So the Gillard Government's response to keeping the Murray-Darling Basin river systems alive is going to be a purely political one after all?

In The Age on 21 May 2011 it was reported in Key scientists cast doubt on Murray water return that:

LEADING scientists have walked away from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority because of serious concerns over changes being made to the volume of water to be returned to the river.
The Wentworth Group of scientists were advising the authority but have called on it to hold an independent review of the science that determined the volume of water to be returned to the river system after hearing that the proposed amount is now 2800 gigalitres.
The original draft plan found that 3856 gigalitres would be a minimum volume of water that would need to be acquired from the 11,500 gigalitres of irrigators' entitlements to maintain the river……
The group did not attend a two-day science forum on the project on the basis that it did not believe the science being discussed was independent. It was there that the executives revealed the authority was going to draft a plan that recommended returning just 2800 gigalitres.

One has to suspect this wide divergence, from those rather conservative science-based recommendations found in the original Guide to the proposed Basin Plan (produced by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority), has a political basis and one doesn’t have far to look for the former state politician and lobbyist a beleaguered Gillard Government placed in a position to recommend this short-sighted, piecemeal ‘fix’ once Tony Abbott et al had stirred up a high level of rural hysteria against the government of the day.

A fix, I might add, which will continue to leave NSW east coast rivers exposed to the possibility that continuing problems with Basin water security will see one or more of these coastal rivers dammed and diverted to meet the unrealistic expectations of Basin communities, agriculture and industry.

Excerpt from transcript of evidence given before the House Standing Committee on Regional Australia’s Inquiry into the impact of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in Regional Australia on 25 March 2011 by Mr. Craig Knowles, Chair, Murray-Darling Basin Authority:

