Showing posts with label water wars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label water wars. Show all posts
Sunday 10 March 2019
More fish kills predicted along the Darling/Barka River
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
6 March 2019:
Residents at Menindee
are bracing for a fourth mass fish kill in the Darling River in about three
months, as a new paper finds water savings in the Murray Darling Basin may be
just one-tenth the amount modelled.
The NSW Department of
Primary Industries has warned the arrival of a cold front after another
heatwave in the region this week posed a "high risk" of another bout
of widespread fish deaths.
Possibly millions of
fish, mostly bony herring but also endangered perch and Murray cod, were killed
in the three previous events. A sudden drop in dissolved oxygen levels - as
blue-green algae died and began decaying - was the prompt for the previous fish
kills.
"They're
super-stressed. It takes less [to kill the fish]," Graeme McCrabb, a
Menindee resident, said on Tuesday. "The numbers of golden and silver
perch and the cods got less [during each die-off]."
Separately, a report
published in the Australasian Journal of Water Resources by John
Williams and Quentin Grafton from the Australian National University found the
$3.5 billion spent on water-saving infrastructure - such as concrete canals -
may have saved 70 billion litres a year compared with the federal government's
estimate of more than 10 times that figure.
Professor Grafton said
their analysis showed the average cost of water recovery could be as much as
$50,000 per megalitre returned to the Murray-Darling Basin every year, or about
25 times more expensive than buying the water back from willing sellers.
The key issue is the
failure to measure and account for so-called return flows - the leakage of
water into aquifer that ceases when irrigation becomes more efficient.
"It's a travesty
for all Australians," he said. "You've spent billions of dollars and
you've not measured what you've got."….
Thursday 14 February 2019
How the National Party of Australia attempted to ruin Australia’s largest river system
IMAGE: Murray Darling Wetlands Working Group Ltd. |
Former Accountant and banker, Nationals MP for New England (NSW) Barnaby Thomas Gerard Joyce was deputy Prime Minister of Australia from 18.2.2016 to 27.10.2017 and again from 6.12.2017 to 26.2.2018. He was also Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources from 21.9.2015 to 27.10.2017 and returned as minister once more from 21.9.2015 to 27.10.2017.
This particular politician is likely
to go down in history as one of the worst leaders that the National Party of
Australia ever had.
The
Northern Daily Leader,
9 February 2019:
BARNABY Joyce’s actions
as water minister have been singled out and savaged in the royal
commission into the Murray Darling Basin Authority, the report
suggesting he ignored the law.
The report pointed
to an “ill-informed letter” from Mr Joyce to the South Australian
water minister, as testament to the government’s lack of “any genuine
commitment” to the goal of recovering 450 gigalitres of water for the
environment.
The Leader has
contacted Mr Joyce for an interview and is awaiting a response.
In the letter, Mr Joyce
said he couldn’t see the water being recovered without “causing negative social
and economic impacts to South Australian communities”.
“I cannot foresee [the
other state governments] agreeing that the additional 450GL of water can be delivered
without significant social and economic detriment,” he wrote.
The report said there
was “no reliable evidence” to support Mr Joyce’s claim.
This is what the
South Australian Murray-Darling Basin Royal
Commission Report’s Final
Report (released on 29 January 2019) stated in part:
For
a number of years neither the Commonwealth Government, nor New South Wales or
Victoria, have had any genuine commitment to recovering the so-called 450 GL of
upwater for enhanced environmental outcomes. The ill-informed letter from Mr
Barnaby Joyce when he was Water Minister to his South Australian counterpart
dated 17 November 2016 — written as though the actual definition of
socio-economic impact in the Basin Plan did not exist — is testament to this…..
