democratic approach would generate a
fairer, more robust and sustainable outcome.
2.
Commonwealth
investment in water buyback, infrastructure improvements and structural
adjustment is being rolled out slowly in an ad hoc fashion with no consideration
for the social, economic, environmental or structural impacts of where water is
bought or irrigation efficiencies invested in. A more consultative approach
based on informed and empowered community planning and investment in which
buyback and improvements could be combined to redesign local systems would
deliver a more sustainable and cost effective outcome and minimise 'stranded
assets' and negative impacts on local communities.
The
Australian Greens are well aware of the need to move quickly to establish the
MDBA and get the Basin Plan underway. We are both disappointed and frustrated
that – after dragging their feet on the legislative reform process and failing
to get the necessary legislation to federal and state parliaments in a timely fashion
– our governments are now attempting to undermine and circumvent normal
democratic processes of legislative review by arguing that amendment to this
legislation is not possible because it would require re-negotiation with the
States over the details of the powers referred. We note however that this is
not strictly true for those existing parts of the Water Act and those parts of
the Water Amendment Bill which are not dependent on the referral of powers.
This
situation was clear from the outset, as were the concerns held by the
Australian Greens (many of which were on record as proposed amendments to the
Water Act from 2007) and by a number of key stakeholders, including irrigators,
floodplain grazers, basin communities and environmental advocates. Nevertheless
the Commonwealth proceeded with a very opaque and closed-door approach to
negotiation with States and Territories through COAG and other means, and
stonewalled efforts to get more information on and have input into the process
and the reform model it was developing. This is quite frankly not acceptable.
The
Government should not rely on the concern and commitment of the community and
the Greens to securing a better outcome to compel us to accept a flawed but
slightly better outcome against the risk of a significant delay to introduce a
fairer and more robust system – particularly when part of the deal effectively
means that the cap on sustainable diversions will not be operating in Victoria
until 2019 and other States until 2014. This last fact undermines the argument
of urgency. The Greens in fact believe that the Basin Plan should be in
operation as soon as possible ... and certainly long before 2019.
The
irony of the problems that have been brought about by the Rudd Government
taking a 'behind closed doors' approach to negotiating the framework for basin
reform is that the very problems that undermine the current approach (as
encapsulated in the Water Amendment Bill) – of States clinging to narrow
self-interest and forcing limiting compromises – would have been amenable to
the moral suasion brought about by an open and robust debate into the pros and
cons of particular measures. We would not be left, for example, with a
definition of 'critical human need' in the intergovernmental agreement and Schedule
1 of the Bill which does not reflect the interests or
concerns of basin communities and defies common-sense understandings of the
term. Contrary to the claims of DEWHA's Dr Horne who said:
"The
Scope of this definition was subject to very extensive negotiations with the
states during the negotiation of the intergovernmental agreement on Murray Darling Basin reform. The current definition was
considered to reflect the interests of all communities in the basin."
It
is clear from the evidence received by the committee in both this inquiry and
the other ongoing RRAT inquiry into the Murray Darling Basin and the Coorong and Lower Lakes that key stakeholders and communities
within the basin do not consider this definition to be in their best
interest. It may be possible that the States may genuinely consider this to be
in the communities best interests, but this misapprehension could only arise in
a consultative vacuum and would not have withstood open community debate.
To
this end the Australian Greens will be introducing amendments to tighten the
definition of 'critical human need'.
A
similar situation exists in relation to the Sugarloaf Pipeline in Victoria, which intends to extract an additional 75GL from the Murrumbidgee catchment for Melbourne's urban water supply. We note that
'critical human need' provisions do not relate to this water and it will be
secured from State allocations to irrigation licences as those allocations
become available under normal water sharing arrangements – meaning that in low rainfall
years when Melbourne's water demands are the most critical there may be little
or no water available. While we acknowledge that under the current Basin
Agreement it is up to the State to allocate their share of water (... ultimately
within what will eventually be set as the sustainable diversion limit) we
remain concerned that a move to implement significant new extractions for use
of populations outside the basin at a time of basin-wide crisis and significant
community suffering is a retrograde and unnecessary step – which threatens to
undermine the impetus and community commitment for whole of basin reform.
