The Bureau of Meteorology has also just released a Special Climate Statement on the exceptional heavy rainfall across southeast Australia

Feel free to use these quotes in your stories.   If you would like to speak to an expert, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 7120 8666 or by email.

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Dr Andrew Watkins is Manager of Climate Prediction at the National Climate Centre,  Bureau of Meteorology

“Explaining the high levels of rainfall over South Eastern Australian is not as simple as putting it down to just the effects of a La Nina system. La Nina has been backing off quite rapidly over the last few weeks with the Southern Oscillation Index (one of the indicators the development and intensity of El Niño or La Niña events in the Pacific Ocean) dipping back into neutral territory. However we still have some warm ocean temperatures around Australia which are clearly playing a role in what we are seeing at the moment. Temperatures in the Coral Sea are around half a degree warmer than average and the southern half of Western Australia is also experiencing near record warm sea surface temperatures. The high pressure systems we have seen of late have also tended to be further south than usual which can lead to more rainfall across the south east. The recent trough that extended down from the tropics was influenced by one of these highs, and lingered longer than normal across inland areas. The chaotic nature of weather also means that sheer randomness will always plays a part in how much rain will fall during any event.”

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Dr Rob Roggema is Senior Research Fellow at Sustainable Urban and Regional Futures (SURF), Global Cities Research Institute, RMIT University. He was the inaugural international visiting fellow at the Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research Centre (2010-2011)

“We cannot control the amount of rainfall. However, in dealing with the rainfall, and preventing it turning into floods, we could and should do much more. Our cities, villages and landscapes are designed in ways that create and exaggerate floods. By trying to discharge rainwater as quickly as possible we create flash flooding and inundations in areas where we don’t want it to happen.

We should change our urban and landscape design to create spaces where large amounts of water can be temporarily stored. After the rain has gone the water can then be released at a slow pace. These areas can be designed as nature reserves, ‘green’ rivers or public spaces, which are filled up in times of heavy rain and can be emptied after the peak flood risk has passed. This way landscapes can function as a sponge and no longer as a drain. The idea to remove vegetation from riverbeds is contradictory with increasing flood resiliency.”

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The draft plan is available online on the Murray-Darling Basin Authority website. The plan is now open for 20 weeks of consultation.

Feel free to use these quotes in your stories.  If you would like to speak to an expert, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 7120 8666 or by email.

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New comment:

Dr Caroline Sullivan is Associate Professor of Environmental Economics and Policy at Southern Cross University, NSW. She has worked extensively on international river basins, and is co-author of a recent book on Adaptive Water Management.

“The Proposed Basin Plan for managing the Murray Darling released yesterday represents a significant step forward towards managing Australia’s greatest river. It is fair to say that there is virtually no agreement on what the right level of water restrictions may be, and certainly much disagreement about upstream-downstream allocations, but it seems to be that now at least, there is some agreement about the need for a solid plan for how the water of the MDB should be managed.

Assessing water resources is a complex task. How should return flows from irrigation be counted, what if these are polluted, how should this be counted? How much water is actually used to grow certain crops, and how can greater efficiency be achieved? What will be the knock-on effect on groundwater recharge if irrigation systems become more efficient? These are all examples of the uncertain information we have to use in making decisions about water resources, especially when operating under conditions of economic and political constraints.

If implemented, the proposed basin plan will contribute to the national effort currently under way in Australia to build a complete set of water accounts. Australia is one of the first countries to implement such a comprehensive attempt to regularise water data, and one of the main objectives of this is to improve management effectiveness. This is true also of the need for a basin plan for the Murray-Darling. It has long been said that you cannot manage what you cannot measure, and so for this reason, a comprehensive plan is needed to support more effective water sharing. The interpretation of what is more effective, and where most effective water use occurs, is an open question, and there is little agreement between irrigators, and others in the basin that have a real stake in this plan. The 20 week consultation phase now starting over this proposed plan will provide a real opportunity for issues to be raised and worries to be assuaged. Proponents of the plan claim to be acting in the spirit of adaptive management, and if this is true, there will be much room to manoeuvre during the seven years of this plan’s implementation.