On
commercial radio on 29 August 2018, Mr Joyce, the Commonwealth Government’s
Special Drought Envoy — not a member of the Executive Council or a Minister of the
State under either secs 62 or 64 of the Constitution respectively — suggested
that environmental water held by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder
(CEWH) should be used to ‘grow the fodder to keep the cattle alive’ during the
course of the drought. He suggested that if this was not lawful, then the
relevant legislation should be changed. This suggestion is not in the interests
of the people who live and work in the Basin, nor in the interests of the
broader Australian public, or that of the environment. It is contrary to the
objects and purposes of the Water Act and Basin Plan. It is against the
national interest. It has been rightly rejected by, amongst others, the MDBA
and the CEWH. Adaptation to the challenges of a warmer and drier climate will
require a vastly more sophisticated approach. That approach must be based on
proper scientific research and analysis, as well as a basic level of common
sense.
For
example, in a letter dated 17 November 2016 from the then Commonwealth Minister
for Agriculture and Water, Mr Barnaby Joyce, to the then South Australian
Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Mr Ian Hunter,
Minister Joyce said:
If it was
genuinely possible to put an additional 450 GL down the river without hurting
people, then none of us would have a problem with it. The reality is that it
will. South Australia’s default share of the 450 GL target is 36 GL. Does the
South Australian Government have a plan for where this water would come from
without causing negative social and economic impacts to South Australian
communities? I believe that we are heading into an unprotracted (sic) and
unsolvable stalemate, where the funding will stay on the books for a recovery
that will be impossible to make in accordance with the legislative requirements
— that the recovery must has (sic) positive or neutral social and economic
outcomes
… My main concern is this — just as you have an
understandable desire for one outcome, your colleagues in other states have an
equally understandable desire for another regardless of what side of the
political fence they are on. I cannot foresee them agreeing that the additional
450 GL of water can be delivered without significant social and economic
detriment. The hard conversation has to happen about how we resolve this
stalemate. I look forward to discussing it with you more at the Ministerial
Council.
There
is no reliable evidence before the Commission that would support the assertion
in that letter that recovery of an additional 450 GL of water would have
negative social and economic impacts, or that its consequence would be ‘hurting
people’ either economically, socially, or otherwise. Minister Joyce offered no
such evidence. Leaving that aside, Minister Joyce’s letter ignores the test of
social and economic neutrality in sec 7.17(2)(b) of the Basin Plan. That is no
trifling thing, as that section was (and still currently is) the law. The test
is satisfied by participation, not the concept of ‘hurting people’. Leaving
this also aside, the gist of the letter was such that the Commonwealth’s then
position seemed to be that the recovery of 450 GL of upwater for South
Australia’s environmental assets was unlikely….
Mr
Hooper spoke of a shift in attitude, upon the appointment of the former
Minister, Mr Barnaby Joyce, to the water portfolio, away from a holistic, whole
of Basin approach to a focus on specific sites, namely Dirranbandi, St George,
and Warren, and the economics of irrigated agriculture in those towns.
Mr
Hooper recalled asking the MDBA for a socio-economic assessment of Aboriginal
people in the Northern Basin to which the MDBA responded by offering to provide
a more limited socio-cultural survey.182 Despite meeting with the MDBA, NBAN
was unaware of the intention to reduce water recovery in the Northern Basin,
which was only revealed once the proposed amendments were publicly released.183
Mr Hooper could not recall any explanation of how the toolkit measures could
substitute for water so as to justify the 70 GL reduction in water to be
recovered…..
In
an interview with 2GB radio, the Commonwealth Government’s Special Drought
Envoy and former Water Resources Minister, Mr Barnaby Joyce, said:
a national emergency requires emergency power. We have
a large water resource owned by the government. It’s called the Commonwealth
Environmental Water holder and it’s used to water environmental assets. In a
national emergency, which is this drought, surely that water should be used to grow
the fodder to keep the cattle alive to keep the cash flow in the town. When
people say, ‘Oh well, the legislation won’t allow you to do that’. Well, change
the legislation, that’s what we have a parliament for.
National
Party once again proving that it is the party representing mining interests
Climate change denialism is alive and well in the National Party.....
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
9 February 2019:
A Nationals MP's claim
that the Land and Environment Court's decision to block a coal mine in his
electorate reflected an "ideological position" and "smacked of
judicial activism" has prompted a rival MP to accuse him of contempt of
court.