The
Australian Greens believe that, as a matter of principle in this time of crisis
,water resources secured within the basin through necessary investments in
efficiency improvements need to be used to address the pressing needs of the
basin – to reduce over-allocation back to sustainable diversion levels, to help
farming communities adapt to significantly reduced irrigation entitlements, and
to ensure the health of the river and the survival of threatened basin
ecosystems. There is only limited scope for achieving water efficiency gains
within the basin, so while this water is being secured through State Government
investments in infrastructure upgrades, this is modernisation activity that
Victoria should be undertaking anyway as part of their contribution to
basin water reform – and the water being diverted is reducing the quantum of
water available to help the river survive and basin communities restructure. At
a time at which basin communities are hurting and receive significant public
sympathy, and there is widespread concern over the threat to basin ecosystems,
there is a strong argument for stopping additional new extraction occurring for
uses outside of the basin.
To
this end the Australian Greens will be introducing amendments to the provisions
of the Basin Plan to exclude consideration of new extractive uses outside of
the basin.
We
note the evidence to the ongoing RRAT inquiry the Murray Darling Basin, and the Coorong and Lower Lakes that Adelaide
is moving to reduce its dependence on the basin and applaud its efforts. By
comparison Melbourne has a huge untapped stormwater resource
and discharges 400GL per year of stormwater on average into the sea.
The
separate issues of the definition of 'critical human need' and the Sugarloaf
Pipeline are discussed in more detail later in this report.
River health
and ecosystem resilience
In the face of
the combined challenges of a drier and warmer climate, significantly reduced
prospects for freshwater runoff in the basin, and the need to address the
social and economic crises currently facing the communities of the basin we
need to be thinking about and planning for the long-term future. As the recent
inquiry into the Coorong and Lower Lakes demonstrated, in considering how to
balance competing water uses we need to be mindful of the role that a healthy
river plays in sustaining healthy communities. With 80%-90% of the basin's
wetlands already gone[1]
and the majority of those remaining highly stressed, the basin's wetlands role
in maintaining the health of the river and delivering ecosystem services and
their ability to maintain water quality (by effectively acting as the 'kidneys'
of the system) is severely threatened.
As the late
professor Peter Cullen pointed out[2], we need to put
into place a comprehensive ongoing program for monitoring the health of the
basin's ecosystems that allows us to measure and adaptively manage their
resilience. While putting aside a baseline environmental water allocation is a
necessary starting point, the health of many of these systems is dependent on a
variable wetting and flushing cycle rather than a constant trickle.
One of the
outstanding concerns with the Murray Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project
undertaken by the CSIRO which will inform and underlie the Basin cap is the
extent to which it has predominantly focused on the hydrology of available
water resources – which is only half of the story. While it provides us much
needed data on the extent of the hydrological resource of individual
catchments, it does not focus on the science on the ecological water needs to
maintain the health and resilience of basin ecosystems from which we can
determine what truly 'sustainable' yields are. The ultimate product of the
MDBSYP will be an invaluable whole-of-basin mathematical model of the
relationship between rainfall, run-off, groundwater flows, et cetera that
allows us to determine how much water we have at any given point, and what
transmission losses we are likely to experience as water moves through the
system ... but it does not provide an evaluation of the health and resilience of
the river, its wetlands and other dependent ecosystems that allow us to
determine watering requirements and adaptively manage environmental outcomes.
This issue was
raised by the late Professor Peter Cullen in the inquiry into the Water Act 2007.
While the need to undertake this work is arguably implicit in mandate of the
new Murray Darling Basin Authority to develop a Basin Plan and set limits on
sustainable diversions, we remain concerned that this in not made explicit
within the Water Act ... and it is not at all clear whether there is an
appropriate and ongoing resource allocation and responsibility for undertaking
the monitoring and assessment of ecosystem health.
To this end the
Australian Greens will be moving amendments to ensure that ecosystem health and
resilience are explicitly contained in the objects of the Act, and that the
MDBA is given explicit responsibility for carrying out those objects.
We note that
these amendments were suggested by the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists
at the previous inquiry into the Water Bill 2007 and put to the Senate by the
Australian Greens in 2007, at the time the ALP (then in Opposition) said they
had not had enough tine to consider the proposed amendment. We hope the
Government should by now have had sufficient time to consider them. These
amendments do not impact upon the referral of powers as contained in the
intergovernmental agreement.
