Good morning and thank you all for coming.
It is great to see this turnout from the communities in the Murray–Darling Basin.
I would like to start by acknowledging the Wiradjuri People as the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we meet today and offer my respect to their Elders past and present, and I would like to thank Darren for his wonderful welcome to Country. I really thought it hit the mark and it was just a pleasure to be here to see that beautiful way he welcomed us this morning.
I extend my respect to First Nations people throughout the Murray–Darling Basin and the many First Nations people here with us today and it is great to have them participating in this conference and I further recognise their ongoing and deep connection to the lands and the waters of the Murray–Darling.
Now there were a couple of other things I thought I should say. We're very grateful to Cr Kylie King for the very warm welcome she gave us, but also the agility and the way they've responded to the disaster suffered at the entertainment centre. It seems incredible that we're all here in Albury having this conference now.
I was, like the rest of you, very privileged to hear that wonderful story from Tim Jarvis.
I found it inspirational, but more than that it reinforced a couple of key lessons that I've been aware of for a long, long time. And I guess the first one is the value of planning. You'll note that every step of the way the planning was meticulous and was really on the money and I would have said if there was a failure in that planning, they would not have met and they would not have been able to complete the mission.
And I say that from a position of having been the CDF, Chief of Defence Force the Australian Defence Force in my time, my six years, we mounted 58 operations. We deployed 65,000 people.
Unfortunately, we had some people killed and we had many people who were wounded physically and others who suffered mental health issues as a consequence of their Service. Now most of those operations were all broadly successful and why was that so?
Well, we had planning at the strategic level, the operational level and the tactical level and they're different sorts of planning. The principles the same, but the level of detail varies from the strategic level down to the tactical level. I would put it to you that if you're on any complex endeavour and want to go and do something, give quality to the planning and that's what we're about at the Murray–Darling Basin Authority, we are reviewing the Basin Plan and we're doing it in a very meticulous way and we're doing it in a way where we can involve all of you with the way we navigate the plan.
So that's some comments from what was just a wonderful presentation from Tim, but we also heard from Andrew McConville and we heard about leadership, and leadership is the other thing that was key to the way we conducted those operations – leadership at all levels.
And I would put it to you that the leadership that you saw today from Andrew and the way he talked about where he wants to go in terms of the great challenges that we face in the Murray Darling Basin is absolutely on the money. But you can't do it any other way than to have a highly collaborative approach, but with all the stakeholders in the basin, he's committing to that. And I think that that's great.
And he's also committing, I think, the right form of leadership to take the MDBA forward into the future. A very challenging future as I will reflect now, when I talk about our early insights now just one other thing.
Everywhere I go in the Murray–Darling Basin, everybody is always asking me: Angus, why do you get up so early? Why do you run in the dark? Well, I like running down the riverbanks of the Murray–Darling in the dark. I regret that I don't see the rivers very much in the dark, but it's a wonderful experience because I never see a soul and it's my moment of solitude.
How did I get into this habit? Well, when I was the Chief of Defence Force, very stressful job. The only time I could get a run in or a bike ride was by getting up at 4:30 in the morning. I then go out and do my 50 minutes or so with exercise, really cooked myself. Would go straight to work feeling 100 per cent and the day went downhill from there every day I might add. So that's why I do it. It's an old habit and I must say I really didn't enjoy doing it out in the Basin.
So let's talk about the water aspect that this is our Early Insights.
Water is a critical resource for Australia.
We all know that in recent times we're seeing the effects of extreme weather – the droughts and the floods — and how detrimental that is. The security of our communities, particularly here in the Murray– Darling Basin, many communities – including here in Albury-Wodonga are still working through the impacts of floods in recent years.
Over the years we’ve also seen situations where water resources have not been able to meet the needs of communities, and those of the environment. The images of the Millenium Drought remain seared in our memories.
Over-allocation of our water resources has occurred. That’s why we need a plan. A Basin Plan in other words, a strategic whole of Basin Plan, not a tactical plan, but a plan to address very a very complex set of circumstances so that we’re ready for the tough times and we can sustain our rivers for all. We can be proud of the progress made to implement the Plan these past 12 years.
