New Water Policy and Practice Volume 1, Number 2 - Spring 2015 | Page 73

New Water Policy and Practice the economic efficiency of Australia’s water management, while also protecting the water resources and the environment. The initiative builds on the achievements of the 1994 Strategic Framework for the Reform of the Australian Water Industry, the Natural Heritage Trust, and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (Shultz, Parker and Bleaker 2004). The National Water Commission (NWC)14 was then formed to review the progress of the NWI and complete a biennial report on progress. However, prior to 2004 the COAG reforms the only mechanism to manage and implement these reforms was through the National Competition Council (NCC) which audited the performance of the states and their compliance with the NCP reforms6. As part of the water reform process, the eastern states and the Federal Government agreed in 2003 (Shultz, Parker, and Bleaker 2004) to undertake the reforms in the Murray Daring Basin (MDB), the Federal Government agreed to provide (with the states) $500 million to restore environmental flows to the MDB, and proposed to give irrigators greater certainty in their rights to water entitlements and to create a market in which those rights could potentially be traded. Under the initiative, the Commonwealth contributed $200M, NSW and Victoria provided $115M each, with SA and ACT contributing $65M and $5M, respectively (Shultz, Parker, and Bleaker 2004). The initiative included the following statements aimed at providing an approach to improving water resource management and allocation by: • improving the security of water rights—giving them effectively the same legal status as property rights—by creating a nationally compatible system of water entitlements providing perpetual access to a share of water resources available to irrigators (as opposed to a fixed volume); • ensuring water is put to best use by creating, and encouraging trading in, a water market encompassing the entirety of the MDB that allows participants to trade water rights both intrastate and interstate; • restoring over-allocated river systems to environmentally sustainable levels; and • encouraging water conservation in our cities, including better use of storm water and recycled water (Shultz, Parker, and Bleaker 2004). As a follow up to the 2004 initiatives on water resource management, in April 2008, the Commonwealth Government established the Water for the Future program in response to the challenge of securing a sustainable water future for Australia. The program’s key priorities were: 14 The National Water Commission was later slated for decommissioning by the Abbott lead Australian Government under the NWC (Abolition) Bill 2014. 72