Realistically in today’s world, the state of any river is determined by the people who use it and control it. While the numbers presented in this report may be unlikely to secure the desired environmental goals as things stand at present, but what the proposed plan does do is to put in place an institutional arrangement around which stakeholders can express their views, so that needs can be fairly addressed. The state of our environment is clearly determined by our own actions and decisions, and the future of the Murray Darling Basin is going to be determined by what society wants. If we value short term economic returns more than long term ecological integrity of the river, then our decisions will prioritise the economy over the environment. If we want a more sustainable future, the emphasis must now move from profit-people-planet to planet-people-profit.”

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Dr Jonathan Sobels is a social scientist in catchment management at the School of the Environment, Flinders University

“When the MDBA commissioned me to examine the social impacts on the Lower Murray and Lakes communities of low flows and drought in 2011, I was confronted with irrigation farmers who had completely lost access to fresh (ish) water from 2007 to 2009. They hadn’t been compensated for giving up part of their water licence, they literally could not pump any water from the River or groundwater. Before the crisis they had access to fresh (ish) water because they were at the bottom of a river system over 1500 km long, draining soils which contain substantial remnant salt deposits, and water which had already been used and re-used many times over.

As this extreme social experiment continued, as the water levels receded, people had to adapt by making decisions which had permanent consequences. These decisions were not solely driven by access to water; there were individual contexts that each family, each small business, each town must account for and work within, including demographic forces, bank and financial responsibilities, market prices and mining jobs. The cascade effects, for example, included changed land use, changed business focus, alternative off-farm or ‘off-business’ jobs, vacant houses, closed schools, emergence of action groups and increased mental health problems. And yet, within these effects, adaptive decisions that people made enabled many of them to survive and prosper.

What hurt people more than loss of water was the way in which state politicians caused ‘political low flows’; the greatest fear of people of the Lower Lakes is that another drought will occur, and they will be back in the same position again. The time line is too long for full implementation; again it is a political timeline based on Victoria’s contracts with its irrigators. One can hope for but not expect better governance from the MDBA. However, based on the Lower Murray irrigators experience, I do not foresee widespread dislocation of communities from water, just modifications to business models.  At its most simplistic, if the Murray Mouth is kept open 90% of the time by flows coming over Lock 1, salt will be removed from the system and allocations can be built from the bottom up. After all, the river has earned the right to be healthy: What can we do to ensure it stays that way for our mutual benefit?”

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Professor Jennifer McKay is with the School of Commerce at the University of South Australia

What do you think of the process so far?

“Forming the Murray Darling Plan is a highly politicised process, as we all know. We’ve had a number of iterations and arguments about the amount of water that needs to be returned to the environment to protect it. It’s a brave experiment for Australia in many ways; most nations are not being this explicit. It is upsetting many pre-conceived and pre-existing values and attitudes to water, the amount that can be used and perceptions of what the environment needs.

The consultation process has attempted to incorporate individual people’s wishes rather than reach some type of consensus and therefore we’re getting very polarised views and negative attitudes to the changes. Some of the terms in both the act and the plan, such as ‘best available science’ and ‘conjunctive use’, could have merited a broader definition so that it created a bit more certainty around what’s actually been happening and what decision processes are underway.

The impact on communities of these reductions is still an area where there needed to be perhaps more data presented. If the authority did have that data, then it would have been advisable for that to be a bit more publically available than it was, because we’re getting a very low-level stakeholder argument now.”

What are the implications of the draft plan for groundwater?

