Water Management - Adjournment speech
The unregulated water sharing plans for the Gwydir, Namoi-Peel, Macquarie-Castlereagh and Barwon-Darling were due to be remade on 1 July this year. They have lapsed because the Minister for the Environment did not give them concurrence. Both the water Minister and the environment Minister must give effect to principles under the Water Management Act when exercising functions under that Act. The draft plans due to be remade on 1 July did not give effect to those principles. They were therefore unlawful and, if signed, the Ministers would not be acting consistently with the Act. I commend the environment Minister for refusing to give concurrence. I also agree with the Minister for Water that those plans are in place for 10 years—a long time—and it is vital they are right.
The Government is seeking public feedback on proposed changes for three northern basin unregulated plans: Gwydir, Namoi-Peel and Macquarie-Castlereagh. I understand those changes are the result of negotiations between the Minister for the Environment and the Minister for Water. What is baffling is what the environment Minister has actually achieved with those changes. The Natural Resource Commission [NRC] conducts statutory reviews of water sharing plans before they are remade. It reviewed the Barwon-Darling Water Sharing Plan in 2019 and the others in 2023, identifying serious deficiencies in all. The NRC recommended extending the plans until June 2025 to allow time to remedy those deficiencies in the remade plans. Yet none of those recommendations are reflected in the draft plans, neither when they were submitted for concurrence in June, nor in the latest proposed changes.
It is proposed to increase commence-to-pump triggers in nine water sources in three northern basin plans. On the surface, that seems positive and aligned with recommendations by the NRC and the Connectivity Expert Panel. However, only one of the nine water sources, the Lower Bogan, was identified by the Connectivity Expert Panel as a water source that will improve connectivity to the Barwon-Darling. Water from the other eight water sources will not reach the Barwon-Darling. While increasing commence‑to‑pump triggers might improve local outcomes for fish and frogs, it will not help the Barwon-Darling.
In five of the nine water sources, the commence‑to‑pump triggers rise from no visible flows to between one to five megalitres a day. For comparison, these changes propose the trigger for the Lower Bogan be raised to five megalitres per day. The connectivity panel recommended at least 100 megalitres per day. In four of the nine valleys, the proposed triggers are raised from no visible to flows between 35 megalitres per day and 80 megalitres per day. This is sounding better, but three of those four water sources have no recorded irrigation take since licences were issued in 2012. In the remaining valley, more than half of the licences have a higher trigger than what is proposed in these changes. In summary, the proposed changes to commence-to-pump triggers are so small that they are meaningless, or they are in areas where there is no irrigation, or they are changes on paper only and do not affect the actual triggers.
This process is not genuine; it is performative. Moreover, the draft water‑sharing plans are not publicly available. The public is being asked to comment on a fact sheet produced by Water Group, which has a history here. Changes to the Barwon‑Darling water‑sharing plan in 2023 allowed a select group of licence holders to extract water from some natural water bodies, including parts of the river, without any commence-to-pump trigger. The reason for that has never been explained by Water Group, not even in a fact sheet. The most concerning issue is that the Barwon‑Darling water‑sharing plan is not even on the table for any proposed changes and none of the changes in the three northern basin water‑sharing plans will have any effect on the Barwon‑Darling.
This Government says its priority is improving connectivity into the Barwon‑Darling, but these plans do absolutely nothing to make that happen. I urge the environment Minister not to give concurrence to those plans. I ask the water Minister to remake the Barwon‑Darling water‑sharing plan so that the water management principles in the Act are met. The first of those is that water sources, flood plains and dependent ecosystems, including groundwater and wetlands, should be protected and restored, and, where possible, land should not be degraded. Our rivers, wetlands and downstream communities are counting on the water Minister and the environment Minister to understand the water management principles in the Act and commit to meeting them.