THE inaugural Inspector-General of Water Compliance, Troy Grant, has started making his way across the Murray-Darling Basin, to ensure all states were "doing their job", "being treated fairly" and to educate on the role of his new office.
The tour took in SA last week, with Mr Grant down at the Lower Lakes earlier in the week and then made his way up to Loxton, for the launch of a new field office, by Thursday.
Mr Grant, who took on the role officially on August 5 after being interim inspector for eight months prior to that, said the tour was helping him and recently-appointed field officers get a better understanding of water management in each state, to educate communities on what his role was and to achieve the ultimate goal of a "level playing field" when it came to water management in MDB states.
"Unfortunately COVID restrictions have limited any large travel arrangements around the basin, with Qld and SA only open to us at this time," he said.
"In south-western Qld, the top of the basin, we looked at compliance activities up there and educated stakeholders on our role. This included the 12-month work plan we are undertaking - we want everything we're doing to be transparent.
"We are also using technology to the best of our ability to keep up a high level of engagement, so all stakeholders can understand our role and priorities."
The first priority is to undertake a body of work across the basin states to find out where the inconsistencies are in how they apply regulatory and compliance activity to those associated with the plan, and make sure it is a level playing field.
- TROY GRANT
Mr Grant said the 12-month work plan had three main priorities, which comprised about 42 projects.
"The first priority is to undertake a body of work across the basin states to find out where the inconsistencies are in how they apply regulatory and compliance activity to those associated with the plan, and make sure it is a level playing field," he said.
"Our job is to make sure the states are doing their job, because they are the front line agencies responsible for delivering the plan.
"It is our job to make sure they do their job to the best of their abilities and that everyone is being treated fairly. Former Vic auditor general Des Pearson is leading that body of work, which is now under way."
The second priority was metering and measurements.
"We are making sure that metering across the Basin is where it should be in accordance with the arrangements put in place by each state, so that water take is being accurately accounted for, and then compliance can be measured against that," Mr Grant said.
"The third priority is use of groundwater. We want to understand the size and scale of groundwater use across the MDB and how diligently that's being regulated and complied with."
Mr Grant was in the Riverland on Thursday to open a field office in Loxton with SA field officer Greg Burns.
"We also brought our Qld field officer Jess Hawker, from Goondiwindi, on the tour to her educate her on how water management occurs here, so when she heads back home, she can better explain the differences to Qld stakeholders," he said.
"We hope this will bridge the knowledge gap between the north and the south, and minimise the accusations and myths as to what goes on in each region.
"The better informed our office is, the easier it will be to build trust and confidence in the MDB Plan, which is the ultimate goal."
Mr Grant said the tour group met with a number of water representatives, irrigators, government departments, local government, SA Water and local environmental water holder along the way.
"We are trying to get as many different water perspectives as possible," he said.
"There are perceptions about SA that are unjust and part of my role is to independently advocate for what is being done well here, but also finding areas of improvement.
"Our assessments are only in the early days, we have only been up and running for six weeks."
But overall, Mr Grant said a "heap of work was happening simultaneously".
This included recent work finished with the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder on "how they can do their job better, what they're already doing well and how that is communicated".
"This will help inform with the other body of work we are doing about river operations," he said.
"About how the MDBA and Water NSW are utilising the river management systems, what data they're using, what modelling they're using, is it sound, is it working and how that affects allocations.
Past independent research showed there was a significantly low foundational understanding of how the MDB Plan works.
- TROY GRANT
"The CEWH work was done over the past eight weeks, and has produced some recommendations, while other parts of the work will help inform river operations work, which is a six-month project.
"There will be rolling update on recommendations and improvements as we go through each of the projects and programs within our 12-month work plan."
Mr Grant said he, and his office, were tasked with "improving trust and confidence in the MDB Plan".
"And a big part of that will be education," he said.
"Past independent research showed there was a significantly low foundational understanding of how the MDB Plan works. Something like 24 per cent of irrigators that held licences didn't know they were part of the MDB, which was startling.
"So hopefully we can at least improve those numbers, and other facts and figures in time.
"But for now, we are still trying to get across the basin as quickly as possible to crack on with the job."
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