When the Water
Act was first introduced by the Howard Government in 2007, the ECITA committee
held a rushed inquiry into the provisions of the bill, during which it heard
significant evidence from stakeholders and water policy experts of potential
limitations of the Act. Despite the committee being given a very short time to
consider the Bill and report, the fact that the RRAT
committee had only recently completed a substantial and far-reaching inquiry
into water policy initiatives[3]
enabled senators to quickly and effectively respond to the issue. On this basis
the Australian Greens put forward a series of amendments based on this combined
expert advice. We note that these amendments still remain pertinent to outstanding
limitations within the Water Act and the proposed Water Amendment Bill, and
have been re-presented to the Senate by Professor Mike Young and Dr Arlene Buchan as part of this inquiry. We also note
that to date only one of these amendments has been partially adopted by the
Rudd government and express our disappointment with their failure to give due
consideration to these issues and engage in consultations with these
stakeholders and ourselves around their adoption.
Issues covered by these Australian Greens
amendments include:
- Making sure the
Act and the MDBA have an explicit focus on managing environmental health and
resilience
- Integration with
EPBC and compliance with Ramsar and other international environmental treaties
(which has been partially implemented)
- Ensuring that
water entitlements are defined as shares of available water, and take into
account the variability of the northern basin
- Reducing the
ability of the Minister to direct the MDBA and giving it more independence
- Including public
standing provisions comparable to the EPBC Act to ensure public accountability
and to facilitate enforcement of the Act.
Sugarloaf
Pipeline and 'critical human need'
There has been
some confusion around the provisions relating to 'critical human need' and whether
they apply to water extracted by the Sugarloaf Pipeline.
'Critical human
need' applies only to water within the River Murray channel and not to its
tributaries or other parts of the wider Murray-Darling system, so therefore the
Sugarloaf Pipeline will not be able to extract water from the Goulburn River
under the 'critical human need' provisions.
The 'critical
human needs' provisions only apply during times of extremely low inflows and
low water availability within the system - where the level of water available
is lower than the worst case flows provisions of the previous Murray Darling
Basin agreement, such as has occurred during the last two years.
The Sugarloaf
Pipeline is seeking to obtain water for Melbourne's urban water supply by making efficiency
gains to irrigation systems operating under water licences which receive
seasonal water allocations as a share of available water only when there is
water available for allocation.
This means that
during periods of extremely low inflows when the 'critical human needs'
provisions are triggered there is unlikely to be any water available for
allocation to the water licences that the Sugarloaf Pipeline depends on. While
the rainfall patterns for Melbourne and the Murray Darling Basin differ, this is still likely to mean
that the pipeline is unlikely to be able to deliver extra water in the dry
years when Melbourne needs it most.
The other
implication of the 'critical human needs' provisions not applying to the
Sugarloaf Pipeline is that once the water is in the pipeline there are no
restrictions on how that water may be used and no obligation that it only be
used to meet the survival needs of humans. If Melbourne Water choose to sell it
to industry or use it to water golf courses that is entirely up to them.
We have a
particular concern with the diversion of water resources for uses outside of
the Basin. There are two reasons for this. One is that we believe as a matter
of principle our cities and towns should be aiming to use their own water
resources as efficiently and effectively as possible, and we believe it makes
little sense to be increasing water extraction from within the basin at a time
when it is experiencing severe reductions in inflows ... particularly to move it
to a city in a wetter catchment which is managing its own water resources
poorly.
The second
concern relates to ground water flows. When water is used for irrigation
purposed within the basin there is a component of that water use which
infiltrates to groundwater and eventually returns to the channel via
groundwater flows. In this way the share of the total available water resource
within the basin that this allocation represents effectively includes this
groundwater return component, meaning that if this water is extracted and used
outside the basin it is in fact having a larger impact on basin water resources
that needs to be calculated and accounted for. In this way the extraction and
use of 75GL outside the basin might have an impact equivalent to, say, 100GL of
irrigation use.
This also means
that we need careful monitoring and accounting in those situations where we are
making water efficiency improvements by lining channels or replacing them with
pipes or converting on-farm irrigation infrastructure to ensure that we allow
for the groundwater return component. We support such improvements being made
and would be keen to see Commonwealth funding for irrigation improvements being
rolled out quicker in a more targeted fashion, but emphasise that we must
account fully for water recovery and water use.
