National Water Commission

[14:47]

CHAIR: We have about 12 or 13 minutes. I welcome Mr Cameron. Do you have an opening statement?

Mr Cameron : No, Senator; I am happy to take questions.

Senator JOYCE: In your view, what has been your engagement in regard to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority guide to the draft?

Mr Cameron : Are you talking about the guide released in October of last year?

Senator JOYCE: Yes. What has been your engagement thus far in that process?

Mr Cameron : Senator, throughout the work MDBA has been undertaking in developing the plan, we have provided information to the authority on the various projects we have undertaken which has information which may be relevant to assisting them to develop the plan. We have engaged in discussions with them on issues to ensure that we are aware of the process, and we have been available to them to provide any advice that they wish. But we are not a party to the development to the plan itself, so our role at this stage is primarily as an interested observer.

Senator JOYCE: Have there been any requests from the MDBA to you for further information prior to the middle of November?

Mr Cameron : Between now and the middle of November?

Senator JOYCE: Yes.

Mr Cameron : I am not aware of any specific information requests, no.

Senator JOYCE: Can you expand on your statement in the biennial assessment of the National Water Initiative that the Queensland government's arrangements for coal seam gas 'remain outside water planning and management frameworks'?

Mr Cameron : In Queensland the approvals processes for coal seam gas development and the regulatory arrangements that apply to their interaction with water resources are generally covered by legislation outside the National Water Initiative water planning and management systems and structures, and for that reason it is the commission's view that those arrangements sit outside the NWI arrangements. I should note that under Clause 34 of the NWI, there is provision that says that in special circumstances it may be appropriate for mining and extractive industry development processes to be managed outside the formal NWI structures; however it is the Commission's view that that should be the exception rather than the rule.

Senator JOYCE: Can you give me what you believe are the interactions between the Murray-Darling Basin catchment and the Great Artesian Basin?

Mr Cameron : I cannot give you a technical—

Senator JOYCE: Hydrologically.

Mr Cameron : I cannot give you a detailed hydrological answer. I would need to take that on notice.

Senator JOYCE: Is there anybody here who can?

Mr Cameron : The answer to that is quite complex. We are talking about a significant area of overlap between the two basins. I am not sure it would be possible to give a generic answer that would be particularly useful.

Senator JOYCE: Let us make it simple, then. Is there a relationship between the water that falls in the Murray-Darling Basin and the water that ends up in the Great Artesian Basin?

Mr Cameron : I think it is fair to say that there are interactions between aquifers and surface-water systems across the country, and that would include areas that are covered by both the MDBA and the Great Artesian Basin. However, the nature of those interactions are quite geographically specific.

Senator JOYCE: Is there or isn't there a link between the two?

Mr Cameron : There is in some circumstances, yes.

Senator JOYCE: Of course there is. I want to talk about the environmental assets in the Murray-Darling Basin and your knowledge of the water that is required to water them. I refer you to the same report, the biennial NWI report, where you said:

The necessary science to link environmental watering with ecological outcomes is generally weak and there is a lack of transparent reporting results.

How do we determine how much water is needed for certain environmental assets—for instance, the wetlands south of Dirranbandi as opposed to the water that goes from the Condamine down to the Lower Lakes? What is actually present at the moment to determine that sort of science? What is out there to say: this is what you need for the Narran Lakes? Is there a proper link, as you see it, between what the environment will hold and the watering of these assets?

Mr Cameron : That comment in the biennial assessment was made in the context of a broader assessment of water management and specifically in relation to science. What the commission observed in relation to science and knowledge is that, since the NWI, there has been a significant investment and substantial improvement in the amount of knowledge we have about water resources across the country and that that has led to an improvement in the quality of objective setting and management arrangements for water plans more generally.

However, we made the observation that there is a continuing need for investment in science and we identified that there are a number of specific areas where there should be a prioritisation of that effort. One of those areas is understanding the specific linkages between environmental watering activities and ecological outcomes. There is also the need for greater effort and investment in the monitoring of those activities in order to provide reasonable time series and reasonable information about the practical outcomes of those activities.

Your question related to how we understand watering requirements for individual ecological assets. The simple answer to that is that, generally, there is a need for appropriate investment in the science at the appropriate scale to understand those circumstances. So, while in the general sense there is a broad improvement of our scientific knowledge, that investment of the right scale to be able to effectively manage individual assets and individual watering requirements is not as strong as that broader picture.

Senator JOYCE: Does the National Water Initiative require equal weighting of economic, social and environmental outcomes?

Mr Cameron : The National Water Initiative has as an objective optimising economic, social and environmental outcomes.

Senator JOYCE: Do you see any differentiation between that and what the Water Act for the MDBA has—

Mr Cameron : The Water Act also has an objective of optimising the economic, social and environmental outcomes, and it acknowledges the National Water Initiative as a provision or an arrangement that should be considered in the context of developing the basin plan.

