Water’s Edge

These last couple of months have seen a significant amount of rain across the Murray-Darling Basin, which has reinvigorated concerns about how the river system is being managed.   The sentiment echoes what the Inspector-General first heard when starting in the role: there was a level of distrust about how to key agencies were performing their duties. The community told the Inspector—General that they didn’t think the Murray Darling Basin Authority was managing the River Murray properly. They also voiced concerns about how the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder was managing environmental flows.   A report titled Steady as it Flows has been released by the Inspector-General which looks at these concerns. While the report was released earlier in the year, we thought it was timely to sit down and take a look at it in more detail, to learn about the role of these agencies and their responsibilities.    View the report at the IGWC’s website: https://www.igwc.gov.au/reviews-reports

In the first episode of season 2, we chat to the Bureau of Meteorology’s Matthew Coulton. Matt is the General Manager of Agriculture and Water at the Bureau and his job is to provide advice to agrictulrual and water agencies and businesses, and develop new products and services to increase the value and impact the Bureau provides to Australia’s agriculture sectors. In this episode, Matt explains the role of the Bureau and its responsibilities under the Water Act as Australia’s water information agency. Visit www.mdbwip.bom.gov.au for more information about the Water Information Portal.

Join the Inspector-General of Water Compliance’s Audit and Investigations team, as they take a look at the latest audit – based on trade in the Border Rivers Region. The Border Rivers Region covers a section of Northern NSW and Southern QLD, and there are separate trading rules across the two jurisdictions. This audit by the Inspector-General identified issues such as water being traded from one state, but not appearing in an account in the other state, incorrect volumes being recorded, and manual adjustments being made by authorities without documented explanations. To view the audit report in full, or a brief Snapshot overview, visit www.igwc.gov.au/reviews-reports Host Annabelle Hudson is joined by the Inspector-General Troy Grant, Deputy Inspector-General Daniel Blacker, Director of Audit and Investigation Matt Wilkes, and Assistant Director of Audit and Investigation Elliot Raboy.

Troy Grant and Annabelle are joined by former Auditor General of Victoria and Western Australia, Des Pearson, who conducted a review into compliance and enforcement across the Murray Darling Basin. Des and Troy are honest and forthcoming with their views about the report, and provide an insight into how water can be better managed across the Basin; with a more consistent approach to water terminologies and water accounting.  Des says in all his years of being an auditor and working in the public sector, the water space is unique in that there are so many inconsistencies with terminologies. Listen to how he thinks better collaboration between the Basin states could help resolve these issues.  Guests: Troy Grant, Des Pearson Host: Annabelle Hudson Produced by: Inspector-General of Water Compliance (IGWC) Episode music by: NaturesEye from Pixabay

In this episode, join the Inspector-General of Water Compliance Troy Grant and Director of Compliance Monitoring Edwina Carter as we dive into the Annual Statement of Compliance for Sustainable Diversion Limits (SDLs). NSW is behind with submitting its Water Resource Plans, so Troy explains why he's worried about the late submissions, and what it means for the communities in the Murray Darling Basin. To read more about the Statement of Compliance, visit www.igwc.gov.au. Intro music by Leigh Robinson from Pixabay. Functions of the Inspector General IGWC function  The new statutory role of the Inspector-General of Water Compliance (Inspector-General) brings together the Commonwealth’s responsibilities into a single statutory office. The Inspector-General will also have the compliance and enforcement functions currently held by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. The new Inspector-General of Water Compliance will have regulatory powers under Commonwealth law. The Inspector-General will be able to work across the whole Basin to strengthen compliance, increase transparency and improve trust. The Inspector-General will provide independent oversight and monitoring of Commonwealth and Basin state compliance. A key priority for the Inspector-General will be to encourage greater consistency in the guidelines and standards across the Basin—so all water users are held to the same high bar. To do this, the Inspector-General will have new powers to make guidelines and standards, which will help build greater consistency across the Basin. The Inspector-General’s main areas of compliance responsibility are: monitoring and auditing of water resource plan compliance investigating and enforcing non-compliance with sustainable diversion limits and assurance of Basin state compliance and enforcement frameworks, through audits and investigations supporting the development and implementation of standards and methods to improve the accuracy of water measurement to increase the transparency of water take across the Basin enforcing compliance with the Basin Plan water trading rules monitoring and reporting on the requirements of the Basin Plan and water resource plans related to the protection of planned environmental water The MDBA will retain its roles in: assessing water resource plans SDL accounting and reporting and the development of remote sensing and emerging technologies and the evaluation of Basin Plan outcomes

In this first episode of ”Water’s Edge”, we meet Troy Grant. We learn about how Troy came to the role, and what his vision and purpose is for the IGWC.  The IGWC aims to: improve trust and transparency in implementing the Commonwealth’s Basin water reform agenda deliver greater consistency and harmonisation of water regulation across the Basin strengthen Basin Plan compliance and enforcement. Visit www.igwc.gov.au