Transcript
17 December, 2008 |
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News Conference - 16 December 2008
Rob Freeman, Chief Executive, Murray-DarlingBasin Authority
ROB FREEMAN:
And please keep your shoes on. That’s a bush joke. Look can I introduce myself? I’m Rob Freeman the recently appointed chair and Chief Executive of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. What I propose to do is just make a short statement and then I’m available for questions.
Whilst the Murray Darling Basin Authority commenced a little while ago in September with my appointment.
With the commencement of the Water Act legislative amendments and the abolition of the Murray Darling Basin Commission and consequently the transfer of some 189 staff, the Murray Darling Basin Authority now has true momentum to be able to achieve its objectives.
That legislation commenced yesterday. The centre piece of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s responsibilities is the Basin Plan. And the Basin Plan is about determining new limits on the amount of water that can be used in the basin. This is different from our historical approach as this is based on science.
It’s based on an adaptive limit on the amount of use which is both climate and drought variable. There’s no doubt that this is an enormous task and it’s never been achieved anywhere else in the world. However I think, particularly with the CSIRO Sustainable Yields initiative, it’s given us a great foundation to actually determine the amount of water that can be extracted from all the catchments of the Murray-Darling Basin on a sustainable basis and then apply those.
The first step in developing the Basin Plan will be that the Authority will issue a concept statement in March/April next year. Now this concept statement will outline in fine detail what’s in the Basin Plan, the time frames for its development and how those who want to be involved can get engaged.
There will then be a proposed Basin Plan issued in 2010 and that will trigger quite a formal consultation process under the water act which culminates in a Basin Plan which commences in 2011.
So I guess its pleasing to say that we now have a near full compliment of staff. We’ll be recruiting a few extra people to fill in some gaps as we go into a planning exercise that’s never been challenged at this scale or complexity as we try to determine what the environment needs and then optimise economic and social arrangements around that. So it’s pleasing to be able to say we’re kicking off before Christmas and we’ll be running very fast next year.
I’m available for questions.
Q: Is 2011 too late? In terms of environmental effects are we 2 years behind what we should be doing?
ROB FREEMAN
2011 is actually quite ambitious particularly when you look at world efforts to do something like this. 2011 is a tight time line. What’s really important is that once the Basin Plan is developed, jurisdictions, States, actually develop water resource planning below that. Historically water resource planning takes about 5 years. Jurisdictions in NSW, QLD, and SA will actually have to have compliant water resource plans by 2014, so in fact there’s a compressed time frame there for jurisdictions to bring in place water planning.
I think the 2011 time frame allows us to bring out a series of issues papers and help the community understand the adjustments that are going to occur. So I think 2011 is a reasonable compromise between running very quickly and perhaps loosing traction with communities and states and moving inappropriately slowly.
Q. When you say adjustments for communities what do you expect some of the things that people in the sort of the towns around the Murray-Darling will have to face through the work of the Authority?
ROB FREEMAN:
There’s no doubt that we can’t continue to extract the amount of water that we’re extracting from the Murray-Darling Basin and whilst I’m optimistic that we can find a new level that is sustainable we need to get used to the idea that that’s going to be a more variable volume.
Historically we’ve seen these as being constant volumes from year to year. With climate change and more episodic climate there’s is no doubt that we need to able to manage with a more variable volume. So we need to deal with less and we need to be able to deal in a way that our water availability is less constant, it’s more variable. I think communities need to give that good thought.
One of the challenges is, having determined the sustainable diversion limits the amount of water that the environment requires how do we then optimise economic and social. The Authority can’t do that without talking to communities and getting their perspectives. Hence the detailed consultation process between a proposed Basin Plan in 2010 and the final Basin Plan in 2011.
Q. Do you accept though that it’s not just communities, that there’s a lot of corporate interest now on the Murray Darling Basin in managed investment schemes and the like which is a different kettle of fish. Do you have a method in approaching those groups and talking to them about how much water they’re dragging from the system?
ROB FREEMAN:
I think it’s really important that markets move water around to its highest value. I think the government is not in the business here of picking the winners who should use the water.