After the court on
Friday rejected Gloucester Resources' bid to open the
Rocky Hill mine on the Mid North Coast because of "climate change
impacts", Nationals MP for the Upper Hunter Michael Johnsen hopped on
2GB to vent his fury.
The show's host Chris
Kenny said: "Here you have a judge in a NSW land and environment court
saying that he's protecting the planet from global warming, from climate
change".
Mr Johnsen replied:
"They are taking an ideological position, again it smacks of judicial
activism, and it has nothing to do with the merits of the proposal itself and
I’m very, very disappointed."
Labels:
climate change,
mining,
rivers,
water wars,
water security
Friday 1 February 2019
Murray-Darling Basin Commission Report Précis: hard right ideology, ignorance, politics and greed have all but killed the largest river system in Australia
The Guardian, 29 January 2019: The fish kill near Menindee in NSW on Monday left the Darling River carpeted in dead fish. A South Australian royal commission is likely to find the Murray Darling Basin Plan to be in breach of the federal Water Act. Photograph: Graeme McCrabb |
ABC
News, 30
January 2019:
The Murray-Darling Basin
Royal Commission has found Commonwealth officials committed gross
maladministration, negligence and unlawful actions in drawing up the
multi-billion-dollar deal to save Australia's largest river system.
Commissioner Bret Walker
SC recommended a complete overhaul of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan,
including reallocating more water from irrigation to the environment.
The report found the
original plan ignored potentially "catastrophic" risks of climate
change….
Commissioner Walker
accused the original architects of the multi-billion-dollar plan of being
influenced by politics, with the report finding "politics rather than
science" drove the setting of the "Sustainable Diversion Limit (SDL)
and the recovery figure of 2,750 GL".
"The [water]
recovery amount had to start with a 'two'," he said.
"This was not a
scientific determination, but one made by senior management and the board of
the MDBA……
Murray-Darling
Basin Royal Commission Report,
29 January 2019, excerpts:
Triple
bottom line myth
The most pernicious of the polemical
uses to which the slogan of the triple bottom line has been turned is to argue,
in various forums and with varying approaches to frankness, that the triple
bottom line requires the volume of reduction in consumptive take (sometimes
called the water to be ‘recovered’, ie for the environment) somehow to be less
than it would be on solely the environmental grounds stipulated in the Water
Act, whenever it can be seen that recovering less would benefit farming,
therefore the economy and therefore society. It is, admittedly, hard not to
travesty the argument, so bereft as it is of a serious purposive reading of the
actual enacted text.
No-one,
in or out of this Commission, has explained how this triple bottom line is
meant to work, directed as it must be to a numerically designated ‘limit’ of
take. If all three dimensions are operating equally and simultaneously, as the slogan
and the statutory term ‘optimises’ might at first sight suggest, how does a
statutory decision-maker adjust — up or down — the recovery target by reference
to each of the three dimensions? They are, at least partially,
incommensurables. And what is the real difference, when it comes to irrigated
agriculture, between economic and social outcomes? How far does one project in
order to assess the best available outcomes?
None
of these imponderable puzzles exists on the plain reading of the Water Act, by which
the environmental threshold level (no ‘compromise’ of key environmental values)
is set — and then as much irrigation water as can sensibly be made available is
made available, in order to optimise the economic and social outcomes generated
by the continuation of modern and efficient irrigated agriculture. Of course,
from time to time, not least because of the inter-generational ecologically
sustainable development principles, social outcomes — and even economic
outcomes — may well come to be seen as mandating less rather than more (or the
same) volume of consumptive take. But the true, single, bottom line is that no
more water may be taken than at the level beyond which the key environmental
values would be compromised.
The
late Professor John Briscoe, whose distinguished career culminated at Harvard,
was a doyen of international water resources management studies. His insights
and eminence were acknowledged by, among many other weighty assignments around
the world, his selection to play a leading role in the 2010 High-Level External
Review Panel convened by the MDBA to scrutinize and critique the beleaguered
draft Guide to the proposed Basin Plan (Guide) (see Chapter 4). In 2011, he
corresponded with the Senate’s Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional
Affairs, which has published his notable letter dated 24 February 2011, by way
of a submission by him to the Committee’s inquiry into provisions of the Water
Act. The whole letter is instructive, as might be expected. The following
extracts pungently address the triple bottom line myth, expressing conclusions
which command agreement. (As opposed to some other conclusions expressed in his
letter, where Professor Briscoe is arguably too pessimistic, concerning in
particular the aptness of the Water Act itself.
