 The AuthorityOn 28 January 2011, the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, the Hon Tony Burke MP, appointed Mr Craig Knowles as the Chair of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA). Members of the Authority are:
and four part-time members: A key role for the Authority is to prepare a Basin Plan that will, for the first time, set a long-term sustainable limit on the use of both surface and groundwater in the Murray-Darling Basin. In developing the Basin Plan, the Authority members will consult widely with Basin state and territory governments and key stakeholders, including rural communities. The Authority members will draw on a breadth of expertise and experience in water, the environment, natural resource management and agriculture. The Authority has met each month since their appointment in regional locations throughout the Basin, including a joint meeting with the Basin Community Committee. View the Authority Media Releases. Mr Knowles’ achievements include State Minister for Planning and Housing (1995-99), Health (1999-2003), Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources (2003-August 2005) and Forests and Lands (2003-January 2005). He was responsible for a range of government agencies including: Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources, Lands Department, Sydney Water, Hunter Water, Landcom, State Forests, and was a member of the Murray Darling Basin Ministerial Council. Prior to entering Parliament, Mr Knowles had worked in property, land management, planning and valuation, in both the private sector (1978-1986) and for NSW public sector agencies, including Macarthur Development Corporation, Premier's Department, Office of State Development and Department of Business and Consumer Affairs (1986-1990). Mr Knowles is widely credited, along with then Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, as a key driver of the National Water Initiative in 2003 and 2004. The overall objective of the National Water Initiative is to achieve a nationally compatible market, regulatory and planning based system of managing surface and groundwater resources for rural and urban use that optimises economic, social and environmental outcomes. Dr Rhondda Dickson (Chief Executive MDBA) Dr Rhondda Dickson was appointed Acting Chief Executive and Authority member from 2 June 2010 until assuming the roles on an ongoing basis on 1 October 2011. Dr Rhondda Dickson is an experienced leader in natural resource management policy and has over twenty years experience working with states and territories in the development and implementation of national polices. Dr Dickson has been closely involved in the development of the National Action Plan for Water Quality and Salinity, national forest policy and national approaches to vegetation management. In her most recent position as Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Dr Dickson had responsibility for primary industries policies within the agriculture portfolio including agribusiness, rural research and development policy, drought policy, fisheries and forestry. As a senior executive with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Dr Dickson was involved in policy coordination and decisions on water (including the Murray–Darling Basin), primary industries, the environment, climate change and energy, industry, infrastructure and science. Dr Dickson has also worked across the full scope of practical natural resource management within the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, the Department of Environment, the Department of Primary Industries and the CSIRO.
Ms Di Davidson is an agricultural scientist and horticulturalist who has worked extensively throughout the Basin for 35 years, with a wide range of crops, including vegetables, citrus, stonefruit, table and wine grapes, grains and pastures. Her clients have included private farming businesses, corporate agribusinesses, wine companies and state government agencies. She is particularly well known for her training, consulting and management work in the Australian wine industry. Ms Davidson is a fourth generation farmer in the Lower Lakes region of the Basin, and manages her own mixed agricultural business there, as well as carrying out consulting work throughout Australia and internationally. Ms Davidson has wide experience and a strong management background in natural resources, particularly water and irrigated agriculture. She has also worked closely with rural communities and organisations throughout her career, most recently in steering the Lower Lakes community through the process of obtaining pipelines for drinking and irrigation water during the recent drought. Ms Davidson is a member of the Council of the University of Adelaide, a former member of the South Australian Premier’s Climate Change Council, and previously served on the South Australian Murray–Darling Basin Natural Resource Management Board. She has broad Board experience across a range of sectors. Ms Diana Gibbs (appointed on 03 November 2011) Ms Diana Gibbs is a resource economist, with post-graduate qualifications in environmental studies, and has been involved in resource development planning in Australia and also in Africa, the Middle East, and South-East Asia. She is Principal of Diana Gibbs and Partners, a strategic planning and analysis consulting group established in 1991, and has worked extensively throughout the Basin, particularly in NSW. This work has provided her with a good understanding of issues facing socio-economic development in the Riverina (in particular) and other communities within the Basin. She is also a partner in a sheep/wheat farming operation at Junee Reefs, and so is a resident of the Basin. Ms Gibbs won the RIRDC Rural Womens Award for NSW in 2000, and is a graduate of the Australian Rural Leadership Program. She was Chair of the NSW Regional Communities Consultative Council from 2000 to 2007, and a Director of the Forest and Wood Products R&D Corporation from 2000 to 2006. She represented regional interests on an Australian Government Inquiry into the impact of the Trade Practices Act on the recruitment and retention of medical practitioners in rural and regional Australia, and also on the Allan Inquiry into the financial viability of Local Government in NSW. She was the Independent Member of the Governance Committee of the NSW Water Loss Management Program from 2006 to 2011, and currently sits on the NSW Climate Change Council. She is also Executive Director of Riverina Wool Growers Pty Ltd., a grower-owned company producing wool fashion accessories. Ms Gibbs brings to the Authority particular experience in regional strategic planning, having worked with the communities of Dubbo (and later the Orana region), Leeton (and also the Riverina region), and Sunraysia, to prepare economic development strategies. She has also worked with the communities of the upper Murrumbidgee and Murray (Tumut, Cooma, and Tumbarumba) to find solutions to particular socio-economic challenges, and has represented the red gum and cypress industries of the Basin in resource allocation debates. Mr David Green is an economist, investment banker and commercial/financial advisor who has advised governments and the private sector extensively throughout Australia and internationally on water reform and markets, and has been involved in water policy and water reform since the mid-1990s. David was an inaugural Queensland Water Commissioner, Director of the South East Queensland Water Grid Manager, National Leader of the Water Practice for one of the world’s largest consulting firms and foundation member of an international investment bank’s global water fund planning, economics, water trading matters, water pricing, market design and governance. Mr Green is currently a director of a boutique investment bank/private equity firm and chair of a mineral exploration company. Mr Green has been heavily involved in energy sector reform and a number of other market-based reforms in infrastructure intensive industries such as telecommunications, aviation, ports, rail and power. In relation to the water sector he has extensive experience in designing and implementing urban and rural water markets, water resource management and planning, water and resource economics, water trading and trading rules, water pricing, water industry structure and governance, water regulatory frameworks, economic incentive structures, corporate structures, financial transitions and complex financial structuring/capital management. In relation to his broader experience, Mr Green has had extensive corporate finance experience having undertaken a number of multibillion dollar acquisitions, corporate restructures, debt restructures, capital raisings and restructures. He has advised governments and the boards of major Australian and international corporations. Professor Barry Hart is currently director of an environmental consulting company (Water Science Pty Ltd). He is an emeritus professor at Monash University and has previously held the positions of Director of the Water Studies Centre at Monash University and Director of Research at the Cooperative Research Centre for Freshwater Ecology. Professor Hart has established an international reputation in the fields of ecological risk assessment, environmental flow decision-making (particularly using Bayesian Network models), water quality and catchment management and environmental chemistry. He is well known for his sustained efforts in developing knowledge-based decision making processes in natural resource management in Australia and south-east Asia (particularly with the Mekong River Commission). Currently, he is involved in projects in China and PNG. In addition to his role with the Authority, Professor Hart chairs a number of government scientific and strategic advisory committees, and chairs to Board of Greening Australia (Victoria). |
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