Mr Howard’s $10 billion National Plan for Water Security is missing two essential ingredients – details on how public participation will be achieved, and an environmental perspective, according to a Charles Sturt University professor.

 

Prof Kathleen Bowmer is Professor of Water Policy at Charles Sturt University and a key researcher with the Institute for Land Water and Society. She said both the Council of Australian Governments Water Reform Framework in 1994 and the National Water Initiative in 2004 strongly required public participation in decision making.

 

“It is not clear how agreements on water sharing made through the community consultation over the last five or seven years will be honoured in the new plan and how, into the future, resources and processes for public participation will be developed,” she said.

 

Prof Bowmer is concerned about the limited extent of regional consultation and participation so far.  Some groups, such as consortiums of irrigation corporations, are having audiences with Malcolm Turnbull, the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources.

 

“I think it is important for advice to be sought and given,” she said. “But it’s important for ALL stakeholders to be given an opportunity to have their say now, and to be included in the development of future policies. Other stakeholders include individual farmers, members of rural communities and businesses, and advocates for the environment.”

 

“For example, we see the Bureau of Metrology being given $500 million under the new plan to collect information on and model climate change and water flow.” Prof Bowmer said this was a good initiative but pointed out that the investment [in the new plan] for social, economic and environmental analysis and for regional and community participation was less transparent.

 

“There is also very little detail about where the water saved for the environment will go,” she said. “So far environmental water has been linked mostly to the icon sites in the Murray main stem but what about the other parts of the Murray Darling Basin that also need water? Also other ways of getting improved environmental dividends without using more water don’t appear to be explicit in the new plan. Examples include fish ladders, fixing cold water pollution, pulsing water releases from storages, and incentives for changing patterns of irrigation demand.