The letter, to repeat, deserves
re-reading.)
The substance of the Act 2: Balance between the
environment and human uses
There
are claims that the Water Act of 2007 was not an environmental act but one that
mandated balance between the environment and human uses. Digging deep into the
turgid 236 pages of the Water Act for confirmatory phrases, the Honorable
Malcolm Turnbull claims, now, that the Act was all about balance.
To a
disinterested reader this is poppycock. The National Productivity Commission’s
interpretation of the Water Act (2007) is that “it requires the Murray-Darling
basin Authority to determine environmental water needs based on scientific
information, but precludes consideration of economic and social costs in
deciding the extent to which these needs should be met”. Similarly, the
High-Level Review Panel for the Murray Darling Basin Plan (of which I was a
member) stated that “The driving value of the Act is that a triple-bottom-line
approach (environment, economic, social) is replaced by one in which
environment becomes the overriding objective, with the social and economic
spheres required to “do the best they can” with whatever is left once
environmental needs are addressed.”
This
interpretation was also very clearly (and reasonably, in my view) the
interpretation taken by the Board and Management of the MDBA in developing the
Guide to the Basin Plan. This was transmitted unambiguously to the members of
the High-Level Review Panel for the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
(As an
aside, I have wondered whether this logic is derived from (a) a belief that
this is the right thing to do or (b) an understanding that this was the only
constitutionally-defensible approach given that state powers were being
abrogated in the name of meeting the Commonwealth’s Ramsar obligations.)
The substance of the Act 3: The roles of science and
politics
The Act
is based on an extraordinary logic, namely that science will determine what the
environment needs and that the task for government (including the MDBA) is then
just to “do what science tells it to do”.
In the deliberations of the High
Level Review Panel, we pointed out that, taken literally, this would mean that
100% of the flows of the Basin would have to go to the environment, because the
native environment had arisen before man started developing the basin. The
absurdity of this point was to drive home the reality — that the Murray is one
of the most heavily plumbed river basins in the world, and that the real choice
was to decide which set of managed (not natural) environmental (and other)
outcomes were most desirable.
The job
of science in such an instance is to map out options, indicating clearly the
enormous uncertainties that underlie any scenario linking water and
environmental outcomes. In its final report, the High-Level Review Panel
stated:
Far from being “value neutral”, a set of value judgements are
fundamental to the aspirations of all Acts, including the Water Act. … It is a
fundamental tenet of good governance that the scientists produce facts and the
government decides on values and makes choices. We are concerned that
scientists in the MDBA, who are working to develop “the facts”, may feel that
they are expected to trim those so that “the sustainable diversion limit” will
be one that is politically acceptable. We strongly believe that this is not
only inconsistent with the basic tenets of good governance, but that it is not
consistent with the letter of the Act. We equally strongly believe that
government needs to make the necessary tradeoffs and value judgements, and
needs to be explicit about these, assume responsibility and make the rationale
behind these judgements transparent to the public.
A
basis in science The crucial steps of setting a SDL, which governs its localized
component parts, and observing its mandatory reflection of the ESLT, are among
the most important decisions called for by the Water Act. They are forbidden to
be politically dictated, say, by Ministerial directions (eg para 48(5)(b)).
Their nature is ‘factual or scientific’, and so they are to be addressed as the
Water Act requires for such matters.
That is, both the MDBA and the
Minister, who between them are statutorily responsible for making the Basin
Plan, ‘must … act on the basis of the best available scientific knowledge’
(para 21(4)(b)). As appears throughout this report, this is a serious and
fundamental requirement that it appears has most regrettably not been
consistently obeyed (see Chapters 3, 4, 5, 7, 9 and 10). It is most certainly not some obscure
technical point that could excite only administrative lawyers.
