Arguing the Case to Include a Wider Range of Stakeholders in the Murray-Darling Basin Policy Process

Implementation of water reform in the Murray-Darling Basin has stalled. The principles remain in legislation, but government priorities are increasingly focused on irrigation-based agriculture rather than the comprehensive range of stakeholders with a legitimate interest in decisions about the future of the MDB. The negotiations required to gain parliamentary approval of the MDB Basin Plan in 2012 resulted in extensive concessions. Some have seriously damaged its integrity as a reform package. Within this now fragmented policy framework, the utility of important individual components has been eroded. These include acceptance of the need for a comprehensive analytical framework able to take full account of costs and benefits, the precautionary principle, the beneficiary pays principle, consistent policies for assigning public benefit from public investment, the importance of a comprehensive whole-of-catchment framework for managing social and biophysical processes and the understanding that serious water reform requires change in the cultural values related to the water-human relationship. As a result of these compromises, the capacity of the Basin Plan framework to manage future climate change challenges and development pressures is in doubt. Can this trend be reversed? The paper argues for a revitalization of the public policy process to bring in a wider range of stakeholders and expose decision making to more rigorous assessment. To help achieve this goal, control over a substantial proportion of the environmental water entitlements acquired by the national government should be devolved to elected regional bodies (who would have to work within auditing guidelines). This would stimulate community involvement by providing a substantial activity that would make engagement worthwhile.