Progress that is in stark contrast to other river basins across the Pacific, and I reflect on our conversation last year about the over extraction and uncoordinated management of the Colorado River Basin. Our progress is won with the commitment of irrigators and regional communities who have innovated on farm and done much of the heavy lifting to improved water management.
The Basin Plan was the necessary course correction for an overallocated river system.
The commitment and cooperation of governments, community and industry acting on sustainable water take brought the Basin from the brink following the Millennium drought. With implementation and help from mother nature the Basin is on better footing because we have a plan.
Dedicated and carefully managed water for the environment, often delivered through clever water infrastructure that connects the river to forests and wetlands, has helped our natural environments build resilience and helped to build the health of the Basin.
A resurgence in water birds, flocking back to the Basin – the 2022 floods spurring widespread breeding not seen in 20 years and sustained further by environmental watering.
A healthy river that continues to support Australian agriculture, a sector that continues to grow in value. These investments in the health of the Basin return with economic interest, that supports local communities to thrive.
We see this in the return from Hattah Lakes where environmental water has achieved environmental, cultural and economic outcomes at this culturally significant site.
Local businesses benefiting through increased tourism, with the direct economic value of the Lakes estimated at $1.5 million per year. And we must remain steadfast in our delivery of the Basin Plan. Every step forward we take in implementing the Basin Plan, puts the Basin and Basin communities in a better position to meet the challenges ahead.
I’m pleased that since I spoke in Narrabri at this conference last year considerable progress has been made supporting New South Wales to seek and confirm accreditation of most of their water resource plans. We now have 16 of the 20 plans accredited, and the remaining 4 are with NSW for some additional work.
The Restoring our Rivers legislation that passed the parliament in late 2023 means governments have more time to deliver projects under the Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment Mechanism.
If you like, the collective focus and commitment of Basin governments is needed to complete projects that reduce the need for water recovery, while still delivering equivalent environmental outcomes. We will now reconcile their progress at the end of 2026.
How and where water is recovered for the environment is equally important. There is both community and expert advice informing the Government’s approach to deliver the 450 GL of additional environmental water, including technical information the MDBA will provide and publish in the coming weeks.
Easing constraints complements our efforts in water recovery. Through development of a Constraints Relaxation Implementation Roadmap, we are bringing governments together to plan the action needed across state borders that will improve the long-term health of rivers, floodplains and wetlands. This work will bring to life the true value of water that has been recovered for the environment.
Delivery between now and 2026 is not simple or easy. Indeed the path to get here was not simple but complex. Complex problems you have heard about this morning from Tim Jarvis. They’re not easy, they’re not simple.
And I would again say, good planning will help a lot, and they do not become easier when we are divided or alone. I am convinced the pathway to a healthy Basin, one where rivers, industries and communities are vibrant and sustainable, is achieved through collaboration. This means working with governments, communities, First Nations and industries.
The Basin Plan Review is our next opportunity to build on the achievements and lessons of the journey so far – to think hard about settings and priorities for the future. We have the opportunity, through the Basin Plan Review, to ensure the Basin Plan continues to adapt and keep pace with change.
I promised we would not deliver the Review behind closed doors. We will not do it alone.
Early Insights – Issues and opportunities
Through the Review, the Authority will have a laser eye on the outcomes we collectively seek to achieve.
It is the outcomes for sustainable communities, outcomes for healthy rivers and outcomes for economic prosperity that must remain at the core of our conversations for the future of Basin water management.
Today I share the Authority’s early insights to the Basin Plan Review. These insights are just that – a window into our thinking thus far as we prepare for the Basin Plan Review. If you were after a detailed and dense scientific and technical read, you might be disappointed. I hope instead you’ll be pleasantly surprised about the insights we share today about our approach to the challenges ahead.
Insights about how we will consider the Basin Plan given the range of plausible climate futures ahead that we must prepare for.
An insight to our commitment to walk with First Nations people, to involve them in our decision-making in a more inclusive way. In doing so, we will seek to progress their rights and interests and contribute to the goals they have for their communities.
Insights into how we accommodate the needs of the Northern and Southern Basin.
The North is different– as I’m frequently told each time I visit, and as I experienced as a helicopter pilot in the 1970’s with massive floods in the northern basin, I remember flying out of Dubbo, and I remember this vast inland sea. While the high flows in the south broke riverbanks, they did not engulf the landscape in the same way. And I can remember taking sandbags to communities on the Murray–Darling and a helicopter crewing that year, 1974 to be precise.