To
the contrary, the invocation of science, with the strong epithet ‘best’ to
qualify it, brings in its train the demanding and self-critical traditions of
empirical enquiry. It definitionally recognizes the provisional and improvable
quality of the state of art. It proceeds by testing, and thus needs exposure
and debate. Above all, it shuns the ipse dixit of unexplained, unattributed,
blank assertions, such as too often emanate at crucial junctures from the
MDBA.6 Perhaps the MDBA was not entirely responsible for this ‘aberration’, as
Professor Briscoe described it in his letter to the Senate Committee. He
suggested it resulted from the ‘institutional power concentration’ created by
the Water Act.
Leaving
blame aside, it can be readily accepted that Professor Briscoe described in
2011 what he had experienced, and what has continued far too much and for far
too long. That is, the highly secretive ‘we will run the numbers and the science
behind closed doors and then tell you the result’ MDBA Basin Plan process that
Professor Briscoe scorned as ‘the
Commonwealth-bureaucrats-and-scientists-know-better-than-states-andcommunities-and-farmers-do
model’. He deplored the excessive MDBA ‘confidentiality’ process, which meant
‘there was very little recourse in the process to the immense worldleading
knowledge of water management that had developed in Australia during the last
20 years’. He wrote, ‘time and again I heard from professionals, community
leaders, farmers and State politicians who had made Australia the widely
acknowledged world leaders in arid zone water management that they were
excluded from the process’……. [my yellow highlighting]
Recommendations
1.
New determinations of the ESLTs, and SDLs for both surface water and
groundwater that reflect those ESLTs, should be carried out promptly. Those
determinations must be made lawfully — that is, according to the proper
construction of the Water Act as outlined in Chapter 3. Those determinations
must:
a.
be made on the basis of a proper construction of the Water Act, rather than
using a triple bottom line approach
b.
ensure that each water resource area’s ESLT is correctly determined based on
the best available science, including for floodplains, and accordingly is reflected
in the Basin-wide ESLT
c.
result in an ESLT that ensures Australia fulfils its obligations under the
treaties referred to in the Water Act
d.
ensure there is no ‘compromise’ to the key environmental assets and ecosystem
functions of the Basin — it must restore and protect those that are degraded
e.
be made on the basis of the best available scientific knowledge, and by taking
into account ESD, including climate change projections
f.
be made in such a manner that all of the processes, decision-making and
modelling that underpin the determinations are fully disclosed and subject to
scientific peer-review and consultation with the broader public.
2.
Those determinations will require a greater recovery amount than that which has
already been recovered. In order to achieve a higher recovery amount,
additional water will need to be purchased by the government and held by the
CEWH. That water should be purchased through buybacks.
3. The MDBA — or some other appropriately
funded body — should be required to urgently conduct a review of climate change
risks to the whole of the Basin, based on the best available scientific
knowledge. This should be incorporated into the determination of the ESLT. 4. A
Commonwealth Climate Change Research and Adaptation Authority should be
established. This Authority must be independent of government. It should be
appropriately funded so that it can properly conduct research into climate
change, and formulate plans and give guidance on how the Basin (and other)
communities can best adapt to climate change.
There
are 44 recommendations in the Commissioner’s report in total and the full
report cane be read here.
BACKGROUND
Hard right ideology, ignorance, politics and the greed of irrigators on display over the years.
BACKGROUND
Hard right ideology, ignorance, politics and the greed of irrigators on display over the years.
The
Courier, 15
December 2011:
Opposition Leader [and Liberal MP for Warringah] Tony
Abbott has given his strongest indication yet he will block the Labor
government's Murray Darling Basin plan, telling a rowdy meeting of irrigators
near Griffith the Coalition would "not support a bad plan"…...
The meeting, for which
most businesses in Griffith shut down for the morning so workers could attend,
was the fourth public consultation meeting for the Murray Darling plan, which
aims to return water from irrigation back to the ailing river system to boost
its environmental health….
The scale of irrigators'
anger was made clear by a string of speakers who said towns such as Griffith
would be battered by the basin authority's plan to return 2750 gigalitres of
water to the river system from irrigators.