The building of
the Sugarloaf Pipeline has been assessed by Environment Minister, Peter Garrett under the Environmental Protection and
Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, and the impact of the building of its
physical structure on directly affected communities in the path of the pipeline
approved. However, water extraction will have to be consistent with the water
licences under which particular water allocations are received and limited to
that which is made under particular seasonal allocations. It will also be
subject to the Cap on Sustainable Diversions when the Basin Plan is enacted,
which may well result in significant reductions in water allocations where
water is currently over-allocated and extraction exceeds sustainable levels of
use,[4] as the following
exchange illustrates:
Senator
XENOPHON—"There
have been assertions made both from the Victorian government and those opposed
to the project as to what the water savings would be on that plan as it applies
to other parts of the basin in terms of water saving measures. In relation to
the north-south pipeline water saving assertions by the Victorian government
and the contrary assertions made, what power does the authority have to test
those assertions to independently audit whether those assertions or claims of
water savings are verifiable?"
Mr
Freeman—"The
authority will have to familiarise itself sufficiently with that project to
understand the economic, social and environment impacts of the project. It will
have to essentially look at the project and ascertain what are the economic,
social and environmental. It will have to understand the hydrology of the
project. It is not there in an audit role, because what it will then do is take
that into consideration in setting the sustainable diversion limit for that
valley. Whether that water is applied to Melbourne or whether it is applied to irrigation
is an issue for the Victorian government, but the authority will have to
understand the project. ... Water resource planning is a state responsibility
that sits within the framework of the basin plan."[5]
The Victorian
Auditor-General in his report “Planning for Water Infrastructure in Victoria” (9 April
2008), concluded that
“the level of information provided to the community on water supply projects has
been inadequate and needs to be improved”. Specifically, he noted “the
processes underpinning the Victorian water plan fell short of the standard the
Department applied when developing the white paper and the Central Region
strategy.” He further criticised the Victorian Water Plan for “widely
varying levels of rigour around the plan’s costs and expected water savings
benefits.”[6]
The project should not proceed given that there has not been an
independently prepared due diligence report and comprehensive audit of the
savings asserted by the Victorian Government.
The impacts
of mining on groundwater systems
The Australian
Greens are concerned by the potential of mining operations, such as long-wall
coal mining in the Liverpool Plains region, to impact on the connectivity of
groundwater systems and adversely affect water quality and rates of flow. There
is evidence that suggests that in some circumstances these mining operations
can have unintended consequences of intercepting and diverting groundwater flows.
In response to
questions on this issue, the Murray Darling Basin Authority indicated that
where mining activities impact upon groundwater flows there would be a
requirement that that such water 'use' is licenced[7], saying that:
(l)
Under the Water
Act 2007 s4, interception activity means the interception of surface water
or ground water that would otherwise flow, directly or indirectly, into a
watercourse, lake, wetland, aquifer, dam or reservoir that is a Basin water
resource. An action that intercepts water is an interception activity under
the Act.
The MDBA also
asserted that the potential of such mining activities to impact upon
groundwater flows might require pre-assessment, asserting:
(j)
Subsection 22(7) of
the Water Act 2007 provides that the Basin Plan may require that interception
activities with, or with the potential to have, significant impacts on the
water resources of the water resource plan area are assessed to determine
whether they are consistent with the water resource plan before they are
approved ... and may require that water access rights be held for specified kinds
of interception activities. This provision provides a pathway to address such
an issue.
While the
answers from the MDBA indicate that such mining activities would be recognised
as water interception activity for the purposes of the Act, and the existing
provisions of the Act would provide the Authority with remedy once this
situation occurred, the Australian Greens remain concerned that under many
circumstances it may be impossible to repair the damage (or prohibitively
expensive). On this basis the Australian Green believe that a proactive
preventative strategy is warranted and the requirement for such assessment
activity should be made explicit in the Act.
To
this end, the Australian Greens believe that section 255 of the Act should be
amended to ensure that, prior to exploration licences being granted for mining
operations an independent expert study must be undertaken to determine the
impacts of the proposed mining operations on the connectivity of groundwater
systems, surface water and ground water flows and water quality. Where a
substantial risk is identified, these exploration licences should not be
granted.
The Australian
Greens acknowledge the work of Tony Winsor MP on this issue and note that he
moved similar amendments to the Act in the House of Representatives. We also
note we believe that such an amendment does not impact upon the water sharing
and governance arrangements contained within the intergovernmental agreement
(Schedule 1) and the referral of powers by State Governments.
