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Wednesday 26 March 2008 at 7pm AEDT (updated 11pm)

RAPID ROUNDUP: Victoria signs up to Murray Darling Basin water plan – water experts respond.

In light of today’s historic COAG agreement on the Murray Darling Basin – with Victoria signing on to the plan, the AusSMC is collating comments from water policy experts around the country.

Feel free to use these quotes in your stories. If you wish to speak to one of these experts, contact the AusSMC on (08) 8207 7415.

To read the Prime Minister's media release, click here.

To read the Premier of Victoria’s media release, click here.

Any further comments will be posted here as they are received.

Professor Snow Barlow is Professor of Horticultrue and Viticulture in the Faculty of Land and Food Resources, University of Melbourne.

"This is a very constructive outcome to an important national debate that allows all the water resources of the Murray Darling basin to be managed conjunctively. The inclusion of groundwater in the agreement is a significant step forward. While the devil will be in the detail of the agreement with regard to the nature of the national body established to mange the basin and its relationships with existing bodies and the principles of water management to be incorporated within the agreement. While there is much to be done in making this historic agreement operational I am sure it will bring a smile to Peter Cullen’s face , from whatever vantage he is watching from !"

Paul Perkins AM is adjunct professor at the ANU’s Fenner Centre for Environment and Society and chair of CRC CARE. He is a leading commentator on water policy and sustainability strategies. His research activities include integrated catchment management and water sharing systems..

“Today’s COAG National Water Plan announcement and explanatory releases by Minister Penny Wong are a welcome step forward and an indication of the new Australian government’s determination to deal with the States.

The signing on of Victoria was inevitable but not surprisingly, extracted an earmarked $1 billion support for their ‘Foodbowl modernisation program’ which is planned to free up a billion litres for environmental flows and another billion for Goulburn Valley irrigators from infrastructure investment to deliver use efficiencies: the reallocation of water savings to Melbourne will presumably also now be possible given agreed State powers of allocations. The trade-off is a Victorian commitment to a multi-year cap within an overall MDBC cap to be approved by the Commonwealth Minister on advice from the new National Water Authority.

The agreement re storage of allocations upstream are also an important precedent as earlier rhetoric on water trading had not prescribed access, upstream storage and ‘wheeling’ arrangements adequately; this ‘Adelaide clause’ will receive a lot of attention in coming months.

We’ll have to wait for the detail in the new IGA (Intergovernmental agreement) to be completed by the next COAG meeting in July.”

Professor Wayne Meyer is Professor of Natural Resource Science at the University of Adelaide. He is an internationally recognised irrigation scientist with experience in crop water requirements and salinity management in irrigated regions.

“It is certainly a good thing that Victoria has signed on because a national approach is really critical. The next step will be whether or not there will actually be a significant effect and it won’t be achieved through marginal policies like buying a bit of water here and there, I think that would be quite debilitating. It really will require some pretty hard nosed decisions about where it is suitable for irrigation to continue to be practised. Just doing little bits here and there will not achieve what is needed.”

Professor Gary Jones is a leading Australian water expert and Chief Executive Officer of the eWater CRC.

“Now the agreement is in place, it’s time to start spending the money and stop talking about it! The environment needs this investment desperately. In parts of the Murray Darling Basin the environment is in crisis. We welcome the Victorian government’s decision to sign the deal and would urge all governments to take action quickly before it is too late.

The Victorian Government’s decision to sign the rescue package will now enable the elements of the rescue package to proceed. $5.9 billion will be invested in irrigation supply infrastructure such as lining channels and piping water and improving farm irrigation technology. Fifty percent of the water saved through these initiatives should flow to the environment. An additional $3 billion has been allocated under the plan to buy back water for the environment from willing irrigators. “

Professor Tally Palmer is Director of the Institute for Water and Environmental Resource Management at the University of Technology, Sydney.

“I think it is absolutely critically important for water as a resource to be a national issue and a national good. Being able to have a national water policy is a fantastically good step forward. I also think that Victoria has led the way in water resource protection and in the role played by protecting ecosystems. They have led through the use of quantification and evidence based science in the protecting of ecosystems in relation to water. I really hope that their signing on means that Victoria can also take on a leadership role.”
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