Murray-Darling Royal Commission report demands complete overhaul of watered-down river plan

Plans to save the River Murray have been derailed by maladministration and threatened by the State Government’s “capitulation” to the eastern states, a scathing royal commission has found.

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Plans to save the River Murray have been derailed by maladministration and threatened by the State Government’s “capitulation” to the eastern states, a royal commission has found.

It has also recommended more water be taken from irrigators to protect the environment.

The state royal commission’s report into the $13 billion Murray-Darling Basin Plan says the science behind restoring the Coorong and Lower Lakes and keeping the Murray Mouth open was overridden by political influence.

Commissioner Bret Walker, SC, said the implementation of the plan was riddled with secrecy and unlawful behaviour, and specifically accused the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) of maladministration and negligence.

A state royal commission report has criticised the $13 billion Murray-Darling Basin plan. Picture: Ben Goode

He recommended an overhaul of the plan to put environmental concerns in front of social and economic effects. That would mean diverting more water from irrigators, as well as taking climate change into account.

He also said the State Government’s agreement last year to consider socio-economic criteria as well as environmental factors in water recovery was “nothing short of a capitulation” to the interests of the eastern states.

There are 111 findings and 44 recommendations in the 746-page report, which was released on Thursday.

It argues the amount of water the environment needs must be determined by science.

Mr Walker’s report rejects the concept of the “triple bottom line” — where environmental benefits must be weighed against social and economic impacts — and reiterates that the Water Act underpinning the plan makes it clear the aim is “to protect, restore and provide for the ecological values … of the Murray-Darling Basin”.

An initial “guide” to how the plan was to work said up to 7600 gigalitres would need to be returned to the environment to keep the Coorong and Lower Lakes healthy and the Murray Mouth open.

The final plan put that figure at 2750GL, with an “additional” 450GL specifically for South Australia. “Politics rather than science ultimately drove … the recovery figure of 2750GL,” the report found. “This was not a scientific determination, but one made by senior management and the board of the MDBA. It is an unlawful approach. It is maladministration.”

The basin authority said it was confident the plan was lawful and “based on best available science”.

Premier Steven Marshall said the State Government would “not provide a rushed response” to the report. He has asked Prime Minister Scott Morrison for a meeting with the heads of the other basin states.

“My Government is committed to implementing the full Murray-Darling Basin Plan and will demand every drop of the 3200GL of environmental flow agreed by the Commonwealth and Basin states in 2012 be delivered,” Mr Marshall said.

The Premier also dismissed the report’s claim that state Water Minister David Speirs had capitulated to the eastern states when he agreed to consider social and economic issues in the delivery of 450GL of water for SA.

He said at that point the “fragile” plan was “teetering on the brink” and it was critical to keep the other states at the negotiating table.

The horrifying sight of thousands of dead fish floating in the Darling River near the Menindee Lakes. Picture: Robert Gregory/AFP Photo

“SA will be the loser if people start ripping up the plan,” he said.

State Opposition leader Peter Malinauskas said the report’s criticism — which included that Mr Speirs had “almost certainly” breached the Ministerial Code of Conduct by not putting SA first — was a “huge test of Steven Marshall’s premiership”.

The report calls for water buybacks to contribute to SA’s extra 450GL.

Buying water allocations from farmers and irrigators has been controversial because it can hurt communities, but it is cheaper and more measurable and effective than water efficiency projects .

Federal Water Minister David Littleproud pointed to a recent Productivity Commission report that found the Murray-Darling Basin Plan had already made significant progress.

He said the Federal Government’s consistent legal advice had been that the plan was lawful.

The royal commission was set up by the former state Labor government, and Mr Walker has had a fractious relationship with the Marshall Government.

Key components to the report

The Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission report, released yesterday, has made several recommendations to improve the effectiveness of the basin plan. They include:

■ A complete overhaul of water allocations under the Murray-Darling plan, including redirecting more water back to the environment.

■ An urgent review of climate change risks to the whole of the basin, based on the best available scientific knowledge.

■ The establishment of an authority – independent of government – to properly conduct research into climate change and give guidance on how the basin communities can best adapt.

■ Several amendments to the Water Act, including the addition of a provision recognising Aboriginal interests in water resources.

■ Greater uniformity between basin states regarding penalties for those who do not comply with the plan.

■ The immediate formation of an independent basin-wide environmental monitoring program to ensure the authority “does not mark its own work”.

■ Future water recovery to be reclaimed through buybacks, and the repeal of a 1500 gigalitre buyback cap.

River must reign supreme for all our prosperity

“WE want it all to end,” say South Australian irrigators.

South Australian Murray Irrigators chair Caren Martin said they were instrumental in getting the Water Act set up in the first place, and now just want to see it properly implemented.

“The states were behaving poorly back then,” she said.

“To pick on NSW and Queensland, they agree to (water deals) but they never stick to them.”

She said she’d like to see a federal royal commission to look at how states were ducking their obligations.

Riverland irrigator Caren Martin near Waikerie. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

“I feel that the irrigator vs the environment narrative was encouraged by governments because it took the spotlight off them,” she said. “The bigger issue was that the (upstream) states gave out more than they had.”

In response to the Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission, scientists and en-vironment groups agree the river systems need more water, while irrigators say the royal commission was “hamstrung” by one-sided evidence.

The royal commission’s report took aim at federal governments for interfering with the plan, and specifically at the State Government for caving in to a compromise with the water-hungry eastern states.

However, its overarching point was that the plan needed to be brought back to the science that would save the river environment.

The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists said over-allocation of water to irrigators had made the system vulnerable, and that the best available science needed to be used to make decisions about restoring the system’s health.

The group said new water recovery targets were needed, including reversing the decision to let the Northern Basin communities keep an extra 70GL.

“We all lose if the basin plan fails,” the group said.

The Australia Institute agreed an overhaul of the plan was needed to return the policies to the science. Research director Rod Campbell said “the amount of money that has been taken from our rivers needs to be scientifically determined and not compromised by the vested interests that have had an enormous influence on the way that the basin has been managed to date”. On the other side, the National Irrigators’ Council said the commission didn’t hear from many scientists “who are actually involved with the Basin plan”.

“The report seems to pick and choose which science it accepts and the science it dismisses, which coincidentally seems to be those people and groups who didn’t appear,” chief executive Steve Whan said.

He also said the report ignored the negative impact water buybacks could have on communities. The commission recommended buying water back from farming communities. This did happen at the start of the plan but was capped at 1500GL because of concerns that communities dried up if too much water was sold.

— Tory Shepherd