Labor’s river rights push: All waterways declared “living entities” in law

The federal and Victorian Labor Governments are forging ahead with plans to recognise all waterways as “living entities”.

The Yarra River is the only Australian waterway to be declared a living entity under legislation. But the push is now on to extend the declaration to all waterways.

The federal and Victorian Labor Governments are forging ahead with plans to recognise all waterways as “living entities”, which irrigators fear could lead to a raft of legal complexities and uncertainty.

New Zealand has already adopted legislation that recognises the North Island’s Whanganui River as a living entity with the legal rights of a person, termed “personhood”, with local Maori acting as its voice.

But now the Albanese government is preparing to take similar action, releasing the draft principles of a new intergovernment National Water Agreement that proposes declaring “waters in all their forms are acknowledged to be living entities”.

The declaration forms part of the NWA’s draft water management framework, which states it is “underpinned by national and international human rights principles, which recognises and protects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Cultural, spiritual, social, environmental and economic water interests and values”.

The Victorian Government is even further down the path of river recognition, having first released its Water is Life: Traditional Owner Access to Water Roadmap in 2022, which calls for all the state’s waterways to be declared “living entities” recognised in law.

Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action bureaucrats have already drafted a “Waterways as Living Entities” discussion paper in partnership with traditional owners, which “explores embedding these concepts in legislative reform”.

But neither DEECA nor Water Minister Harriet Shing have released the discussion paper to the wider community for consultation.

Ms Shing said “recognising a waterway as a living entity does not grant it legal personhood status, it does however allow for integrated management of the river that considers the river system as a whole in decision making processes.”

National Irrigators Council chair Jeremy Morton said “I don’t know what granting legal rights to a river adds, other than complexity.

“If they (governments) want to do this and say there will be no change, then you have to ask why,” Mr Morton said.

“The cynical view would be they’re looking for an opportunity to go outside the existing rule of law to have more power and influence over the use and management of the natural resource.”

“I have no doubt those advocating this want to influence flow regimes, the use of dams and the way we use water.”

To date the only Australian river to be declared a living entity under legislation is the Yarra, which unlike New Zealand’s Whanganui was not been granted legal personhood.

University of Melbourne law lecturer Erin O’Donnell said recognition of the Yarra River as a living entity had not disrupted other uses of water from the river – for irrigation and urban demand.