We need a Basin Plan that supports greater flexibility – to give us more options to manage the system in way that achieve the outcomes is needed.
We have considered also, our role as the Authority and our part to better connect the Basin Plan, with the way rivers are managed by states on an ongoing basis, and the actions of others such as catchment and land managers, industry and regional development organisations, and local governments.
All are necessary actors to deliver the social, economic, Cultural and environmental outcomes supported by the Basin’s waterways.
It’s a challenge that needs many minds to crack.
We share these early insights so that you can test them. They are thought-starters that we are opening the door on and inviting you to help us navigate.
Issues and opportunities
The Early Insights Paper presents 5 key areas that we have identified as areas of challenge and focus for our work. These challenges cut across the 4 themes we are focused on for the Review – climate change, First Nations, Sustainable Water Limits and Regulatory design.
We have formed these insights from the feedback and knowledge collected over the last 12 years of implementation and we are applying them to refine the next 10 years of Basin management with you. Sharing the challenges is an opportunity for you to bring your input, your views, your knowledge and expertise to help us in our decision-making.
Preparing for a range of plausible climate futures
One of the significant risks that cuts across government policy is climate change. I find this to be true both for water policy and national security – indeed climate change was a key strategic risk in my work with Stephen Smith on the Defence Strategic Review.
Climate change poses a very real and present threat to our Basin. There are significant climate risks. We must face them head on and be prepared, with the capability to act when we need to.
What we know is that while hydroclimate models can describe the range of likely future scenarios, they cannot predict the future. In climate change we have only 2 certainties:
- Further temperature rise due to current global emissions is "baked in". Based on the current global action, we are likely to see a 2 degree warming by 2050.
- The second certainty is the uncertainty we face in terms of how this warming will translate to rainfall, runoff, river flows and the condition of environmental assets.
From what we know now, the impacts of climate change for the northern Basin will likely differ to those of the south.
We expect the southern Basin will have a steady or underlying drying trend and we may already be experiencing this, despite recent flooding. Twelve of our driest years in the southern basin occurred in the 97 years between 1900 and 1997.
The next 12 were experienced in the 22 years between 1998 and 2020. In the north the signals are less clear - the future could be wetter or drier. When we make decisions about the near term, we must have an eye to the longer term – as what we do now affects how we may be able to respond as climate conditions change in the future.
Assessing environmental outcomes of the Basin Plan
In the context of climate change, today we share our insights to how we propose to assess the environmental outcomes the plan can achieve as it stands today.
We are working with states to update river models that will allow us to check both in terms of historical inflows and what the best science tells us about the impact of plausible future climates. These updated models will give us more accurate analysis than ever before – refining the assumptions we necessarily had to make when the Plan was made.
We will bring the best available thinking about future hydroclimates to our decisions. Our challenge will be to strike a balance between the different scientific methods that are available, and what can usefully be modelled and interpreted to inform our decisions.
In the Murray–Darling Basin, the time scale of First Nations people's knowledge covers tens of thousands of years, contrasting Western scientific understandings of the Basin which are much more recent. We seek to respectfully partner with First Nations people and include the knowledge and science they share with us in our decision-making.
The Basin Plan will be stronger if we have a richer understanding of the complex links between climate, flow and environment to help inform decisions going forward.
We have 12 years of experience implementing the Basin Plan, including how we have managed environmental water and monitored the outcomes achieved this far.
The first step is to assess the feasibility of the current settings and determine how confident we are that outcomes are or will be achieved through full implementation. We will be clear and transparent about the evidence we use and our method to make this judgement. Where we are not confident we will seek to understand and explain why.
Assessing SDLs
A central pillar of the Basin Plan are the limits on water that can be taken while leaving enough to achieve the environmental outcomes we seek. These are known as Sustainable Diversion Limits.
Through the Review we must examine these settings, evaluate their effectiveness in delivering the desired environmental outcomes, and in doing so bring the best available science and knowledge to the task. When we release the Review discussion paper we will tell you where we have confidence, and where this is lacking in the ability of SDLs to achieve the Basin Plan environmental outcomes over the next decade.
