Tracey Carpenter, from Water for Rivers, was a guest speaker at the Sydney Nannas weekly Zoom on Friday to promote events to be held in Sydney next week on the Murray-Darling Basin. The following are her speaker notes with more information on the importance of our rivers and how to look after them.
MURRAY-DARLING BASIN (MDB) PLAN
The Albanese Labor Government pledged to deliver the MDB Plan. But there is serious doubt on whether that promise can be kept and if the Plan will be renewed in 2024.
Plan fails to return water for rivers survival
The Plan stipulates that by 2024, 450 billion litres of water – a small proportion of the overall target – should be recovered and returned to rivers, wetlands and groundwater systems through water efficiency programs funded by the Commonwealth.
But just two years out from the deadline, only 2.6 billion litres, or about 0.5% of this water, had been delivered when Labor came into power. Since then, at most 1% has been added.
Minister Plibersek is looking at Water Buy Backs strongly opposed by regional communities including Helen Dalton, Independent Member for Murray – 80% buybacks have been in Southern Basin.
Fish Kills happened at Menindee Lakes in late 2018 (low river flows, from the drought exacerbated by over-extraction), and again in 2022 (a year of flood).
The State of the Environment report found water extraction and drought left water levels at record lows in 2019.
Rivers and catchments are mostly in poor condition, and native fish populations fell by more than 90% in the past 150 years.
First Nations Peoples
First Nation River communities and others that rely on healthy rivers have borne the costs of this policy failure. In many parts of the Basin Aboriginal people represent 13% of population but control less than 0.2% of water.
Recent rainfall and flooding has bought breathing space, but drought will return, and climate change is projected to make the basin drier. Rivers are denied the water they need by water theft and poor policy.
Floodplain Harvesting
Rainfall destined for the rivers is captured from the flood plains in large, shallow, private dams used for irrigation. NSW government has licensed flood plain harvesting (2021-22) decreasing the amount of water getting to our rivers and increasing over-extraction and market manipulation giving unfair allocations (500% entitlement on licences) for Northern Basin industries. Flood plain harvesting is opposed because it is outside of the Sustainable Diversion Limits.
No Dams
Barnaby Joyce promised $1billion worth of public dam building (in National Party seats). No dams have been built in NSW since 1987. Dams take water from the environment and make more water available to licensed industrial users and water traders, enabling only a small increase in water security for communities. Two of the proposed dams have been dumped for more cost effective, efficient and secure engineered solutions (pipelines) and no business case has been able to be given for the third.
Water markets
The Howard Government separated land and water title to turn water into a tradeable commodity, effectively privatising our rivers and creating the world’s largest water market.
Water is now priced beyond the reach of farmers and humans and the environments that depend on it. Only the mining and fibre industries as well as high value tree croppers in the desert can afford water.
Water markets are out of control and the brokers and traders are not regulated. The Commonwealth Water Act makes – water traders exempt from regulation that normally would apply to financial markets and markets for commodities. External traders use tactics no one anticipated, including market manipulation and high-speed trading.
“Trading behaviours that can undermine the integrity of markets, such as market manipulation, are not prohibited, insider trading prohibitions are insufficient and information gaps makes these types of detrimental conduct difficult to detect.” ACCC
FOUR STATE WATER CAMPAIGN
NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland’s State Environmental Peak Bodies are currently aligning their campaigns. Environment Victoria has developed a 7-point plan to rescue rivers and support the communities that depend on them.
1. Protect river flows
- Prevent redirection of environmental water to other uses.
- Resume open tender buybacks.
- Protect low flows and maintain connectivity within and between the rivers of the northern Basin.
2. Establish good governance
- Restore the National Water Commission as the independent oversight body.
- Establish an independent Federal Basin Plan Regulator to enforce water resource plans, underpinned by a National Integrity Commission.
- Undertake rigorous independent assessment of all water recovery projects, including ‘bridging the gap’ and Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment Mechanism (SDLAM) supply and efficiency measures.
- Ensure trading rules protect the environment.
3. Build resilient communities
- Support Basin communities to broaden their economic base to adjust to a more variable water future and build socio-economic resilience.
- Encourage wider representation and participation in decision making and actively encourage First Nations involvement to advocate for cultural water needs.
4. Secure First Nations cultural water
- Secure unallocated surface and groundwater across the Basin as a Strategic Indigenous and Environmental Reserve.
- Provide appropriate funding for First Nations to buy water holding water entitlements.
- Address urgent threats to cultural values and Native Title rights in the Lower Darling and other critically impacted waterways by restoring low flows and connectivity.
- Develop a national First Nations Water Strategy to address key unfinished business in water reform.
5. Align water extraction with science
- Ensure Sustainable Diversion Limits (SDLs) reflect an environmentally sustainable level of take, including accounting for climate change.
- Licensing of floodplain harvesting must not be used to increase overall water extraction limits.
- Include minimum flow provisions under low flows and drought in all sub-catchments as part of Water Resource Plans.
- Fund and implement a comprehensive Native Fish Strategy.
6. Track basin plan progress
- Conduct a full independent audit of environmental water recovery to date, including water availability for provision of environmental flows.
- Measure real world river flows against Basin Plan targets, with improved modelling, monitoring and reporting.
- Undertake an independent review of whether the Basin Plan is meeting its objectives under the Commonwealth Water Act, while allowing for realistic timeframes for ecological restoration. Include consideration to whether Australia is fulfilling its obligations to protect internationally recognised RAMSAR sites.
7. Improve transparency
- Adopt a consistent approach to measuring, monitoring and compliance across all Basin States through mandatory metering and real time monitoring including satellite tracking, to provide up-to-date information on water availability.
- Establish a free, publicly-accessible register of water ownership across the Basin, and a National Water Exchange with public reporting of all water trades.
- Require open access to all data, modelling and reporting conducted by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.
WATER & CLIMATE
Ecological tipping points could occur much sooner than expected. “Most studies until now have focused on one driver of destruction, such as climate change or deforestation. But when you combine this with other threats, such as water stress, degradation and river pollution from mining, the breakdown comes much quicker.” The Guardian
Water is part of every anti-mining (gas, coal and metallurgical) and climate campaign. Water for Rivers brings the battles for water justice from our regional communities to represent our Rivers before our legislators and broader community.