“I think groundwater has been a bit undervalued and has not been accounted for in a precautionary sense. People will be inclined to substitute their loss of surface water with groundwater now and that’s going to cause further overdraw. That’ll be regional, that’ll be very idiosyncratic. It’s not a general thing. I think groundwater, and the whole conjunctive need to manage groundwater and surface water together, has possibly been a bit lost. If groundwater is seen as ‘this is the way to substitute for our loss of surface water’, then we’ll of course end up with a very bad result for the groundwater ecosystems and the communities that rely on them, so I think groundwater hasn’t been given enough elevation.”

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Prof Kevin Parton is from the Institute for Land, Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, NSW

“The plan includes a reduction in water use of 2,750 GL per year (compared to 2009 baseline diversions). So there is an extra 2,750 GL per year in environmental flows. Does this give the right balance? The candidates for the biggest loser are (1) the irrigators, (2) the Basin communities and (3) the environment.

The extra environmental flow is estimated to lead to a reduction in irrigated agricultural production of about 11%. But the irrigators won’t be the big losers because they will be compensated by the water buyback scheme.

Also it’s important to remember that the past over-allocation of water has meant that water has been devoted at the margin to inefficient uses. The cut-back to a normal allocation will cut out these inefficient uses, at small cost in output.

An extra 2,750GL in environmental flows is estimated to lead to a reduction of about 1% in gross regional product across the Basin. The big losers could be businesses and smaller communities that are highly dependent on irrigated agriculture, but unable to capture the benefits of water buyback. The most severely affected of this type of irrigation-dependent businesses are likely to be in locations where the climate will not allow adequate substitution of dryland agriculture to substantially replace irrigated output.

However, even here the structural adjustment programs within the scheme provide substantial benefits for affected communities. It is likely that for the most part, Basin communities will not be the biggest loser.

So the answer to the biggest loser question is: Probably not enough is being provided for the environment. It would seem to be the biggest loser. The science is uncertain, but it does suggest that a minimum of 4,000GL would be required to get us to the threshold required to achieve minimum environmental benefits. Certainly, the extra 2,750GL in environmental flows will need to be managed judiciously in key locations to garner the best return to the environment (and the least cost to the community).

It is this management aspect that is the critical part of the plan. It promises two important things. First, it suggests, at one level, that management will be devolved to communities. Second, it suggests that the Basin will in future be managed as a whole and not constrained, as in the past, by State boundaries. To achieve both of these will be an enormous step forward and, if achieved, will form the basis of a sustainable health river system.”

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Prof John Quiggin is Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland and currently Hinkley Professor at John Hopkins University, Baltimore, US

“The process set in train by the Water Act of 2007 has failed in the most important respects. Instead of an evidence-based policy, we have a political compromise which will yield inadequate flows in the river system, whilst wasting billions on low-value infrastructure projects. Nevertheless, while the target of 2,750 GL is disappointing, it is important to remember that, less than a decade ago, the members of COAG could not even agree on a saving of 500 GL.”

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Dr Jamie Pittock is a water researcher from the Crawford School of Economics and Government at Australian National University who specialises in governance of water for conservation of freshwater ecosystems and in climate change adaptation

Does the announcement represent the science?

“No. Action is needed now to restore the extensive areas of degraded freshwater ecosystems, whereas the government’s intention to implement this plan in 2019-2024 is likely to be too late.  The amount of water to be reallocated is insufficient (2,750 GL) to sustain significant areas of freshwater ecosystems – the Government’s own Guide suggested in 2010 that as much as 7,600 GL need to be reallocated. The draft Plan makes inadequate allowances for the loss of water expected with climate change.”

How does it differ from the draft proposals from last year?

“This draft Plan is worse for the environment than the Guide in a number of respects. Rivers need water to be healthy and this Plan would allocate less water than was proposed in the Guide (2,750GL compared to 3-4,000 GL). Even this reduced amount is proposed to be reviewed in five years’ time. The Authority proposes to rely more on “environmental works and measures” – small scale engineering works to spread smaller volumes of environmental water further. This is more risky for the environment in a number of respects: a) it relies more on good day to day management to work; b) there is less room for error with less water when state government water managers have demonstrated a lot of errors; c) it fragments the riverine environment with levees, channels and weirs and so blocks fish passage and dries out some wetland areas, and d) risks exacerbating changes to soil and water quality, for instance, by increasing salinity levels isolated floodplain wetlands.”

