Di Bell

Tonight, South Australia passed legislation to hand its powers over the River Murray to the Federal Government. Karlene Maywald, Minister for the River Murray and Minister for Water Security, lauded the move as heralding a new era of management that  “will underpin the future security of water supply to all our communities and improve the environment of the Murray-Darling Basin in the longer term.” However, the new Murray-Darling Authority can only address issues concerning the life of the river and over-allocation if all states refer powers. Further the Intergovernmental agreement (IGA) does cover the entire catchment area of the Murray-Darling Basin: tributaries remain under state jurisdiction. In Di Bell’s opinion, we have an Authority that is yet to be empowered purporting to plan for the entire Murray-Darling system that is not within its jurisdiction. It will be important to keep pressure on the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) which next meets November 17.