The Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission has cited gross maladministration, negligence and unlawful actions by Commonwealth officials as just a handful of the failures in its multi-billion-dollar effort to save Australia’s largest river system.
The scathing report has gone as far to accuse the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) of negligence and being “incapable of acting lawfully”.
Among the damning findings, the report found the original Murray-Darling Basin Plan ignored potentially “catastrophic” risks of climate change, and Commissioner Bret Walker SC recommended the plan’s complete overhaul, including reallocating more water from irrigation to the environment.
Commissioner Walker said the MDBA, the body responsible for implementing the reforms, failed to act on “the best available science” when it was determining how much water could be returned to the environment in the first place.
He further accused the original architects of the plan of being driven by “politics rather than science”.
Mike Young, the professor of water and environmental policy at the University of Adelaide, told The World Today that what strikes him most is that the Commissioner appears to be saying the plan is not adequate and has been too slow in its implementation.
He said there are hopes there will be a call for a more independent authority than the current structure of the MDBA, “which means the bipartisan nature steps back and we leave it more to expertise and judgement by professionals”.
“If there’s one thing that’s clear to all Australians at the moment, things are still wrong,” he said.
“Rivers don’t lie, and when you have dredges at the mouth and fish dying, that tells you the system is still sick and the systems we are using are far from perfect.”
A map of the Murray-Darling Basin in Australia. (ABC News: Ben Spraggon)
Professor Young said an unfortunate part of the original Murray-Darling Basin Plan was a failure to build “a formula that automatically adjusts for [the impacts of] climate change”.
“We don’t have that. Instead there’s a plan to have a review and talk about it, rather than to plan for it,” he said.
Irrigators ‘already disappointed with plan’
Renmark Irrigation Trust presiding member Peter Duggin said many people were already disappointed with the basin plan.
“South Australians are looking for some certainty … at the moment I’m not sure there’s enough trust in the plan,” he said.
Mr Duggin said that an overhaul of the basin plan would not be preferred by many irrigating communities in other states.
The royal commission recommended repealing the outcome of the controversial Northern Basin Review, which reduced the amount of water to be taken out of the northern basin by 70 gigalitres.
“Any sudden change in direction [of the basin plan] could have massive implications on us and it would hurt this community,” he said.
He said he believed most people in SA had already adapted and adjusted their business model where they do not own their water.
In its recommendations released today, the royal commission recommended water buybacks as a less expensive way to recover water.
Cotton and wheat farmer Gavin Dal Broi from Griffith, in the Murrumbidgee irrigation area in New South Wales, said buybacks are not the answer.
“We couldn’t spare the stuff that got taken at the start, let alone anything extra,” he said.
“There’s no real use in becoming the most efficient farmers if you don’t actually have any water to be used.”
He said a tripling in water prices in the Murrumbidgee region this summer is all about profiteering, and paying $700 a megalitre was not sustainable.
“Coming into a pretty substantial drought, I think that the community’s going to be affected, and so are the irrigators,” he said.
Mr Duggin said there was no support from SA irrigators for buybacks either.
“Just buying water and taking water out of some regions can be highly disadvantageous to them and it can pretty much destroy small towns reliant on irrigated agriculture,” he said.
Commissioner Walker rejected claims that buybacks decimate economies of rural towns, saying that “could be debunked by an economics undergraduate”.
Land councils call for national royal commission
The NSW Aboriginal Land Council (NSWALC) has called for a federal royal commission into water management, saying Aboriginal people have managed the rivers for 60,000 years and it has only taken the current managers 200 years to bring the system to its knees.
Meeting today in Dubbo, with representatives of land councils from across the basin catchment, the NSWALC discussed a way forward after a series of fish kills in the river at Menindee and concerns that this is just the beginning with many more weeks of hot dry weather likely.
NSWALC chairman Roy Ah See said members are very unhappy about the level of consultation with Aboriginal people across the state.
“This situation has woken the sleeping giant,” he said.
“The NSW Aboriginal Land Council is 23,000 members and 120 land councils across the state, it’s the biggest network on country. And they’ve just woken it up.”
Mr Ah See said Aboriginal people take the health of the river and all its inhabitants very seriously.
“We were given custodianship by our elders and our ancestors to make sure this system is around for another 60,000 years,” he said.
“Our elders have told us they want action, they want a royal commission and they want better representation in water management negotiations.”
He said it would make far better sense for the MDBA to give Aboriginal people a voice in all planning stages, taking advantage of an existing infrastructure for consultation — that of the land councils.
Water Minister says existing collaborations to continue
Cotton and wheat farmer Mr Dal Broi said the royal commission findings into the basin plan focused on what South Australia wants, but that there should also be a national focus.
But federal Agriculture and Water Minister David Littleproud has immediately backed away from suggestions of a national royal commission.
At a press conference today, he pointed out that this “was a royal commission predicated in South Australia, the basin obviously goes further than South Australia, but we respect what the commissioner has done”.
“I think there’s some learnings we can always take out of this, but we’re continuing to work,” Mr Littleproud said.
“We have that collaboration between our states and between the Commonwealth Government and the opposition, we have an opportunity to make sure that we act collaboratively and collectively together.
“This is far too important to let politics continue to get in the middle of it.”
Upon the release of the report, South Australian Premier Steven Marshall said it was important that his state receive “every single drop of water that we’re entitled to”.
He said he is seeking a meeting with the premiers of basin states, and the ACT chief minister, to consider the content of the report and take action as soon as possible.
“This is a critical consideration for us here in South Australia — we are at the end of the river,” he said.
SA position ‘biased’ says NSW business group
The vice president of the regional NSW Griffith Business Chamber, Paul Pierotti, said he believed the royal commission’s findings cannot be accepted because they were not fair and were a biased position put by one state on a plan that is important to the entire nation.
Mr Pierotti hit out at the recommendation for more water buybacks in particular, while also calling for a federal royal commission into the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
“One of Commissioner Bret Walker’s findings was that he felt that buyback had little, if any, negative consequence to communities, and that’s blatant nonsense,” he said.
“If you strip a third of the water productivity from a region it will have an extreme adverse reaction on the economy and the community.
“It’s just absolutely outrageous that he would make those comments and then recommend further buyback.”
Mr Pierrotti said there definitely needs to be a review of the basin plan and is calling on the NSW Government to push for a federal royal commission.
“We’ve been calling for a federal royal commission for a long time, we believe it is overdue — the fish kills, the lack of water to communities,” he said.
“There’s a seven per cent allocation to the NSW Murrumbidgee, a zero allocation in the NSW Murray, yet there’s a 100 per cent allocation to South Australia.
“The man-made lower lakes and Coorong are kept at maximum capacity for recreational use and evaporate water by the day, and here we have this state asking for more water.
“They’re on 100 per cent allocation and we have regions with zero.
“We have regions in our state that don’t have drinking water, we’ve got areas where we’ve had massive fish kills. This plan is blatantly flawed at every level and most of this is the blame of the South Australian Government and that needs to be addressed immediately.”
With reporting by Sally Bryant/Dubbo, Sowaibah Hanife/Renmark, Cara Jeffery and Moyra Shields/Wagga Wagga
Originally at ABC News