We will share the evidence and our understanding of what is driving our assessment. And we will test this with you.
The Authority stands ready to bring our expertise and our leadership to help Basin governments and communities to work through what may inevitably be confronting conversations. Some environmental outcomes will be at risk from climate change. How we adapt our management objectives to respond to this is a question we must contemplate.
Responding to the impacts of climate change in a timely manner is essential and knowing what may be around the corner will help us to prepare. We will need to explore all possible options to respond.
We will need to examine how those choices ripple through the values we place on our waterways and impact the outcomes we care about as a community – social, Cultural and economic.
Moving beyond ‘just add water’ – an integrated approach
Our lived experience of more than 20 years of managing rivers for environmental outcomes shows us that achieving outcomes is far more complex than ‘just adding water’. It is not just the quantity of water, but also the quality of that water, the timing for delivery and the holistic consideration of environmental watering, constraints on flows and river operations that drive the achievement of outcomes for water users, communities and the environment.
First Nations people have managed water holistically for over 65,000 years, including during challenging changes to climate. We have much to learn from them, and in doing so, better support their rights, interests and goals.
Through the Review, we will seek to drive a more connected approach to how the Basin Plan works with the day-to-day river operations of states, the way environmental water holders manage their portfolios and the way land managers work to deliver the best possible outcomes for the Basin.
Building on and simplifying the Basin Plan
The Review will culminate in our recommendations for where the Basin Plan, and water management more broadly needs to change to set us up to adapt to the future. We want to simplify the Basin Plan.
What we have in many aspects of the Basin Plan – including water resources plan – is burdensome and prescriptive process. Rigid settings that will not support us to flex and change as a changing climate will demand of us.
We have processes for decision makers to have regard to the views, objectives and outcomes of First Nations people, but this for some First Nations people in the Basin has not been satisfactory, and has not contributed to progressing their rights, interests and community goals. Change is needed.
The Basin Plan must focus on the outcomes we seek to achieve. It should involve the necessary regulation that adds value and is needed to achieve the outcomes we seek – at a catchment level and across our connected Basin.
Our great opportunity
Speaking to you today and sharing our early insights – this is the Authority facilitating a broad and open discussion about future management of the Basin. The approach will be built on constructive relationships that build trust. The Authority and I will be open, transparent, collaborative – with Basin Governments, and with the community.
We will continue to listen. We will share with you and seek your feedback every step of the way.
This Review presents a moment in history for change, and to set Basin management up for the long term. It is an opportunity to transition – from the much-needed Basin Plan as an intervention to over-allocation during the desperate days of the Millenium Drought – to a plan fit for the future. One that supports the outcomes we all value and rely on.
It is also an opportunity to build a better Basin Plan with community. With our First Nations peoples, whose ancestors cared for this great country, its lands, waters, and creatures for thousands of years prior to colonisation.
We will embrace this opportunity to contribute to better outcomes for First Nations communities, and to enhance the way we involve them in water management decisions. This Review is the opportunity to work above the man-made boundaries of local or state jurisdictions.
A focus on Basin outcomes across the system – social, economic, cultural and environmental – will support us to consider new ways of working together. An eye to our purpose – rivers for generations – will help us to identify the choices necessary to achieve this. It asks collaborative leadership from all of us.
The Pathway Ahead
The doors are open, and we will be in community. This Review will be undertaken with you and not to you.
Expert advice is being offered, sought, and integrated at all levels: from Basin Community Committee, our Advisory Committee on Social, Economic and Environmental Sciences and Expert hydroclimate scientists.
We will share what we are learning along the way. And we will seek your input, your advice and counsel. The conversations we will have tomorrow are a great opportunity to hear your views and perspectives, your reactions to our early insights paper.
Let the next couple of years be about collaboration.
About building shared understanding.
Constructive debate.
Respectful challenge.
Let these years be shaped by the energy we bring to the implementation of the Basin Plan, and our conversations about the future needs of the Basin.
These are not consecutive journeys. Instead, we see implementation and the Review tracking side by side. Journeys interwoven to guide the achievement of both the immediate and long-term outcomes for the Basin – sustaining rivers for generations to come.
Thank you very much for listening to me.