Chapter 2: The Way Forward – The MDB 2010-2050 Plan
The need for a planned and integrated approach to investment
The Australian
Greens believe that a more integrated approach to water buyback, infrastructure
improvements and structural adjustment is needed to maximise the benefits of
the reform to basin governance represented by the Water Act 2007, the Water
Amendment Bill 2008, and the principles enshrined in the National Water Initiative.
We share the concerns of irrigation communities, environmental advocates and
water policy experts about the ad hoc nature of the current water buyback
process, the timeframe within which the $12.9 billion Water for the Future
investment is being rolled out, and the lack of targeting, coordination and
planning to bring forward infrastructure investments as part of a regional
approach to building the industries and communities of the future.
As Jenni Mattila
from the Bondi Group put it, there has been a lack of consideration and
planning for the shape of the future basin emerging from the current
restructuring process, and a lack of focus on which farming system option and
in what proportion might produce the most profitable and sustainable mix:
"I think that that is probably the fairest
thing to say—that we do need to think through the issues a little bit more than
we have. As we know from last time, there has not been a socioeconomic impact
statement done on the buyback. It is meant to be done in May next year. I think
that we need to be clear that it is quite clear that the basin is actually
overallocated. However, one of the things that we need to sort through is what
we are going to focus on. Are we going to focus on high security water? Are we
going to focus on permanent plantings—because you must have water to do that?
Are we going to focus on general security water? Are we going to focus on crops
that you can either plant or not plant depending on the environmental
conditions? From what I can see, those sorts of issues have not been thought
through in enough detail."[8]
The Australian
Greens want to see a focus on ensuring the viability and ongoing profitability
of our most sustainable and productive food production areas, and appropriate
support given to farmers who want and need to transition to more adaptable and
resilient farming systems. We want to see clear and reliable information given
to farmers and communities about the kind of future they face, the choices that
have to be made and the relative prospects of their region. We believe that the
basin communities are best positioned to make decisions about the future
prospects and shape of their districts and regions once they are given the
information, tools and support to do so.
The Australian
Greens would like to see an honest and open debate with the community about the
future shape of the basin. We want to see a process for taking the Murray Darling Basin forward that puts community at the
centre of the decision-making process, rather than excluding them from the
debate. We believe that a focus on planning for sustainable regional
communities can allow individual landholders to come together to discuss how
they can balance investments in infrastructure, structural adjustment and the
sale of water allocations to ensure planning with appropriate economies of
scale to ensure communities can thrive and grow into the future. An excellent
example of how such an approach can succeed is given in the case study of the
Torrumbarry Reconfiguration and Asset Modernisation Strategy (TRAMS) discussed
in the submission from ACF[9]:
"I have been having discussions with
irrigation corporations, water services committees and irrigation districts,
and one of their concerns is that an ad hoc approach to water purchase across
the basin could have that Swiss cheese effect—leaving stranded infrastructure
and so on. ... One of our concerns is that the investment in infrastructure
improvement could end up creating gold plated infrastructure where ... we will
end up with gold plated stranded assets in the future.
...Those
communities across the basin have had enough time now to really start thinking
about what is the best option for them in a 50- to 100-year time frame looking
at the impacts that climate change is likely to have on them. The resounding
message is that the best outcomes will come not from keeping the buyback
separate from infrastructure improvement and structural adjustment but from
integrating those different funding streams into a single program and looking
at the process of change from the irrigation district level upwards. An example
of that would be the Torrumbarry irrigation district, which has got its
community together, looked at the long-term impact of climate change and other
risks to its area, taken a realistic view of what really good areas will remain
viable for irrigated agriculture into the future and what areas will not be
viable for irrigated agriculture into the future and asked what the best use
for that land is. Is it conversion to dryland cropping? Is it conversion to
grazing? Is it for some other purpose, for example carbon credits or some sort
of ecosystem services investment. That district has really tried to work out
from that understanding what the types of land and water reforms are which are necessary
to put them on a sustainable trajectory.