NATIONALS Riverina MP
Michael McCormack [now
Deputy Prime Minister of Australia] says he's prepared to cross the floor and
vote against the Murray-Darling Basin Plan if it takes away 2750 gigalitres
from primary production for environmental purposes.
Rural communities and
farming stakeholder groups have demanded a final Basin Plan that balances
economic and social outcomes in equal consideration with environmental concerns….
"I won't be voting
in favour of 2750GL coming out of the (Murray-Darling Basin) system, given the
amount of water that's already been bought out of the system.
"I won't be
abstaining - I'll be voting against it."
The
Guardian, 27
July 2017:
Barnaby Joyce [Nationals MP for New England and then
Deputy Prime Minister] has told a pub in a Victorian irrigation
district that the Four Corners program which raised allegations of water theft
was about taking more water from irrigators and shutting down towns.
The deputy prime
minister, agriculture and water minister told a gathering at a Hotel Australia
in Shepparton that he had given water back to agriculture through the Murray
Darling Basin plan so the “greenies were not running the show”.
“We have taken water,
put it back into agriculture, so we could look after you and make sure we don’t
have the greenies running the show basically sending you out the back door, and
that was a hard ask,” he said in comments reported by the ABC.
“A couple of nights ago on Four Corners, you
know what that’s all about? It’s about them trying to take more water off you,
trying to create a calamity. A calamity for which the solution is to take more
water off you, shut more of your towns down.”
Wentworth
Group of Concerned Scientists,
November 2017:
Winter rainfall and
streamflow in the southern Basin have declined since the mid-1990s and the
Basin has warmed by around a degree since 1910. The Basin is likely to
experience significant changes in water availability due to human-caused
climate change, particularly in the southern Basin where annual rainfall is
projected to change by -11 to +5% by 2030. Any reduction in precipitation is
likely to have significant impacts on water flows in rivers, in some cases
driving a threefold reduction in runoff, with implications for water recovery
under the Basin Plan.
Farm
Online, 27
November 2017:
PRIME Minister [and then Liberal MP for Wentworth] Malcolm
Turnbull says the SA government’s Royal Commission into the Murray Darling
Basin Plan is picking an “expensive fight” with the federal government and
upstream Basin States while examining ground that’s already been “very well
tilled”.
Mr Turnbull - the acting
Agriculture and Water Resources Minister in Barnaby Joyce’s absence - spoke to
media yesterday after SA Premier Jay Weatherill and the state’s Water Minister
Ian Hunter revealed they would forge ahead with the Commission
inquiry into water monitoring and compliance issues in the $13 billion Basin
Plan.
News.com.au, 8 March 2018:
A MAJOR cotton grower is
among five people charged for allegedly stealing water from the Murray-Darling
Basin.
Prominent irrigator
Peter Harris and his wife Jane Harris, who farm cotton in NSW’s north-west have
been accused of taking water when the flow did not permit it and breaching
licence conditions.
WaterNSW on Thursday
said it had begun prosecutions after investigating water management rule
breaches.
Three other members of a
prominent family have also been accused of theft.
WaterNSW alleges Anthony
Barlow, Frederick Barlow and Margaret Barlow were pumping during an embargo and
pumping while metering equipment was not working.
The maximum penalty for
each of the offences is $247,500.
The prosecutions were
announced only moments before the NSW Ombudsman released a damning report
saying the WaterNSW had provided the government with incorrect figures on
enforcement actions.
In a special report, the
NSW Ombudsman said WaterNSW had wrongly claimed to have issued 105 penalty
infringements notices and to have initiated 12 prosecutions between July 2017
and November 2017. In fact, no prosecutions had begun nor penalty notices
issued during the period.
The
Weekly Times,
19 December 2018:
Cohuna irrigator Max
Fehring said a push to recover another 450GL would simply mean having to shut
down some irrigation areas.
“The environment push is
out of control, with no connection to the community impacts,” Mr Fehring said.
“You just can’t keep taking water.”
Finley irrigator Waander
van Beek said draining water from the Riverina had reduced the reliability of
supply from about 85 per cent down to 55 per cent.
