Chapter Five: Application of equitable utilization and minimisation principles at the federal level
5.4 The nature of the MDB
The MDB is an enormous basin in Australia's southeast, covering more than one million square kilometres. The basin is part of four states: Queensland, New South Wales,
638 At 2.
639 See Murray-Darling Basin Agreement . available from: https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2005C00722 (3 August 2019).
640 See Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (The Constitution). 1901. available from:
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2013Q00005 (accessed 19 July 2019).
641 Larson and Tarlock, above n 615, at 78.
Victoria, and South Australia, with the whole of the Australian Capital Territory.642 The MDB provides water for agriculture, and more than two million people who live in the basin. The people in the basin depend significantly on the Murry-Darling Rivers to access freshwater.643 Approximately one million more people also rely on the basin’s water resources. Most available water in the basin (as already noted) is used for irrigation and agriculture. As a result, forty per cent of Australian total agricultural production is based in the basin.644 Map 4 illustrates the location of the basin, river and tributaries.
Map 4 the Murray-Darling Basin645
642 Lyster and others, above n 33.
643 S Wheeler and others “Reviewing the adoption and impact of water markets in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia” (2014) 518 Journal of Hydrology at 29.
644 Blomquist and others, above n 45, at 8.
645 Quentin Grafton and others “Confronting a'post-truth water world'in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia”
(2020) at 3.
The basin is considered one of the flattest catchments in the world. It is the greatest basin system in Australia by covering 14% of the total land. The MDB is a considerable resource for groundwater. The basin is also a significant area of cultural diversity because more than forty aboriginal nations live there. In addition, among all 30,000 wetlands, sixteen of them are listed in the Ramsar Convention for their important ecological and biodiversity values.646 These wetlands and the whole basin is home to more than 120 diversified waterbirds. In addition to the basin’s significance, more than 2.5 million Australians consider the MDB as home.647
Moreover, MDB has a significant economic value for Australia in terms of food and agricultural productivity, and tourism. The agricultural industry in the basin accounts for AU$24 billion, with an addition of AU$8 billion from tourism per annum. The basin is also privileged with a large amount of fresh and groundwater. The basin provides clean drinking water to more than three million Australians.648 However, the quality of the groundwater differs from place to place. It is like freshwater in some places, but the water has a higher salinity than seawater in some areas. Over-extraction has changed the overall quality of the water because it declined over the decades. The developments and irrigation projects in the basin have negatively influenced the quality of both surface and groundwater.649
Though it is the largest basin in Australia, the MDB was not dealt with separately from Australian water policy in the last century. From the federation until the 1980s, water management in all of Australia, including the MDB, was restricted to construction and water supply.650 Victoria was the leading state for pushing irrigation and dam projects before and after the federation. Then, other states followed Victoria’s path.651 According to the Australian National Committee on Large Dams (ANCOLD), Lake Parramatta Dam is the first large dam recorded in Australia, which was constructed in
646 Murray–Darling Basin Authority Murray–Darling Basin Authority Annual Report (2018) at p.5.
647 Murray–Darling Basin Authority “Discover the Basin” (2020) <https://www.mdba.gov.au/discover-basin>.
648 At 4.
649 See Malcolm Cooper, Abhik Chakraborty and Shamik Chakraborty Rivers and Society: Landscapes, Governance and Livelihoods (Routledge, 2017).
650 Jane Doolan and others The Australian water reform journey: An overview of three decades of policy, management and institutional transformation (eWater Limited, 2016) at 5.
651 B Walker “Murray–Darling Basin Royal Commission report” (2019) Government of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia at 13.
1857.652 Dartmouth Dam, Hume Dam, Lake Victoria, and Menindee Lakes are major dams and reservoirs in the basin. There are another fourteen weirs and locks, most of which were constructed for navigation and water supply purposes.653 All of these dams and reservoirs have increased water storage dramatically in the basin since the last century. Thus, Australian water storage (as noted above) increased from 240 GL in the early period of the federation to 84,800 GL in 2005.654
One of the main factors for reserving this considerable amount of water was the droughts that Australia and the MDB have experienced since the time of the federation.
Australia has faced three major and long droughts. The three droughts are: the Federation Drought from 1895 to 1902, the Second World War Drought from 1937 to 1945, and the Millennium Drought from 2001 to 2009. These droughts had a major impact on increasing tension among the different governments in Australia.655 However, the last drought is considered the longest which has been recorded in Australia. According to the Basin’s authority, the drought lasted almost thirteen years, from 1997 to 2010.656 This long term drought had a great impact on water quality and quantity in the basin.
Despite the droughts and critical situation of the basin, human intervention is another major factor that has negatively influenced water availability and the quality in the MDB. This includes over-extraction of water, constructing water projects and dewatering downstream parts of the basin. For example, thousands of fish were killed in the lower part of the basin in 2018 and 2019. It was considered a natural disaster because there was not enough oxygen in the water for the fish. However, according to the Australian Academy of Science, water diversion in the Darling River and insufficient water were the main reasons for the disaster.657 This will be discussed further below.
652 Australian National Committee on Large Dams “Register of Large Dams in Australia” (2020) Australian National Committee on Large Dams Sydney <https://www.ancold.org.au/?page_id=24>.
653 Murray–Darling Basin Authority “Joint management of the River Murray” (2020)
<https://www.mdba.gov.au/river-murray-system/river-murray-operations/joint-management-river-murray>.
654 Authority, above n 645, at 11.
655 R Quentin Grafton and Sarah Ann Wheeler “Economics of water recovery in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia” (2018) 10 Annual Review of Resource Economics at 401-420.
656 Murray–Darling Basin Authority “Our history” (2019) <https://www.mdba.gov.au/annual-reports/annual- report-2014-15/about-mdba/our-history>.
657 Australian Academy of Science “Investigation of the causes of mass fish kills in the Menindee Region NSW over the summer of 2018–2019” (2019) at 5-14.
Reducing water quality and quantity during the last long-term drought pushed the Commonwealth and the state governments to take more practical and effective steps to respond to the basin's environmental issues. The enactment of the Water Act 2007 and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's establishment were among these significant steps. Thus, the new century's Australian water policy and onward is described as the water saved phase.658
5.5 Water management in the Murray–Darling Basin: form inter-state toward