SA tough on water theft: Issues $2.3m in penalties

South Australia has the toughest penalties in the Murray Darling Basin for water theft, with other states called on to follow its lead.

Inspector General of Water Complaince Troy Grant says other basin states should follow South Australia in imposing hefty penalties for overuse.

South Australia has topped the rankings when it comes to imposing penalties for water overuse, slugging 191 irrigators with $2.3m in fines dating back to the 2022-23 season.

In contrast Victoria issued 1213 warnings to irrigators for overuse, but only issued $15,000 in fines.

The stark difference was highlighted in Inspector General of Water Compliance Troy Grant’s latest report, in which he urged other states to follow South Australia’s lead.

“The high number of financial penalties issued by South Australia during 2022-23 underscores the potential for other Basin States to consider adopting similar legislative provisions to enhance their enforcement tools,” Mr Grant said.

During last irrigation season the SA Government imposed penalties of $825 per megalitre of overuse up to 500ML for the January to March quarter, and $1100/ML for anything above that volume.

But the government only imposed these hefty penalties after The Weekly Times exposed a loophole in its regulations back in 2018, which allowed irrigators to overuse water at the peak of the season, when prices were high, then repay it at the end of the season when prices traditionally fell.

In Victoria, Mr Grant reported rural water corporations undertook 1315 enforcement actions for unauthorised take and issued 1213 warnings, but only imposed $15,493 in penalties.

Victorian Farmers Federation water council chair Andrew Leahy said the risk of significant overuse was extremely low in the Goulburn and Murray valleys, due to the adoption of telemetry, which monitored usage in real time.

Mr Leahy said the only gap in the system was with river diverters, whose meters were not connected to telemetry.

However he said the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action was moving to require all diverters using more than 200ML a season to link into the network.

“Victoria over the years has been relatively compliant,” Mr Leahy said, and “telemetry solves any problems”.

In NSW irrigators were issued with 75 warnings in 2022-23 and accepted one enforceable undertaking valued at $54,240 and were issued with 50 penalty infringement notices totalling $52,500.

In Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory, investigations conducted did not lead to any prosecutions, resulting in no court-imposed financial penalties.

However the Queensland Department of Regional Development, Manufacturing, and Water did undertake 132 field audits, with 27 found to be non-compliant.