<- Back

 A Dry Argument for an Independent Murray Darling Basin Authority

by n/a n/a | 14-Dec-2009 | Comments (0) Tags: Agriculture, Drought, Environmental Economic Impact, Murray Darling Basin, Sustainbility, Water  12 ratings. Please log in to rate and comment

The Murray Darling Basin, the lifeblood of the Eastern states, has been drying up for the past two decades now. Despite numerous and vocal expressions of concern from community level groups through to the State and Federal Governments, little has changed nor looks to in the immediate future. So perhaps it is time to reassess the situation and remove those who have consistently shown that they are incapable of fixing the problem and appoint an authority with comprehensive powers, a clear mandate to fix the problem and, most importantly, independence from the entrenched interest groups which have so far stymied progress.

With every passing the year, as the Basin edges ever closer to terminal decline and more local areas are damaged beyond repair, the approaches that have failed time and time again, are once again rolled out as and ultimately come to nothing. Those responsible fail to take into account either the recommend solutions to the ecological problems facing the Basin and blatantly ignore the political problem and their own implicit involvement within it.

The ecological problems facing the basin are many, but they all come back to the main one which is that too much water is drawn from the basin to be sustainable, especially with low rainfall is making this problem more apparent and all the more urgent to fix. Already we are seeing multiple problems emerge across the Basin from rising salinity, which is currently costing water users along the Murray River tens of millions of dollars annually, to the mass die offs of river red gums and the consequent losses of natural habitat, to the acidification of the mouth of the Murray River and the immediate problem this is posing to Adelaide’s water supply.

What is most worrying though is that these issues are just the tip of the iceberg and that more problems of even greater magnitude will emerge unless we make a concerted effort to combat this over exploitation of water.

While it is good to understand the ecological problems of the Basin, it would be foolish to focus exclusively on them as the true problem facing the system is the political one, namely the intransigence and incompetence of the various interested parties, whether they be government, agricultural associations or industrial lobby groups, to come up with a viable solution that satisfies the future needs of all users.

The approaches these groups, have attempted over the years, whether alone or in uneasy cooperation, have always been doomed to failure because, in spite of many genuine and well meaning efforts, there has never been an authority which has been given full effective control and responsibility of the system

The various interest groups, including state governments, farmers groups, industrial water users and environmental groups, have all had their own concept of what a successful resolution of the problems facing the system would look like. Unsurprisingly it has normally been one which is targeted towards the short term benefits of their own interests to the exclusion of all other users and their own long term viability.

As such, success in combating the structural problems has remained elusive. What has been needed is an authority which can oversee coordination between all parties and has the power to overrule and align, where necessary, the varying agendas and timelines which have hitherto prevented effective coordinated action.

If things continue as they have been towards failure, the long term impact will be huge and come at a massive cost to the nation, both financially, given that 40% of the nation’s agriculture income currently comes from the Basin, and ecologically as entire ecosystems collapse across an area which compromises more than one seventh of the nation’s landmass. Yield reductions in the Basin will cause job losses and undermine Australia’s food independence. The tourism industry will suffer yet another hit as the water disappears with more regions following the fate of Lake Eildon. In total, if we fail to act now to make the Murray Darling Basin sustainable, we will experience ecological disaster and be presented with a huge burden on national accounts in the future.

In spite of this grave outlook, political squabbling will almost certainly continue, even in the face of the irreversible and undeniable economic and ecological losses to the area. Previous groups comprised of the government and the private sector which were formed to solve this issue have not succeeded because of the strong incentives for things to continue as usual. Governments have been too beholden to interest group pressure and political donations to introduce strong policy and the private sector has been too dependent on their own short term profitability to make the necessary changes which will allow for long term prosperity.

In short, the multiparty approach to the conservation of the Murray Darling Basin has failed and must be replaced.

The solution to this problem is to create a centralised authority that is independent from the government, like the Reserve Bank, and is to be given sole control and responsibility over the entire Murray Darling Basin. It will manage the water trading market across the states and have final say on all major water use issues. Most importantly however it must be created with a central purpose to ensure that this key resource achieves and remains sustainable for all interested bodies, today and into the future. It will require some hard trade offs for most parties in order to make the system sustainable and economically viable once more, and this is why an authority, independent from the usual pressures, will be necessary in order to prevail.

Things to Do

 More Entries

 17 ratings.

 8 ratings.

 16 ratings.