Will the proposals improve the environmental outlook for the basin – if not then why not?

“Not much. Returning more water to the freshwater environment will always help to a greater or lesser extent, but the draft Plan is a case of too little (2,750 GL) and too late (2019-2024).”

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Feel free to use these quotes in your stories.  Any further comments will be posted on our website at www.aussmc.org. If you would like to speak to an expert, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 7120 8666 or by email.

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Caroline Sullivan is Associate Professsor of Environmental Economics and Policy at Southern Cross University, Director of Research in the SCU School of Environmental Science and Management, and a Fellow of the ANU Centre for Water Economics, Environment and Policy.

“The situation in the Murray Darling Basin is one which is certainly not unique. In river basins over the world, communities and governments are facing increasing pressure over water and how it should be shared and used. The science of Integrated Water Resources Management, (IWRM) is now becoming mainstream, but in the early days, the MDB was often held up globally, as a good example to others on how to manage a large river basin. At that time, the MDB was highly praised for having gone through the processes of institutional restructuring, so that its management could be seen holistically, treating the river as it should be, in terms of its actual geographical reality (eg as a big river connected along its length and influenced by meteorological and hydrological conditions).

While institutional refinement will be required to implement the complexities of the revised basin plan, it will be important for a positive outcome in the management of this river, that we consider three basic things:
- the views and needs of all the stakeholders,
- the need for the maintenance of the environmental integrity of our life support system (the earth, we are part of it), and
- the need for efficiency, effectiveness and equity in the use of our scarce and valuable natural resources.

The rest is all just politics!”

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Professor John Quiggin is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow in the School of Economics at the University of Queensland. He has worked on the problems of the Murray Darling Basin since the early 1980s.

“The situation regarding the Murray Darling Basin has gone from bad to worse to pretty much hopeless. We had everything needed for a plan that made just about everyone better off: more water for the environment, a good deal for farmers who wanted to switch out of irrigation, no compulsory acquisition, and enough spare money sloshing into country towns to more than offset any reduction in agricultural output. Instead, the process was spectacularly mishandled, most notably by the Murray Darling Basin Authority, who managed to scare everyone into thinking the government was about to confiscate their water. That handed power back to the most reactionary irrigator lobby groups who just want to stay on the old, unsustainable path as long as possible, while extracting as much money as they can from the public purse. The release yesterday of the Windsor Report suggests that they will get their wish. The central point of the report is that the government should abandon all “non-strategic” purchases of water, while pouring even more money into so-called “water-saving” schemes, which will cost $5-10 billion while delivering little if any additional water.”

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As reaction amongst the community reaches fever pitch, water allocation experts from around Australia met in Canberra to discuss the Murray Darling Basin Authority’s ‘Guide to the Proposed Basin Plan’. The conference is the first expert and independent assessment of the Guide. The Guide is the first part of a three-stage process to develop a new strategy for revitalising the Murray Darling Basin.

This briefing streamed from the conference at Australian National University’s Crawford School. Speakers addressed the plan’s implications for Australia’s triple bottom line – its economic, social and environmental impacts. They also raised alternative solutions.

- Economic variables – could we manage spending better to reduce economic impacts? Are even larger water cuts viable?

- Environmental issues – an ecological critique of the Guide, including shortfalls when it comes to the basin’s internally protected wetlands. What are the economic benefits of environmental flows?

- Social implications – community adjustments that need to be made to be able to move forward. How much will we need to change?

