Compliance priorities

Under the Water Act, the MDBA is the enforcement agency for the rules and obligations contained in WRPs. Compliance with WRPs is critical to ensuring that key Basin Plan outcomes are achieved – including ensuring a sustainable level of water take. The MDBA needs to build confidence in the community that the Basin Plan and WRPs are being complied with, which includes managing the regulatory and reporting requirements on Basin states. 

• Commence its WRP Compliance Program to ensure WRPs are complied with. This includes a rolling program of WRP compliance audits and setting annual WRP compliance reporting for the Basin states.

All Basin states committed to actions under the Murray–Darling Basin Compliance Compact (2018) around improving water metering to increase the coverage and accuracy of water take data, and to increase confidence in the regulation of metering non-compliance. This included reviewing their metering policies, particularly around large meters. Where Basin states have revised their metering policies, assurance on how the new policies are being implemented is needed to ensure the Basin Compliance Compact outcomes are achieved.

Effective compliance and enforcement frameworks for overland and floodplain harvesting in the northern Basin is core to community confidence in the water management arrangements.

Groundwater compliance has also been identified as an emerging issue. The MDBA’s meter audits indicate that compliance and enforcement frameworks for groundwater take may be weaker compared to surface water take. Additionally, in some areas, cumulative actual take from groundwater is close to the area’s SDL. Effective water take monitoring and compliance is required to manage this critical resource.

• Assurance review of the implementation of revised Basin state metering policies, with a focus on compliance of large meters in the northern Basin.
• Audit and assurance activities into meter coverage and accuracy.
• Targeted compliance reporting on compliance and enforcement efforts around floodplain harvesting take.
• Targeted review of groundwater compliance arrangements.

There has been some community concern during the recent Northern Basin flow events in January and February 2020 that critical first flush and overland flows were not being sufficiently protected to allow the water to reach downstream communities in the Barwon-Darling.

NSW has since committed to a public review of its arrangements to implement water embargos during this period. Queensland has also indicated it will be undertaking a review of its management of the event. The MDBA has a role in taking a Basin scale perspective.

In the southern Basin, prerequisite policy measures (PPMs) are state based legislative and operational rule changes directed at improving the use, management and accounting of environmental water.

• Audits and compliance reporting on first flush flow protections and protection rules in the northern Basin.
• Support for Basin state compliance agencies to use remote imagery to complement their water compliance monitoring and enforcement activities.
• Reporting and audits of the implementation of PPMs.

In 2020-21, the MDBA will release the first report on SDL accounting and commence SDL compliance after a long transition period from the making of the Basin Plan.

Ensuring compliance with the SDLs is critical for a healthy working Basin. 

• Commence a six-year program to ensure that the MDBA is continuously improving how annual water accounts are compiled. This will incorporate methods for addressing growth in use, interstate trade accounting arrangements and updated climate change research.

Water trading in the Basin is responsible for an estimated 95% (by volume) of Australia’s water market activity, with annual transactions in Basin water markets totalling over $1.5 billion. A fair, open and effective water market, informed by accurate information is crucial for water users, particularly in periods of water scarcity, as it provides a mechanism to manage variable seasonal conditions and allows water to move to its most productive use.

Basin state governments and Irrigation Infrastructure Operators (IIOs) are responsible for setting trading rules for their water resources and day to day trade operations. To ensure that they do not unfairly or unnecessarily restrict trade, Basin state and IIO trading rules must be consistent with the Basin Plan.

• Increase resourcing and expand its water trade program.
• Dedicate resources to ensuring compliance with the Basin Plan by IIOs, and compliance with market integrity rules such as insider trading.
• Review the Priorities by the end of 2020 to include our response to the findings of the ACCC inquiry into water markets in the Murray–Darling Basin.