How the Basin Plan will affect us all

Governance arrangements

The Water Act 2007 has created new governance arrangements for the waters of the Murray–Darling Basin. The Commonwealth Minister, on the advice of the Murray–Darling Basin Authority (MDBA), is now responsible for setting the framework for Basin-wide planning and management of water resources across the Basin, through the Basin Plan.
MDBA must provide a proposed Basin Plan to the Commonwealth Minister, who is responsible for approving the plan and tabling it in the Australian Parliament. The Murray–Darling Basin Ministerial Council and Basin Officials Committee will provide advice to MDBA and the Commonwealth Minister about the Basin Plan (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Responsible for preparing and approving the Basin Plan

Relationship of state-based water resource plans to the Basin Plan

The Basin states will play a major role in putting the Basin Plan into operation by developing and implementing water resource plans that are consistent with the Basin Plan (see Figure 4). The Murray–Darling Basin Authority will also work together with the states in developing the Basin Plan.

Figure 4: General relationship of the water resource plans to the Basin Plan

As current state water resource plans expire and new ones are developed by the states, these will need to be accredited by the Commonwealth Minister under the Water Act. The Basin Plan will set out the requirements with which state water resource plans will need to comply in order to be accredited. MDBA will advise the Commonwealth Minister on whether individual water resource plans comply with the requirements of the Basin Plan.

Sharing reductions in water

Governments have agreed that the risk of any future reductions in the availability of water will be shared according to a framework set out in the National Water Initiative (2004), as amended by the Intergovernmental Agreement on Murray–Darling Basin Reform (2008).
Broadly, these agreements mean that the risk of any reduction in size or reliability of a water allocation will be borne as follows:

• by water entitlement holders, if the reduction is the result of seasonal or long-term changes in climate, or of periodic natural events such as bushfires and drought
• by a government, if the reduction is the result of changes in that government’s policy
• by water entitlement holders and governments (according to a specific formula), if the reduction results from improvements in knowledge about the environmentally sustainable level of take of water.