Murray-Darling watchdog blasted for ‘breaking law’

Bret Walker says the Murray-Darling Basin Authority broke the law by ignoring climate change projections.

Alexandrina councillor Michael Scott beside the Murray River at Goolwa, South Australia. Picture: James Elsby

The potentially “catastrophic” risks of climate change were ­ignored by the independent authority overseeing the $13 billion Murray-Darling Basin plan, South Australian royal commissioner Bret Walker says.

Mr Walker’s 746-page report, released yesterday by South Australia’s Liberal government, contained 111 findings and 44 recommendations.

It said politics, rather than ­science, was the driving factor ­behind water allocation targets set by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, which Mr Walker ­accused of maladministration, unlawful behaviour and spy-like secrecy.

The top Sydney silk, appointed by the former Weatherill government in late 2017 after Four Corners revealed allegations of water theft and meter tampering in the NSW Barwon-Darling catchment, recommended a complete overhaul of the basin plan.

He also singled out NSW Water Minister Niall Blair and his South Australian counterpart David Speirs for criticism.

Mr Walker said Mr Blair’s ­insistence that the Menindee Lakes water-saving project proceed was hard to comprehend.

“How that could be properly asserted before all the various statutory steps and safeguards have been taken and observed beggars the imagination,” he said.

“It threatens a travesty of lawful administrative decision-making, along the lines of ‘the fix is in’.”

The project seeks to reduce evaporation in the lakes, located on the lower section of the ­Darling River and the site of ­recent mass fish kills, by reducing their size and draining them regularly.

Mr Walker said Mr Speirs had almost certainly breached the South Australian ministerial code of conduct after he “capitulated” to the interests of the federal, NSW and Victorian governments. But Mr Walker, who will pocket about $1 million for his work, saved his most scathing criticism for the MDBA.

He said the organisation had broken the law by ignoring ­climate change projections when determining the environmentally sustainable level of “take” by irrigators — a move he described as “indefensible”.

The decision to specify 2750 gigalitres as the amount that should be returned to the river system was based on politics, he said.

“This was not a scientific determination, but one made by senior management and the board of the MDBA,” he said. “It is unlawful. It is maladministration.”

The MDBA’s assertion that climate change projections were too shaky to be incorporated into modelling was rejected by Mr Walker, who hit out at the organisation’s secrecy.

“The MDBA is not ASIO. Its scientific inquiries and work should never remain private,’’ he said.

Mr Walker recommended an urgent review of climate change risks to the basin, as well as the ­establishment of an independent climate change authority that would provide advice to basin communities.

Michael Scott is a member of Alexandrina council and sits on the Murray-Darling Association board that advocates on behalf of basin communities.

“Whenever a big dry hits, we need surety that upstream states will play by the rules,” he said.

The basin plan came into effect in 2012 after the relevant states and the federal government agreed to return 2750 gigalitres of irrigated water to the environment. In a statement, the MDBA rejected any suggestion it had acted improperly or unlawfully.

“There is extensive documentation in our published reports to support this,” it said.

“This is a once in a generation reform that corrects 100 years of overuse, and will take a generation to achieve.”

Federal Water Minister David Littleproud said advice to the commonwealth had consistently found the basin plan was lawful.