Murray Darling Basin Royal Commission holds first public hearing

SNUBBED by the Federal Government and the authority in charge of the Murray River, SA’s Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission has held its first public hearing, calling two witnesses.

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SNUBBED by the Federal Government and the authority in charge of the River Murray, SA’s Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission has pushed on with its first public hearing, calling two witnesses.

Commissioner Bret Walker said he would not be prevented “from addressing all the terms of reference and all of them in a substantial manner”.

“Any failure by the Commonwealth, by the Basin Authority, to participate in the proceedings of this Royal Commission … would be regrettable, but it is by no means fatal to the exercise I am required by my Commission to carry out,” he said.

“It will, however, soon be too late for the Commonwealth and the Basin Authority to have any arguments they wish to advance …”

Senior counsel Richard Beasley said the commission sought advice from the Basin Authority and a meeting was scheduled for May.

Commissioner Bret Walker SC makes his opening comments at the first public hearings of the Murray Darling Basin Royal Commission. Picture: AAP / Morgan Sette

“However the Basin Authority cancelled it shortly after publication of Issues Paper 2,” he said. “They indicated that they were too busy to meet.”

The question is whether the Basin Plan is lawful, given an apparent change in the advice given to the Authority in 2010.

That’s when interpretation of the legislation changed to include social and economic factors, reducing the amount of environmental water.

“The management of water resources is not a state secret,” Mr Beasley said.

“All of that information should be publicly available now and it is part of the government’s job, not a hindrance to it, to provide an explanation of the legal decisions it has made.”

While the Commission has “decided not to enforce, for now, summons served on present and past employees of the Basin Authority and the Commonwealth”, the invitation still stands.

“So again on behalf of the commission staff we invite any current or past executive employee of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to come to us, to give any evidence they wish to on the terms of reference.”

The Commission made a case for the environment to be considered above all else when determining how much water to take from the river.

SA Dairyfarmers’ Association lawyer John Elferink challenged this, emphasising his view that the “legislation seeks to find a balance”.

Former MDBA director of environmental water planning David Bell agreed that the amount of environmental water dropped below 3000GL in 2010 as a “function of not only the environment but some sort of social or economic pain”. Hearings resume on June 27.