National Water Commission The National Water Planning Report Card 2013 © Commonwealth of Australia 2014 This publication is available for your use under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence, with the exception of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms, the National Water Commission logo and where otherwise stated. The full licence terms are available from http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/au/ Use of National Water Commission material under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence requires you to attribute the work in all cases when reproducing or quoting any part of a Commission publication or other product (but not in any way that suggests that the Commonwealth or the National Water Commission endorses you or your use of the work). Please see the National Water Commission website copyright statement http://www.nwc.gov.au/copyright for further details. Other uses Enquiries regarding this licence and any other use of this document are welcome at: Communication Director National Water Commission 95 Northbourne Avenue Canberra ACT 2600 Email: [email protected] National Water Planning Report Card 2013 September 2014 ISBN: 978-1-922136-36-7 Designed by giraffe.com.au An appropriate citation for this publication is: National Water Commission 2014, National Water Planning Report Card 2013, NWC, Canberra National Water Commission | Water Planning Report Card 2013 | i 95 Northbourne Avenue Canberra ACT 2600 T 02 6102 6000 nwc.gov.au Chair Senator the Hon Simon Birmingham Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment Parliament House CANBERRA ACT 2600 Dear Senator Birmingham I am pleased to present to you the National Water Commission’s National Water Planning Report Card 2013. The 2013 report card is the second in the series initiated by the Council of Australian Government’s Water Reform Committee in 2010. This second iteration of the report card presents a consolidated summary of the status of water planning as at 31 December 2013 with information on 174 planning areas across Australia. The Commission’s 2013 assessment shows that the development of newer water plans has benefited from lessons learned in previous planning cycles. New policy and legislation to improve the management of water interception have been introduced since the Commission’s first assessment in 2011. Plans for water resources with higher levels of use are generally informed by scientific and socio-economic studies. Several jurisdictions have made progress towards legislative reform to streamline planning processes, although there remains unfinished business in this area. Water planning coverage has continued to improve, with most jurisdictions now having more than 80 per cent of water use managed under water plans. However in some areas substantial water extraction still occurs outside the water planning process, thereby reducing the transparency of water allocation decisions. One obvious example is the risk to groundwater resources from rights to water for extractive industries. The Commission’s assessment has highlighted the weaknesses of existing monitoring and evaluation arrangements across jurisdictions. For the most part, water plans rely on generic state-wide monitoring of implementation, which takes inadequate account of the higher-level outcomes sought for specific water resources. As a result, attempts to evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of water plans have had limited success and the opportunities for on-going improvements remain substantially under-realised. This will be the last water planning report card produced by the Commission. I would like to acknowledge the cooperation of all states and territories in the preparation of both the 2011 and 2013 assessments. The Commission recognises that jurisdictional input has been vital to inform these reports. The National Water Commission urges continued commitment to implement robust and transparent water planning arrangements, as was agreed under the National Water Initiative. This is critical to provide certainty for all water users and build community confidence in water planning decisions. Such a commitment is all the more important in areas that are emerging as priorities for economic development, such as Northern Australia. Yours sincerely The Hon Karlene Maywald 30 June 2014 National Water Commission | Water Planning Report Card 2013 | ii Contents 1. Executive Summary ������������������������������������������������������������ 1 2. Introduction ������������������������������������������������������������������� 3 3. New South Wales �������������������������������������������������������������� 6 4. Victoria ���������������������������������������������������������������������206 5. Queensland �����������������������������������������������������������������265 6. South Australia ��������������������������������������������������������������337 7. Western Australia ������������������������������������������������������������395 8. Tasmania �������������������������������������������������������������������458 9. Australian Capital Territory �����������������������������������������������������498 10. Northern Territory ������������������������������������������������������������509 11. Appendix 1 – Summary of criterion scores ����������������������������������������531 11. Appendix 2 – National water planning report card framework ������������������������537 National Water Commission | Water Planning Report Card 2013 | iii 1 Executive summary This National Water Planning Report Card 2013 follows the first baseline assessment undertaken in 2011. It provides a consolidated summary of the progress of water planning across Australia against an evaluation framework based on key elements of the National Water Initiative (NWI) and its associated Water Planning Guidelines. Under Australia’s constitutional arrangements, state and territory governments are largely responsible for water resource management and they develop water plans at varying scales. Water plans may combine multiple catchments or they may deal with a single surface or groundwater resource, depending on specific circumstances. Water plans seek to manage water resources sustainably, under changing pressures, to maintain the future viability of the resources and all consumptive and non-consumptive uses that depend on them. This report does not compare state and territory water planning frameworks against each other nor does it advocate a particular water planning model. Rather, it seeks to facilitate a national discussion on the quality of water plans and planning frameworks, as well as identify areas of better practice and those for improvement. It should be noted that the report card is a desktop assessment. It focuses on the policy and legislative processes for water planning and does not examine on-ground implementation arrangements in detail. National trends Since 2011 progress towards better water planning arrangements has been steady in all jurisdictions. This trend towards improved, NWI-consistent water planning has some significant exceptions – posing a risk to the ongoing achievement of economic, social and environmental outcomes. The findings summarised below and in Appendix One outline trends in water planning across Australia identified during this second report card assessment. The summary findings do not necessarily relate to all jurisdictions or all water plan areas but rather show the direction of water planning nationally. Notable exceptions to these trends are identified within the jurisdictional summaries and individual water plan assessments in the following chapters. Increase in water planning coverage Water planning coverage has improved significantly since 2011 – most jurisdictions now have more than 80 per cent of water use managed under water plans. In general, the development of newer water plans has benefited from lessons learned in previous planning cycles. In water resources subject to higher levels of competition, decisions are usually informed by detailed scientific and socio-economic studies that consider stakeholders’ concerns from an early stage and reflect trade-offs between economic, social and environmental outcomes. Several jurisdictions have also made progress towards legislative reform with the aim of streamlining water planning processes and reducing regulation. In some jurisdictions there are still significant delays in initiating or finalising planning arrangements and in undertaking scheduled reviews. More broadly, there is a lack of transparency about the process for prioritising water plan development where plans do not currently exist. All jurisdictions maintain that decision-making is underpinned by appropriate risk and prioritisation considerations, but these processes are rarely explicit or systematic. Implementation of robust and transparent water planning arrangements in areas that are emerging as critical for economic development, such as Northern Australia, will be required to ensure that resources are managed effectively. National Water Commission | Water Planning Report Card 2013 | Executive summary 1 Improvements in management of interception although exceptions remain In the 2011 baseline report card assessment, the management of interception activities was criticised as being inconsistent. Since that time several jurisdictions have introduced new policy and have reformed legislation to improve the monitoring and management of some intercepting activities. For the most part, jurisdictions have adopted broad coverage