Mr van Beek’s wife, Pam,
said the district’s irrigators were also angered to see their South Australian
colleagues gaining 100 per cent of their allocations, while they got nothing in
NSW.
Others were angered by
what they see as a waste of water flowing down the Murray to fill South
Australia’s Lower Lakes.
ABC
News, 29 January 2019:
Recent fish kills in western New South Wales have put
Australia's Murray-Darling Basin Planback in the headlines.
However, it has
been at the forefront of some of Australia's top legal minds for the past 12
months, with the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission putting
it under the microscope.......
What is the
Murray-Darling Basin Plan?
Management of
Australia's biggest water resource has been contentious since before
federation.
History was made in
2012, when Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria and South
Australia signed up to the national plan, but it remains controversial.
Some believe it does not
provide enough flows to protect the environment, while communities
dependent on irrigation say it threatens their economic future.
Why did SA decide to
hold a royal commission?
In 2017, an ABC Four
Corners investigation uncovered irrigators in New South Wales were taking billions of litres of water earmarked for the environment.
A subsequent report
found poor levels of enforcement and a lack of transparency surrounding
water management in New South Wales and Queensland.
That sparked outcry in
South Australia, at the very end of the system and often the first place to
feel the impact of low water flows.
Then premier Jay
Weatherill said the report did not go far enough, and needed more detailed
findings about individuals who had committed water theft.
He announced the Labor
government would launch a royal commission.
Key players didn't give
evidence
The SA Government came
out swinging with its royal commission, but it didn't take long for it to
beencumbered.
The Federal Government
launched injunction proceedings in the High Court to prevent any Commonwealth
public servants from giving evidence.
That included Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) staff, who are responsible
for implementing the plan.
The Federal Government
argued it was a longstanding legal precedent that state-based royal
commissions did not have the power to compel federal witnesses.
Evidence of
mismanagement and fraud revealed
While the royal
commission could not hear evidence from current MDBA staff, it did hear
from some former senior employees.
They included David
Bell, who at one stage was responsible for setting an environmentally-sustainable
level of water extraction.
He told the inquiry the
amount of water set aside for the environment became a political decision, rather than a scientific one.
The 2010 'Guide to the
proposed Basin Plan' recommended 6,900 gigalitres of water would need to be
returned to the system for there to be a 'low uncertainty' of achieving
environmental outcomes.
In the final 2012 plan,
2,750 gigalitres were allocated.
It also heard from Dr
Matt Colloff, a now retired CSIRO scientist who was part of a team that
worked on a report into the plan.
He told the commission his report was altered by CSIRO management,
under pressure from MDBA staff.
In his closing
submission to the royal commission, counsel assisting Richard Beasley SC said
that by taking social and economic factors into consideration when setting
environmental flows, the MDBA had erred.
"The Murray-Darling
Basin Authority has misinterpreted the Water Act, not in a minor way, not in an
unimportant way, in a crucial way," he said.
"That's not only
error, or worse than error, it's a massive one with regrettable consequences
for the lawfulness of that part of the Basin Plan."
>
Read the full
article here.
Wednesday 30 January 2019
Murray-Darling Basin irrigator has cotton farm asset frozen under Criminal Proceeds Confiscation Act - required to pay back $15.7 million
People living along the major rivers on the NSW Far North Coast, particularly those on the Clarence River, will remember that it was irrigators in southern Queensland as well as other areas within the Murray-Darling Basin who made repeated calls to dam and divert one of more of these coastal rivers to fill heir greedy maws with additional water.
The
Courier Mail,
25 January 2019, p.27:
Authorities have gone to
court to force an award-winning Queensland cotton farmer to pay $16 million to
the state’s Public Trustee after a “covert source” told them the accused
water fraudster had sold his farm for more than $100 million.
John Douglas Norman, 43,
a former Australian Cotton Farmer Of The Year, from Toobeah in southern
Queensland, has been charged with defrauding the Murray-Darling Basin water program
of $20 million.
The charges are before
the Brisbane Magistrates Court.
