The water doesn't respect boundaries
as it goes from one State to another,
so we need to run the Murray-Darling Basin as a Basin-wide system.
And what that means is you look across the needs of the whole Basin
and you say, 'How much water do we need to reserve for environmental purposes
to be able to keep the system healthy Basin-wide?'
And only a national plan can do that.
NARRATOR: The aim is to restore our rivers to health
and ensure strong regional communities and sustainable food production
by striking the right balance between water for the environment
and water for people.
TOM HATTON: From an ecological point of view,
a healthy Basin is one where the floodplains get watered
every few years, at least,
where the natural cycling of nutrients and salt is in a good balance,
where feral animals and weeds don't greatly distort
the ecological balance in the river system itself.
From a social point of view,
those values are very important, culturally, aesthetically, spiritually.
So is making money.
And getting that balance is also important.
NARRATOR: The plan balances water for the environment
and for people to drink and to use for agriculture and for other purposes.
The equivalent of 2,750 gigalitres per annum of surface water
will be returned to the environment by 2019.
The Plan also means that within the next 12 months,
a constraints management strategy will be put in place.
Removing the capacity constraints then allows us
to use the extra 450 gig for large environmental events,
which means we can reach some higher wetlands,
which means we can get some better inundations
into those environmental sites.
CRAIG KNOWLES: We know that there are opportunities
to look at some of the constraints
in the system as they're called,
assume they can be fixed,
removed, altered to use less water for example,
to achieve the same environmental outcomes.
And so, you can do that by investing in engineering solutions,
which you see up and down the Basin.
TONY BURKE: The Authority have delivered a plan
which has the figure 2,750 as the number in the plan.
That is the number for environmentally held water
once they've done the calculations, under current constraints
of what they believe should be
the environmentally sustainable level of take.
Now, I've always said that I thought the environmental outcomes of 2,750
fell short of what this reform should be able to achieve,
and there's a mechanism that allows me to improve on that,
but I'll get to that in a moment.
In fairness to the Authority,
there is a reason why 2,750 is the number they have recommended,
and that is that once you go beyond 2,750
with the constraints that are currently in the system,
for extra gigalitres of water, you don't get a significant
environmental improvement.
Those constraints are things like river rules
that prevent you from releasing dam water beyond certain levels,
channels where if you try to put more water
than the capacity of a channel allows,
instead of the water going down the system, it just goes out.
These capacity constraints create a challenge
in using higher volumes of water,
and therefore the Authority,
having to look at the system as it currently stands,
quite rightly said, 'Within those current constraints,
2,750 is the number that we arrive at,
and that has a series of social, economic
and environmental consequences.'
If we work on the basis that you take, for example,
there are 18 different targets of river flow within the Murray -
the flow targets.
Current status quo, before we had any environmental water,
none of the 18 were being met.
At 2,750, 11 of the 18 get met.
But if we are able to release those capacity constraints that I described,
and put the extra volume in that I'll refer to in a moment,
we go to 17 out of 18 of those flow level targets being reached.
So, the mechanism that's in the plan says this -
at 2,750, there are environmental, social and economic consequences.
If governments can interact with the plan and improve any of those
without sacrificing the other outcomes, then they're allowed to do that.
That means there will be State governments
that look at the 2,750 figure
and the mechanism within it and say,
'How can we achieve the environmental outcomes
without requiring so much buy-back?'
NARRATOR: Some bridge heights may need to be raised,
outlets from water storages enlarged,
and flood easements purchased from landowners.
CRAIG KNOWLES: What's left to be done will be done by sensibly using water,
investing in infrastructure,
looking at the opportunity to strive for efficiencies,
making sure environmental water is used as effectively as it can be.
TOM HATTON: It is so important now that we have a chance
to restore some of the flows in the river,
that we drought-proof that river a little bit more
than we have in the last decades, that we restore some flow,
particularly to get ready for those years
when the droughts will come back.
NARRATOR: An adjustment mechanism built into the Plan
will enable the sustainable diversion limit
to be changed in ways that provide benefits
to the environment and communities.
The Plan allows the States to come up with projects
to achieve the desired environmental benefits
but use up to 650 gigalitres less water.
My view is if a farmer's smart enough
to be able to manage the resources up and down over time
depending on what's happening,
we should be able to as communities and governments as well,
and that's what our plan reflects.
NARRATOR: Between now and 2016,
projects that deliver equivalent environmental outcomes with less water
can be identified and fully considered.
In 2016, a final decision will be made about any change to the SDL
that will be allowed as the result of these projects.
By 2019, the 2,750-gigalitre benchmark should have been achieved.
By 2024, the additional 450GL will have been recovered
and all the new environmental benefits from the additional water
will have been met without any disadvantage to irrigation communities.
TONY BURKE: We talk about infrastructure upgrades
and all the different language we use,
but effectively what we're saying is, the Government helps pay
for better equipment than what people currently have.
TOM HATTON: With the Basin Plan building on recent changes in entitlements,
putting more water in the river,
we are going to be in much better shape for the next drought.
This is one of those once-in-a-generation opportunities
that you have where the moment is there that you either say,
'We're going to run this as a Basin-wide system'
or, 'We're going to play the game of throwing it into the too-hard basket
just like generations have before us.'
I'm really proud that this is the time
that Australians, people living in the Basin and across the Parliament,
seem to be willing to grab the moment that's in front of us
and say, 'No, we'll be different to the previous generations.
We will get a plan in place to run the Murray-Darling Basin
as an integrated Basin-wide system.'