One
of the biggest improvements could be made to the basin not by the Commonwealth
government maintaining the silos over its different funding programs but by
bringing them together and starting to ask those irrigation communities to have
a good hard look at what they think their futures ought to be. That is not only
because it is a 50- to 100-year time frame that we are looking at but also
because those communities are ready for change. We are not where we were two
years ago, when communities were saying: ‘There is nothing wrong with us; we
will be fine. The environment doesn’t need any more water, and we want it all
for irrigation.’ There has been a quantum shift in the attitude of most of
those communities, who know that change is required and want to be involved in
the process."[10]
In putting the
position of the National Farmers Federation to the RRAT inquiry, Ben Fargher also advocated for an integrated
approach to the investments made through Water for the Future:
"Our
position on these things is that we have supported the water reform agenda; we
have supported the government’s reform—we have got some modification of
technical detail; we have supported the operation of the market; and, if
acquisition is to occur, it will be from willing sellers only. We also want
that linked as a strategic package with investment on farm to help farmers do
more with less on farm and through system. It is not as though we have a policy
on the specific purchase or otherwise of that particular property. Our concern
is focused only on buyback if it is not integrated in a package with on-farm
and through-system investment. If it is in such an integrated package and
governance reform and other issues—such as metering and monitoring and the
acceleration of the National Water Initiative—are happening, farmers and
irrigators are happy to engage in the water reform process in this country. If
it is being done non-sequentially, then obviously we have a concern.
With
our lobbying activities we are saying, ‘Let’s keep it together. Acquisition
will be from willing sellers only. Farmers and irrigators need a healthy river
too. But, with food shortages and all the challenges that we face in regional Australia, let’s back farmers to do more with less on farm and
through system as well.’ We have a record of delivering more with less; we can
do more so in the future, but we need the tools to be able to do it. If we can
keep those two aspects together, then we will be centrally engaged in the debate."[11]
There is a real
danger that the current ad hoc approach will deliver what Dr Arlene Buchan
described as a "Swiss cheese" effect – with holes in irrigation
infrastructure where individual irrigators have been forced by financial
pressures to bail out that make it harder for their neighbours to maintain
existing irrigation infrastructure ... increasing both the risk of stranded
assets and the likelihood of the economies of local communities dropping below
sustainability thresholds. As Professor Mike Young put it:
"...There is a real risk that we could spend
on infrastructure that proves to be redundant. It is a very difficult time. The
National Water Initiative, which all governments agreed to comply with,
requires a level playing field. What is happening at the moment is that we are
finding bits of the system that are inefficient and we are upgrading them. That
breaches the National Water Initiative. There is a real risk this could come at
a cost to the nation. While investment goes into the core bits of infrastructure,
which you would expect to survive no matter what happens, there is no problem.
If we go one step further than that, my strong advice as an economist dealing
with issues like this is that we reset the system in terms of the overall plan,
first, which includes looking at the structure of the river, because there is
natural infrastructure, and then there is built infrastructure for supplying
water. We are upgrading the built infrastructure, but we have not yet looked at
the natural infrastructure, the river itself, and that must also be a priority.[12]
As was pointed
out in evidence to the committee by Deborah Kerr from the National Farmers Federation
there is a significant opportunity that is being missed to invest in irrigation
infrastructure improvements at a time when low or zero allocations have meant
that many irrigation properties are not in operation.
"If you look at the
drought, currently many irrigation farms are not being utilised. Now is an
ideal opportunity for those works to be undertaken, as there could also be some
beneficial flow-on impacts to communities where currently contractors who used
to do sowing, harvesting or whatever for farmers perhaps could be used to
implement these on-farm works. So, with the drought, we think there would be
some beneficial impacts to communities if those works were rolled out here and
now." [13]
Investing in
infrastructure improvements during this 'forced downtime' would provide
much-needed jobs and cash-flow to the basin communities that are hurting the most.
It would also give irrigators something to do with during this time of despair
and provide that other commodity that is in particularly short supply within
the basin at the moment – hope.
"...
