Familiar Controversy as Water Planning Commences in Queensland’s Wet Tropics

February 5th, 2010

On 18 January 2010, the Queensland Minister for Natural Resources declared a moratorium on further water licence applications and the construction of works in the Wet Tropics area - signaling the commencement of the water planning process in the region. The moratorium is designed to ensure that a stable baseline is established for the development of the water resource plan for the region, so that current and future water needs and demands can be accurately assessed. The Wet Tropics region as defined by the water resource plan will include the Daintree, Mossman, Russel-Mulgrave, Johnstone, Tully, Murray, and Herbert river basins. According to the Minister, the establishment of the Wet Tropics water moratorium proves the State Government’s commitment to water security for the region:

The moratorium is part of a well-defined and publicly accessible process of water resource planning … This commitment was in line with the 2004 Council of Australian Governments agreement for a National Water Initiative that aimed to ensure the sustainable sharing of water resources by balancing various productive, social and environmental water needs.

In Queensland, this reform is implemented, in part, by developing water resource plans to manage future water allocation while balancing the needs of agriculture, industry and town supplies with environmental, social and indigenous water needs. The Wet Tropics is the most recent area in Queensland to have a water resource plan prepared under the National Water Initiative.

The moratorium effectively ensures water resource planning can proceed from a stable base of entitlements and helps make certain that future water allocation occurs in accordance with the resulting water plan. The moratorium is just the first step in achieving that plan. It is the first step in a transparent planning process that involves full public consultation. It is not a permanent arrangement, it will only stay in place until the water resource plan is finalised, which I anticipate will be in late 2012.

Public notice of the moratorium on water licence applications and the construction of works in the Wet Tropics area is available on the Department’s website, and a moratorium fact sheet has been provided as a guide to assist in understanding the implications for water users and communities in the region.

The planning process for the Wet Tropics region has already attracted controversy, with the Cairns Post reporting more than 100 “frustrated” farmers, drillers and pump company owners attending a “water crisis meeting”. Independent Kennedy MP Bob Katter  told attendees at this meeting that primary producers were being crippled by regulation after regulation placed on “some of the most productive farming land in Australia if not the world”.

They are telling us this water licence ban could be 12-18 months (but) I know of one situation on the Gilbert River where it took six years for a comprehensive report and 16 in all with the changing of governments.

Queensland Farmers Federation spokesman Ian Johnson was reported in ABC Online reminding water users in the region that the planning process is likely to take several years.

Growers have got to think very carefully about the fact that some of these issues won’t be resolved, in other words they won’t get defined entitlements in their hands within a two year period.

Findings from the Review of the Gulf Water Resource Plan

The review of the water resource planning process for the Gulf region of Queensland, conducted by the Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge (TRaCK) collaborative water planning project highlighted similar public concerns in relation to the economic and social impacts of this component of water planning. In the Gulf region, the review demonstrated:

Effective public participation requires significant time and resources, particularly given the vast area of the region and the dispersion of the population… Perhaps the major concern voiced in the interviews, however, was the lengthy nature of the process generally. In particular, the impact of the moratorium was seen by a number of participants as directly limiting investment and development in the region. Councils in the Flinders catchment noted that the potential of an expanded agricultural sector in the region had attracted significant interest in investment from farm machinery and supply, and potential landholders, but that interest had dissipated in the area over the duration of the continued moratorium. Participants also felt that the agency had not been sensitive to the economic impact, regionally and at a landholder scale, of the extended moratorium.

Statements from interviews conducted in the Gulf region demonstrate a similar level of frustration to those currently being voiced in the Wet Tropics region:

People understand why that has to happen, but they get really shirty when the process is dragged out. And this has a real business implication for people. Wherever you go, people recognise that the only way to survive is increase production, so if you’ve got a limited water supply then that has serious implications on your ability to stay competitive.
…
We’ve got communities that were really humming along before the moratorium with development starting and value adding to our cattle industry which is extremely important to us.
…
Everything has stagnated… The existing ones can’t do any expansion, new ones can’t get involved, so everything is just sitting.

The Gulf review also highlighted the need for the impact assessments conducted for water planning to include a prior assessment of the impact of the planning process itself on the region:

Participants routinely criticised the absence of wider impact assessment in the planning process. Although the impacts of water allocation scenarios on flow regimes was assessed as part of the planning process, the impact assessment process failed to extend to assess the impacts of the conduct of the planning process itself. This was recognised the bulk of respondents, particularly the impact of the moratorium on the region in terms of demand for water resource cultivation and industry development.

However, the review also demonstrates that the demand for expediency in the process, as a means to allay concerns over the impact of an extended moratorium, comes at a cost - and this cost tends to be borne out in the quality of the engagement process. As the case study found:

Changes to planning protocols within the Department had previously attempted to fast-track the water planning process, in response to similar feedback in other regions. The move towards expediency is reflected, for example, in the decrease in the frequency of CRP meetings for the Gulf WRP. Some participants were very keenly aware that the move towards expedited outcomes and efficiency of the process was done at the expense of the quality of the engagement process.

As the Queensland Minister for Natural Resources points out, the establishment of a moratorium is ultimately a necessary, if frequently controversial, element of the water planning process:

The preparation of a water resource plan begins with a water moratorium – this is standard practice and is not something unique to the Wet Tropics area. The moratorium is a part of due process and is provided for under the Water Act 2000. To suggest that the Wet Tropics moratorium was anything but an important step in providing water planning security for this important region is wrong

Related Links

• Water Planning in the Gulf of Carpentaria Report (PDF, 1.13 MB)

• Media Release: Water moratorium affirms Government’s commitment to Wet Tropics water security. Queensland Government.
• Wet Tropics Moratorium Fact Sheet. Queensland Government
  
• Map of the Wet Tropics water resource planning and moratorium area. Queensland Government
• “Slow going for irrigators’ water licences”. ABC Online.
• “Katter wants farmers to fight ban”. Cairns Post.
  

Tags: barriers, conflict, economic assessment, irrigation, Queensland, social assessment, water planning

Entry Filed under: News and Events, Phase One