Mr Knowles—Thanks, Tony, and thank you to the members of the committee. I apologise right at the outset for not being able to be with you, but as I suspect you know I am on a fairly extensive move around the basin over the last few weeks and for the next couple of weeks. I am more than happy to catch up again in the future, if that is what you would like to do. I think I should put on the record right at the outset my position as I have explained to people as I go around the basin in relation to the guide and all of the problems that arose out of it.
Whatever failures individuals might think it had, my principal concern was that it showed very little respect to people and their efforts, both historically and indeed their desire to be involved in matters that are obviously very dear to them when it comes to water management. That is why I have said, frankly, that I do not have a high degree of ownership of it and I would like to think that, symbolically, my appointment offers the hope of a fresh start and an opportunity to reengage with communities and incorporate their wisdom and their desires, as best as they possibly can be, into the work that I will do with the authority over the next little while.
I talk about also the need to better acknowledge history of effort in things that relate to water savings, whether they are various state programs or some of the Commonwealth programs historically. The work that has been done by many of us over many years seemed to be absent from the guide and from the dialogue with communities. I think probably your committee, Tony, is hearing the same things that I hear as I get around the basin and that quite clearly is, ‘Not only do we want to be heard but we want some of the things we’ve done historically taken into account, because we believe that we have made a contribution to this concept of a healthy working basin. We believe if we are farmers that we respect and understand the need for good environmental health of our landscapes and our riverscapes and to be put in a position where we have to defend that knowledge and that history is what rankles a lot.’
Equally, I liken the basin guide to a bit of a blunt instrument. It certainly created the impression, whether it was intended or not, that whatever number you picked it was a big cut all happening on one day and that clearly is not the case. First of all, whatever the number is, the thing I am trying to pursue at the moment is how much have we already done and what is left to do and how much time do we have to do it, because it certainly will not all happen on one day and it certainly will not happen with things like water cuts or buybacks alone. There will be any number of Commonwealth and state programs in infrastructure and the activities of the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder and the state water holders and all those sorts of things which will make up a more complete set of initiatives over time to achieve the desired concept of a healthy working basin.
With that in mind, I have been talking to stakeholders about how we go about engaging them again, hoping to re-establish relationships where they have been fractured, and that includes also the Commonwealth and state agencies. I am talking about SEWPaC in particular, but of course the state agencies who play a vital role in all of this. In the end, in terms of implementation, they have had well in excess of 100-odd years of doing this and have enormous resources and skills that need to be incorporated.
But the most fundamental thing I talk to people about and I hear back in my journeys around the basin—and, I suspect, nothing different to what your committee has heard, Tony—is the need for much higher levels of localism in the implementation and, indeed, the engagement of the processes to make this work in a far more fine-grained sense in the recognition that what might work in one place almost certainly will not work in another because catchments are different, hydrologies and geologies are different and we have to respect all of that and have structures in place that both encourage localism as best we can and make sure that that fits into the overarching strategic directions.
There are many models for localism. At this stage I have refrained from putting my own views about what localism might look like, but I have certainly been throwing the imagery out there, encouraging individual groups and states and territories to consider what localism might look like to them. I do not think it will be a one-size-fits-all approach, but certainly if I could encourage your committee to consider anything. It is again how you go about devolving as best as is possible opportunity, responsibility, capability and resources, of course with all the necessary accountabilities, to ensure that we go about not having this as my plan or the authority’s plan or the Commonwealth’s plan or the states’ plan, but that people have a far greater degree of ownership in it; so the better alignment of all those Commonwealth and state programs imbued with anything I might do, the concept of a healthy working basin, and creating an opportunity for people to actually genuinely be involved.
You would have all seen, I am sure, as I have after many years away from water policy, the quite excellent efforts of local communities in managing both water for consumption and production and for environmental management. Very frequently local communities are filled with people with diametrically opposed interests but, because they all know each other, they tend to turn up at each other’s cricket matches on Saturdays and things like that, they can sort it out far better than the sort of totemic arguments that take place with the peak groups and lobby groups, as important as they are. But in the end this is about making sure things happen in local settings, recognising local constraints and local needs, and I would obviously seek to impress upon the committee the strong view that I have that this is an important feature of anything we might do going forward. I will stop there because I am conscious that there will be many questions. Thank you for the opportunity.
CHAIR—Thanks, Craig. We are hearing similar messages and obviously if we had our ears open we would all be hearing similar messages. The localism issues, the local solutions, as we have moved through a number of the subcatchments, when you do engage with people they do come up with various scenarios.
Mr Knowles—Yes. Tony, it sort of reinforces that concept that there just cannot be a one-size-fits- all approach here. It has to be valley by valley, catchment by catchment and even subcatchment by subcatchment. It does not have to be lowest common denominator stuff. In fact, a lot of the organisations and groups, catchment management authorities and so on are heavily imbued with very competent people who are more than capable of incorporating good, quality information into sensible and appropriate tailor-made approaches to managing their system, both in terms of environmental imperatives and environmental health, as well as strong productive capacity.
Mr Knowles—Do you mind if I call you Sharman?
Dr STONE—Please do.
Mr Knowles—Sharman, I have been asked this. I have a number of components to my response, so I will try and be as brief as I can. First of all, importantly, I am comfortable that I have enough room and scope within the act for me to proceed in the way I wish to and I think my public position about not being able to separate or provide precedence to one of the triple bottom line objectives is well recorded. I just cannot conceivably understand how you could not have the balance of environmental, social and economic objectives, and that is the way I wish to work.
I say that for a couple of reasons. One is that the legal advice that has been tabled is highly consistent with anything else I have seen. I think I can assert reasonably that I have done a considerable amount if not a large amount of my own environmental legislating over the years, in forestry, catchment management, native vegetation and water, and I have had all of those various—Ramsar and JAMBA and CAMBA—agreements to wrestle with, and there is no difference with this Water Act.
Importantly, my point that I do make to people is that in many ways it is really not my problem. The parliament, and your work, and indeed the Senate inquiry that Senator Joyce has got up and running, is the place for this conversation, particularly the specific references of the Senate inquiry. Parliaments make the laws. Parliaments change the laws. If there is a view that it needs to be amended, I think the inquiry should work that out, but in the meantime I think somebody has got to get on with the job.
The reason I say that is that I too hear—as you have heard in the evidence you have received from some of those interest groups—the commentary about the act, but it does tend to be limited to the peak lobby groups, the professional lobbyists and indeed—with no disrespect; I was one once myself—the politicians out there on the ground. I rarely hear it raised with me unless those peak groups are with me on the road, and they have been over the last few weeks. Importantly, most people just say to me, ‘Would you please get on with this.’ They are less interested in the lawyers’ picnic that surrounds these arguments, they are more interested in somebody getting on with it, and I think the prospects of success are getting on with it and working on those objectives that I have outlined in as balanced a fashion as I possibly can.