Senator JOYCE: With all this water that the Environmental Water Holder is going to hold, it is going to be the largest licence holder in the system. Where is it going to actually store this water? At times it will be storing it in dams and using up the space that would otherwise be used by irrigators. How is it going to store it? Is it going to interfere with other people's usage of the asset? Is there a capacity to just at times let the water spill so that it goes through? If it played its hand badly, it could have massive disruptive effects not only on the irrigation but on the environment itself.

Mr Cameron : The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder will be holding entitlements for water like any other water holder in the system. Those entitlements are not new entitlements that have been created; they have been acquired on the market or otherwise achieved through savings. So in that sense there are no third-party impacts of the water assets being held by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder.

Senator BIRMINGHAM: Congratulations, Mr Cameron, on your appointment. You seem to have had a few of those today. The National Water Commission released your biennial report very recently; you were fairly scathing of the progress being made by parties to address overallocation and meet sustainable levels of extraction. You were equally scathing in your previous biennial assessment, I think, of that progress. Are you frustrated that your reports do not necessarily seem to be spurring a sense of urgency?

Mr Cameron : I think that this biennial assessment—which, in a sense, is a different review to the previous one—is a broader assessment of the operation of the National Water Initiative since 2004, and our comments in relation to overallocation should be viewed in the context of the broader assessment—that, where implemented, there have been significant improvements in the water management, in the security, in the sustainability and the efficiency of water use across Australia. But it is fair to say that the commission remains frustrated that the core issue of overallocation and overuse has not been fundamentally addressed in the way committed in the NWI: that is, that substantial progress would be made by 2010. We continue to call for greater priority in that area. Obviously, it would be desirable to see movement faster than we have seen. We have not seen all of those commitments delivered on time. But I think it is also fair to say that the nature of the job is probably bigger than many of the parties to the original agreement had contemplated or understood, and that the sorts of challenges in terms of water management continue to increase with the impacts of climate variability, population growth and other factors.

Senator BIRMINGHAM: Have governments generally just been let off the hook, in the sense that it has rained and therefore the sense of urgency has, pardon the pun, evaporated somewhat?

Mr Cameron : I think obviously the fact that it has rained has changed some of the public perception and dynamic in relation to water reform. But, from the commission's perspective, we do not think the urgency has gone away. The fact that it has rained is a great opportunity for water managers across the country to address some of those fundamental challenges and to look at some of the new hurdles and issues that are facing water management in the future, whether that be urban water reform or thinking about some of what we call the boundary issues between water management and other areas of public policy, such as natural resource management, mining and coal seam gas, as we have mentioned before, and land-use planning. So I do not think the urgency has gone out of it, and certainly our report highlights a program of priorities for the future.

Senator BIRMINGHAM: The Productivity Commission recently concluded their report on their review of the urban water sector, and amongst various things that they recommended was an easing, I guess, of restrictions on recycling or reuse of water and a perhaps more grown-up debate in that space. Are they views that the commission shares?

Mr Cameron : The commission has long held the position that, in relation to addressing our water supply needs, all options should be on the table and considered on their merits, whether that is recycled water for potable or non-potable purposes or whether it is desalination or other options, dams or otherwise. So, in our view, in that sense, yes, we would agree that there should be a fair consideration of the economic, social and environmental costs and benefits of each of those options and that the optimal solution should be pursued on that basis. In relation to recycled water, obviously there are community perceptions and concerns about how recycled water is used, and that means that governments need to be actively engaged in talking to communities about the implications of those sorts of options. In the end, the judgments that are made should be made having regard to those community views.

Senator BIRMINGHAM: Is there sufficient engagement by governments in developing that community understanding of the implications of using recycled water and the potential for use of recycled water?

Mr Cameron : I think that we see good examples across Australia in that area. In Perth, for example, there is a managed aquifer recharge project underway which is involving the use of recycled water and injecting that into aquifers. As part of that, there is a public information facility there where members of the public can go in and understand how the water is used and how it is managed and get a better understanding of the risks and benefits of that. So there are good examples of that, but there are always opportunities for a greater level of discussion, and, in our future directions report on urban water reform, which we released a few months before the PC, we have made the comment that there is room for governments more generally to be more actively engaged with communities about how we manage our urban water challenges—the objectives, the security, the supply security objectives, the alternative options which are available and what communities expect out of their water supply services.

CHAIR: Mr Cameron, on behalf of the committee I congratulate you on your appointment and your first appearance at estimates.

Mr Cameron : Thank you.

Dr Grimes : There are two matters which senators asked today whether we could come back with responses on, and I would like to report back on those. The first one was Senator Siewert wanting some quite precise advice on national heritage boundaries and how they relate to high and low watermarks. We have not been able to confirm that today because it requires detailed checking of coordinates, but we will take that on notice and provide that information.

The second one was a request from Senator Ludlam to confirm the level of copper production assessed in the Olympic Dam EIS process. We can confirm that the level contained in that process was 750,000 tonnes per annum of copper.

CHAIR: That concludes the examination of the Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities portfolio. I thank the minister and officers for their attendance.