What we’re trying to do is release into the market effectively the amount of water that’s sustainable. To do that with the least social and economic disruption and then allow the market to determine whether that moves to an MIS or a family farm.
Q. What’s the water level like at the moment?
ROB FREEMAN:
This is one of the challenges, to try to introduce significant reform, we are writing history here, and to do that on the back of one of the most significant droughts this country has ever seen.
Water resources are incredibly low, we had some good rainfalls last week but what’s happened is that there’s no longer a relationship between rainfall and runoff. So we’ve had a series of successively dry years and basically the landscape out there acts like one big dry sponge and whilst we have computer models that normally determine for a certain amount of rain you get a certain amount of inflows into dams those models no longer apply.
Our estimate is that the inflows from the good rain last week is probably going to be in the order of around 50 GL. And 50GL really is a small amount, less than 1% of the total water taken from the basin.
Q. You said that we really can’t take as much water from the basin as we have before. How does that comment stake up with the Victorian Governments decision to build a pipeline which will raw water from the basin and bring it down to Melbourne?
ROB FREEMAN:
I think those two comments aren’t inconsistent. What the Authority will not do is determine how jurisdictions use their water. What the Authority will be determining and recommending to the Minister, Minister Wong, will be recommending the amount of water Victoria can take out of the Murray Darling Basin. Now, having determined that amount of water, whether Victoria uses it for Melbourne or whether it uses it for dairy farming is a decision for the Victorian Government and people of Victoria.
Q. What about that Community Consultation that you are going to undertake. I just didn’t catch when that started or when it does start?
ROB FREEMAN:
I think consultation will be ongoing. So basically we will issue the concept statement. That will allow people to understand what the Basin Plan is and its breadth. We are dealing with groundwater and surface water for the first time. Historically we’ve only dealt with surface water.
So the concept statement will allow people to come up to speed, I believe consultation will start then. On the back of that we will actually issue a series of issues papers. Now those issues papers will probably not be of general interest. They will be of interest to sections of the community, for instance the ACCC’s responsible for market rules around water, we’re responsible for trade rules, what’s the difference? I think the difference is quite easy actually. Trade rules are to deal with the hydrology of the river – can water move from a place to another place. Market rules are around dollars, pricing, exit fees, etc. But there’ll be a series of issues papers that people will be able to read. When we issue a proposed plan in 2010 there will be a 16 week public consultation period which will involve extensive consultation around the Basin and submissions will be made during that period.
The Authority is going to publish all submissions together with our response to all those submissions. So it will be a very open process and that’s why we take from 2010 to a final Basin Plan in 2011. 2010 to 2011 is legislated so there won’t be any cutting of corners here. It’s clear and I think there’s opportunity for the community to understand fully what we need to do as we move towards a sustainable level of extraction rather than a historical level of extraction.
Q. In terms of environmental flows, can you give us an idea on how much they are considered and what levels of flows you’re looking for within the time frame you’ve outlined?
ROB FREEMAN:
It’s probably a little early to answer that question in detail, but basically that’s where we start. So we start at determining what level of water do we need to leave in these river systems so that they are sustainable.
Now that’s not a constant volume - if last year was a wet year that’s less water this year. If we’ve had a series of dry years then we need to leave more water in the river systems. So it’s far more complex than people historically thought. They thought that it’s a constant number.
So it’s highly variable between places. We have ecosystems here, some of which require an annual drink and yet for river red gums the optimum period of successive floods is probably around the 3 to 4 year period.
So we are dealing with a highly complex system and highly complex ecosystems within that. So that’s where we start. We determine what the environmental requirements are, having done that we then allocate the water above that for economic and social use in the least disruptive way.
Q. So you’re saying that environmental flows are the priority in terms of water?
ROB FREEMAN:
That is the major difference with this legislation. What this legislation does is it puts the environment first to determine environmental requirements of the river and then on the top of that to allocated to economic and social uses.
Something that didn’t come up is the independence of the Authority. So it is an independent Authority. It is expert based.
End
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