On Monday, 7 December 2009, the Australian Financial Review ran a news piece on the National Water Commission's report-Australian water reform 2009: Second biennial assessment of progress in implementation of the National Water Initiative. The article highlighted the criticisms of state and federal government agencies over slowness to deliver on a wide range of issues, including water trading and a more integrated approach to planning. The actual report was also critical of the lack of consideration of climate change in planning for both. What is not contained in either the newspaper piece or the report is any comment about apparent conflicts in policy around water buybacks by the federal government and Australia's climate change policies more broadly. On the one hand, the view is that water in general has been over allocated and the environment (in particular the Murray Darling River System) is suffering. On the other hand, farmers and water managers are collectively being urged to plan for the dire impacts of climate change.
It would appear that, in these circumstances, a large amount of money is being spent to acquire water to sustain an ecological system that is under increasing threat from climate change impacts that, by and large, we will not be able to arrest. The question then is one of priority around expenditure and whether it should be directed toward trying to sustain threatened ecosystems, or instead on implementing measures to adapt to the changes being experienced. Far too little is being done around adapting to both the impacts that we have seen thus far and the ones that are being predicted by more and more of the climate scientists in our country.
Local communities in these regions are suffering immense hardship and are slowly dying. This, while debate still rages around water trades, interstate rivalries, and federal government initiatives that appear to not be addressing the really important community elements, and a system that encourages inefficiency. The National Water Commission report has highlighted a number of issues that need to be addressed quickly. These are:
- 1. painting a clearer picture of the move to a more sustainable level of extraction across the Murray Darling Basin (MDB)
- 2. embedding flexibility and robustness into water planning and management to cope with uncertainty associated with climate change
- 3. ensuring that lessons from the MDB are reflected in a principled and proactive approach to water management elsewhere
- 4. remaining focused on outcomes
- 5. addressing resource and capacity constraints within the water industry
- 6. clarifying roles and responsibilities.
Of these, it is my view that items 2, 4 and 6 are the critical ones. Additionally, there needs to be a review with an objective of sorting out conflicting policy directions across the different institutions and jurisdictions.
About the Author
Peter Fagan has more than 35 years of experience and is MWH's Asia Pacific Sustainability Practice Leader. His extensive experience spans the technical and organisational aspects of sustainability through public and private sector roles, including more than 30 years with New South Wales' largest water provider. Mr Fagan currently serves as a member of the Technology and Sustainability Standing Committee of the University of Sydney's Warren Centre for Advanced Engineering.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
