AFTER much anticipation ahead of its release, the SA Royal Commission report into the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has left many feeling disappointed that a huge opportunity had been missed.
Allegations within the report include water recovery for the environment being clouded by political considerations and that the environment should be the priority in accordance with the 2007 Water Act, above any social or economic considerations.
Mr Marshall said the government would not respond on the $5.5-million report until “later this year”.
He has requested a meeting of the COAG MDB First Ministers to consider the report and the recently-released five-year assessment of the MDB Plan by the Productivity Commission.
“My government is committed to implementing the full MDB Plan and will demand every drop of the 3200 gigalitres of environmental flow agreed by the Commonwealth and basin states in 2012 be delivered,” he said.
The state government is also criticised for “capitulating” to the federal government and upstream states by agreeing to any changes in trying to recover 450GL of upwater as part of the plan.
“SA’s agreement to these changes should be immediately reversed,” the report said.
Mr Marshall said he “did not accept” the criticism, saying his government “got NSW and Vic back to the table” and “enabled a pathway forward for the first time around that 450GL”.
Everybody’s needs are important and valid, but people need to realise we need the environment to survive or the river will die from the bottom up.
- NEVILLE JAENSCH
SA Murray Irrigators chair Caren Martin said the report was disappointly “a one-eyed, overindulgent legal opinion that doesn’t take into account the history and intent of water reform in this country”.
“I was hoping the commissioner would release a balanced, investigative piece of work, on alleged corruption, governance failures and constitutional legal issues. But instead he has just re-argued the Sustainable Diversion Limits,” she said.
“This has now become another opinion in the mix of noise and because of its skewed approach, will have minimal influence on the MDB Plan and roll-out of water reform.”
Ms Martin said the report did not consider the situation of the time.
“Mr Walker has highlighted there was a lot of talk and promises, such as the triple bottom line approach, that were never written down and therefore don’t have depth in legal terms – I disagree with that,” she said.
“To get the MDB Plan approved by the people, they pushed the triple bottom line approach and promised that nobody would be hindered in the process.
“The commissioner may be right from a legal point of view, but in context of the intent of the water reform, he isn’t right. He has now muddied the waters and made it quite political.”
Ms Martin said one positive to come from recent water issues was that it had “made NSW lift its game”.
“While frustrating it has taken this long, Qld and NSW are finally writing their water resource plans, albeit slowly, and are looking at metering, monitoring and compliance more closely,” she said.
“That area really needs the work put in to catch up to where the Murray is at with regulation and base flows.”
Ms Martin said the recommendation of compulsory ‘removing or easing of constraints’ should be acted on immediately.
“There has been $200m allocated to addressing constraints in the system,” she said.
“They need to start spending that money and addressing barriers to flow from the bottom up.
“So in the event that more environmental water is recovered, it can move more efficiently.”
Ms Martin said the report highlighted the need for a federal Royal Commission “to give the Australian public a guiding opinion that is balanced and factual as to what water form and policy agendas look like in this country”.
“Anything less than a Royal Commission or an ICAC at a federal level is not really going to cut it,” she said.
But SA Dairyfarmers’ Association chief executive officer Andrew Curtis believes that neither the SA Royal Commission or a federal one would “uncover anything new or find out what is unknown”.
This has now become another opinion in the mix of noise and because of its skewed approach, will have minimal influence on the MDB Plan and roll-out of water reform.
- CAREN MARTIN
“A Royal Commission is generally conducted to find out what is unknown but the findings in the SA report are nothing new,” he said.
“The commissioner believes there is a clear heirarchy that the environment is atop, and social and economic outcomes run a distant second and third
“This is not the understanding of any politician who put the deal together or the MDB Authority.”
Mr Curtis said because of the heirarchy approach to the report, he considered many of the recommendations “flawed”.
“If the federal government find he is right legally, then there should be an amendment to the Water Act 2007 to reflect the notion of the triple bottom line outcomes being of equal gravity,” he said.
“After that, it will be business as usual.”
Fourth generation Tailem Bend farmer and former Coorong Council mayor Neville Jaensch took part in the Royal Commission submission process.
He believes the SA report “didn’t go far enough” and hopes it becomes a stepping stone to a federal Royal Commission.
“The community is extremely worried about the volume and quality of the river in the future because of the prolonged drought and continued over-allocation of the system,” he said.
“All river users – irrigators, recreational and the environment – have a right to the water so I believe a triple bottom line approach should be taken.
“But it is obvious that the greed of a few is outweighing the needs of many.
“Everybody’s needs are important and valid, but people need to realise we need the environment to survive or the river will die from the bottom up.
“Our communities have the right to survive as much as anyone else.”
Alisha Fogden
Journalist at Australian Community Media newspapers since 2007.
Journalist at Australian Community Media newspapers since 2007.