I think that, importantly, in order to achieve that, to expedite the
implementation of the act and the Water for the Future program we should be
accelerating the rollout of the Commonwealth programs— all of the buyback, the
infrastructure investment and the structural adjustment programs; these are all
important parts of the reform process. There is no justification for delaying
the rollout of any of them. I think that there are great opportunities to not
maintain those as individual, separate, siloed projects anymore but to
integrate the investment of those different funding streams. And there are
great opportunities to be looking from an irrigation district upwards—giving
communities some of the information and the tools they need so that they can
start planning their irrigation districts and work out what they want them to
look like in the future. So, kind of moving away from the ad hoc implementation
of those programs, to looking at an irrigation district and asking: what do
they want this area to be like over a 50-year, 70-year, or 100-year time frame,
taking into consideration the impacts that climate change and so on will have,
and giving them some of the information and tools they need to be involved in
the decision-making and the planning process."[14]
In addition to
the evidence presented by both the ACF and NFF about
the need for and benefits of a planned and integrated approach, Dr
Don Blackmore also advocated a similar approach during
the previous RRAT inquiry into the Murray Darling Basin, Coorong and Lower Lakes:
"Given
that there are significant community assets, I want to see the irrigation
community not protected but supported in the future, because I see them, as I
always have, as a very important part of the future of Australia. ... But it is not going to be the same industry, so which
bits of the industry are we going to deal with? The first issues you have to
deal with are how you are going to rebalance it with the environment and what
climate change number you are going to pick to put into the equation, because
it will be different for each river.
Who
is going to do that? The science is not going to give you that. It is a
judgement call because, as you would have heard today I imagine, the rainfall
variation under the climate models is still significant, even though the
aggregated impact is pretty clear.
The
second issue you have is: what are you going to do with an irrigation industry?
On the basis of the evidence that I see, you have to remove the consumptive
burden on the basin by between 15 and 30 per cent. How do you do that
equitably? Are you going to let the market do it? You can work out how the
Commonwealth should invest and in which areas it should invest. At the moment
it has a market mechanism in which people are willing sellers, but they are
willing sellers because of where they are on their mortgage and not where they
are located in the landscape. I am an observer of this now and not managing it,
so I can probably be a bit more freewheeling, but what I see is that in one
area we go out and we buy water and in exactly the same channel system we are
investing millions of dollars to upgrade the channel system so it is an
effective part of our future.
...We
need to go and talk to the leaders of the industry, the Laurie Arthurs and a heap of others, and ask, ‘What is
a healthy industry?’ We need to sit down with them and say, ‘This industry is
going to change, unfortunately’—we would all like it to be more comfortable,
but it is going to change—‘so how do we facilitate that change in such a way
that we leave a viable industry and viable communities in place?’ The current
market mechanisms are not taking very much water out of the system, so they do
not much matter. But, if you are going to get into a significant market
intervention, you would want to have some better navigation in this
space."[15]
Dr Blackmore also provided some information about how
existing data could be put together to assist irrigation communities in their
planning and decision making:
"In the irrigation industry, it is
relatively easy to set out the profit at full equity for farms. Take the ABS
and GIS data and lay it out; you can soon see
where the properties that are not going to be viable in the medium to long term
exist. You lay over that two or three other biophysical parameters. One of them
is the salinity of the groundwater, the second one is the depth of the
groundwater and the third is access to drainage. You soon understand which
people are irrigating in areas where it is going to be very difficult to
sustain them in the future. As it turns out, because of the way the geomorphology
of the southern basin is laid out, many of those properties are located towards
the end of channel systems, where it is more saline, away from the rivers and
the alluvial and near-alluvial plains. Many of those people already are the
water traders and many of them hang on to their water because it has been
profitable for them to be a speculator. They have been in the business for a
very long time, have low debt and can trade. I know many of them personally.
They do very nicely out of it.
These
areas also require water to travel hundreds of kilometres down channels. If you
believe what I am saying—that water is going to concentrate more in the
summer—it would be better to take some of that burden off the channel system to
make the rest of it more effective for those that remain. So what I am
suggesting is—something that is a little different from what Mike was suggesting—that we go in and we target the areas that
we should be purchasing water on. We should pay a premium to purchase water
from those areas, for two reasons. One is that you want people to go out with
dignity. The other is that you are going to get the channel losses back as a
saving as well, so you can afford to pay a premium. Not only do you get the
water right, you also get the channel losses."[16]
The Australian
Greens do not want to see some of our smartest and most efficient farmers
walking off potentially productive properties in some of our more sustainable
districts because of the uncertainty, or because of financial difficulties that
have nothing to do with the profitability of their enterprises and everything
to do with the costs of credit at a time of extremely low water allocations. We
have expressed concern in the past about the risk of investing in
infrastructure improvements on what may become stranded assets. Taking a
planned approach to targeting infrastructure investment based on planning at
the irrigation district level with the support of the best available science on
its future prospects would be a way to minimise this risk – while at the same
time helping to build community engagement at a time where community support is
at its most valuable.