Last week the State
Government was granted an urgent court order, forcing Norman to pay $15.7
million to the state’s Public Trustee, after the police received a tip that his
company had sold its Queensland cotton and grain farms to a global corporate
giant.
Norman must pay the
$15.7 million once his deal with the $43 billion Canadian giant Manulife
Financial Corporation settles, a Supreme Court judge has ruled. The order was
made under the Criminal Proceeds Confiscation Act.
The mega-deal was due to
settle last week, court documents state. Until the $15.7 million is paid,
Norman’s share of the giant farms, west of Goondiwindi, will remain frozen by
the Supreme Court.
The remaining share of
the business is owned by his mother Aileen Joan Norman. She has not been
charged with any crimes and has not had her assets frozen.
The farms, spread over
18,000ha, are mostly irrigated and run along or close to the NSW-Queensland
border, the court heard. They are in “a core crop production region” and with
“significant water entitlements”.
The farms and a $2
million riverfront Southport mansion, owned by Norman’s wife Virginia, were
raided and searched by police during the probe, court documents state.
BACKGROUND
The Land, 30 August 2018:
Meanwhile in Queensland,
a major alleged fraud in the cotton industry was uncovered by police, with two
executives from Queensland's cotton group Norman Farming charged over an an
alleged $20 million fraud involving federal funds earmarked for Murray-Darling
water savings.
Norman Farming CEO John Norman,
43, and his chief financial officer Steve Evans, 53, were granted bail after
appearing in Brisbane Magistrates Court over the alleged fraud.
Police allege the
director of the company submitted fraudulent claims, including falsified
invoices related to six water-efficiency projects on a property near
Goondiwindi, called Healthy Headwater projects.
Police allege the fraud
occurred over seven years.
In NSW, the Natural
Resources Access Regulator (NRAR) has issued a number of charges in the north
and south-west of NSW for various alleged water offences.
The NRAR is the new
independent water regulator in NSW. It started operations on April 30, after an
outcry over alleged water deals in northern NSW exposed by the ABC's Four
Corners program….
NRAR said it was
pursuing the following cases:
● A Moree company has
been charged with water theft offences. It is alleged the company, involved in
irrigation, took water from a river while metering equipment was not working,
an offence against section 91I(2) of the Water Management Act 2000. It is
further alleged they constructed and used a channel to convey water without
approval.
● A Carinda man has been
charged with using a channel to convey water without approval, an offence
against s91B of the Water Management Act 2000.
● Two men have been
charged with water theft offences on properties in Walgett and Mallowa.
● A 35-year-old man from
Carinda in Northern NSW alleged he provided false and misleading information to
water investigators.
● Two men have been
charged after they allegedly carried out controlled activities on the Murray
River near Corowa.
ABC News, 13 February 2018:
The Murray Darling Basin
Authority (MDBA) is powerless to prevent upstream farmers harvesting overland
floodwaters desperately needed to flow through the river system for the benefit
of all users, the authority's head has admitted.
It comes as details
emerge of massive earthworks built to enable upstream farmers to carry out
"floodplain harvesting"…..
Last week, MDBA head
Phillip Glyde travelled to Mr Lamey's farm to see first hand what was
happening.
"I've learnt a
lot," Mr Glyde told 7.30.
"For people like
the Lameys, it's very hard to negotiate through and find what's the best way to
make sure the problems they're experiencing don't occur."
Although he admitted
floodplain harvesting was a serious issue, he acknowledged there was nothing
the authority could do in relation to the approval and regulation of irrigation
earthworks.
"There's
overlapping responsibilities: local, state, different departments," he
said.
"Then you've got
the Commonwealth, then you've got the Murray Darling Basin Plan."
On Wednesday, the Senate
decides whether to pass a proposed reduction in the amount of water Queensland
irrigators give back to the ailing Murray Darling River system.
"We don't want the
irrigators to be keeping even more water, we want the banks pulled down in
Queensland," Mr Lamey said.
"We want the river
to run like it should."
Labels:
local courts,
Murray-Darling Basin,
rivers,
Supreme Court,
water wars
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