To
this end the Australian Greens are advocating a MDB 2010-2050 plan and recommend that the Commonwealth
Government should:
- Resource and support
community planning as a matter of priority
- Enable communities
to produce plans which integrate infrastructure investment, water sales and
structural adjustment
- Provide incentives
and support for them to do so
- Give integrated
community plans priority in assessing funding applications
- Empower the MDBA
to develop an indicative but non-binding Basin Plan (including likely levels
for catchment sustainable diversion limits) as quickly as possible to support
this community planning process
- Create community
planning support teams and resources to bring together expertise in relevant
fields and to produce decision-support tools including district maps with
overlays of relevant information
- Learn from and
publicise successful community planning initiatives (such as TRAMS) and
facilitate the sharing of knowledge and experience between communities
- Develop a vision
for the Basin in 2050 of a vibrant community sustained by a healthy river
system that delivers food, fibre and ecosystem services to the nation – with all
communities plans finalised and underway by 2010.
Recommendations
That Basin Plan be developed and implemented by 2011.
That existing State water sharing plans should be required
to come into line with the Basin Plan within 6 months of its release, and not
delayed until 2014 (or 2019 in Victoria).
That the principles of the National Water Initiative and the
proportional allocations indicated under existing water sharing plans be used
as a basis for revising those plans where they exceed the sustainable limit on
extraction set out by the Basin Plan.
That
the Bill is amended to:
- tighten the
definition of 'critical human need'
- exclude
consideration of new extractive uses outside of the basin in the provisions of
the Basin Plan
- ensure the Act and
the MDBA have an explicit focus on managing environmental health and resilience
- achieve
integration with EPBC and compliance with Ramsar and other international
environmental treaties (which has been partially implemented)
- ensure that water
entitlements are defined as shares of available water, and take into account
the variability of the northern basin
- reduce the ability
of the Minister to direct the MDBA and to give it more independence
- Include public
standing provisions comparable to the EPBC Act to ensure public accountability
and to facilitate enforcement of the Act
- to ensure that,
prior to exploration licences being granted for mining operations an
independent expert study must be undertaken to determine the impacts of the
proposed mining operations on the connectivity of groundwater systems, surface
water and ground water flows and water quality.
That the Commonwealth Government support
and develop a MDB 2010-2050 Plan, to develop a vision for the Basin in
2050 of a vibrant community sustained by a healthy river system that delivers
food, fibre and ecosystem services to the nation, by:
- making community
planning a matter of priority
- enabling
communities to produce plans which integrate infrastructure investment, water
sales and structural adjustment
- providing incentives
and support for them to do so
- giving integrated
community plans priority in assessing funding applications
- Empowering the
MDBA to develop an indicative but non-binding interim Basin Plan (including
likely levels for catchment sustainable diversion limits) as quickly as
possible
- creating community
planning support teams and planning resources to bring together expertise in
relevant fields and to produce decision support tools including district maps
with overlays of relevant information
- publicising
successful community planning initiatives (such as TRAMS) and facilitating the
sharing of knowledge and experience between communities
- ensures community
plans are up and running by 2010
Conclusion
The Basin is facing a crisis of a scale and magnitude that
outstrips any agricultural or environmental challenge of the past. The
magnitude of our response must reflect this scale if we are to avoid serious
social consequences for basin communities, a significant threat to our food
security, and the irretrievable loss of precious habitats. Importantly, our
response must also engage and empower basin communities to rethink the way they
use water resources looking to a future in which there may be much less to go
around. We need to support and empower communities to build a vision of a
vibrant and resilient Murray Darling Basin for
2050 and provide the resources they need to restructure and rebuild their
economies. An ad hoc, Swiss cheese approach will not deliver a
sustainable future. We have only one chance to get this right.
Commonwealth, State and Territory
Governments have a choice – they can provide democratic leadership and partner
with communities to build this future ... or they can continue with the
parochial, lowest common denominator approach that has, over the last century,
been at the root of our problems with whole-of-basin governance and
over-allocation.
Senator
Rachel Siewert
Australian
Greens Senator for Western Australia
WATER
AMENDMENT BILL 2008
MINORITY
REPORT
SENATOR NICK XENOPHON
I endorse and support the
remarks and conclusions contained in the minority report of the Australian
Greens into the Inquiry on the Water Amendment Bill 2008.
NICK XENOPHON
Independent
Senator for South
Australia
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