Follow an audio visual presentation of the full event by clicking here

SPEAKERS:

• Professor Quentin Grafton - Professor of Economics at the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University and Director at the Centre for Water Economics, Environment and Policy | Listen(mp3) | See slides (pdf)

• Mr Jamie Pittock – researcher at the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University| Listen(mp3) | See slides (pdf)

• Professor Chris Miller – Professor in the School of Social and Policy Studies in the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at Flinders University | Listen(mp3) | See slides (pdf)
• Listen to the Q and A session here (mp3)

See bio notes for the speakers here (pdf)

To arrange interviews with speakers, contact Henry Keenan at the Crawford School on 0405 102 560.

For further information, please contact the AusSMC on 08 7120 8666 or email.

ANU media contact -  Lucy Wedlock – 0424 016 978

The Guide recommends an additional 3000-4000 GL/year is returned to the environment. An additional 3,000-4,000 GL/year represents a Basin-scale average 27-37 per cent reduction if the reduction is sourced only from watercourse diversions. If sustainable diversion limits in the range being discussed were adopted, they might reduce the Basin’s gross value of irrigated agriculture production by approximately $805 million/year (if 3,000 GL/year is adopted), which is around 13 per cent of current gross value of irrigated agriculture production.

A copy of the Guide is available here.

Feel free to use these quotes in your stories. Any further comments will be posted here. If you would like to speak to an expert, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 7120 8666 or by email.

Note – earlier this year the AusSMC hosted a briefing to launch a separate report by The Wentworth Group on the scale of reductions in diversions they believed were required within each of the 18 Catchments of the Basin. The Wentworth report is available from here.

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Max Finlayson is Professor for Ecology and Biodiversity and Director of the Institute for Land, Water and Society at Charles Sturt University

“The guide to the Basin Plan is a necessary and welcomed document. We need to manage the river and wetlands through a whole-of-system approach, and we need to rectify the mistakes. Failure to do so will lead to further decline of our inter-connected social, economic and ecological system. We have an ecological problem and we need an inclusive social process to find the solution.

We need to consider the impacts of the proposed water re-allocations. We have proposals to “return” between 3,000 and 7,600 Gigalitres of water. The lower amounts will not restore the ecological character of the river – we will need the higher amounts. We have previously committed to maintaining the ecological character of the river and the wetlands, but we now seem shy of taking the steps to do this. We need to keep in mind that a healthy river has benefits for our communities -to be healthy a river needs its water.

We have an opportunity to reset the baseline for the future of the Basin. We do not need more alarmism – we need a ‘grand coalition’ to join the discussions and negotiations. We do not need the warriors – we need those who can embrace the need for change.”

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Prof Mike Young is Executive Director of the The Environment Institute at the The University of Adelaide

“The devil is in the detail to emerge. For South Australia, the guide to the Basin Plan proposes a significant step forward. The approach taken is consistent with international best practice. There is a daunting amount of detail for 19 water resource regions is now on the table.

Current modelling predicts that the Murray’s Mouth will be closed 3.6 years in 10. The proposal is to increase flows so that the Mouth will be closed only 1 year in ten. The Coorong’s future will be easier to manage.

Depending upon decisions yet to be taken, the proposed reduction in allocations to Murray River irrigators in South Australia ranges from 26% to 35% coupled with a commitment to the removal of all barriers to trade from 2012. A high court challenge would no longer be necessary. South Australia could thrive in an environment where it is free to compete for water.

There is a significant gap in the allocation system to be closed through the purchase of water from willing sellers. For the upper environmental benefit scenario and assuming no innovation, jobs are predicted to drop by up to 1200 people. For communities, this represents a decrease in around 1%. The economic analysis on social and economic impacts and analysis of system benefits needs further work. Significant adjustment and change should be expected in some parts of the Basin as we move to a system that is sustainable. Some regions, however, will be severely affected.

The guide proposes that the new plan will have hydrological integrity. This is a major step forward. There is a significant shift in exposure to risk. Once the new plan is in place, the environment and all other water users will share risks much more equally. In the past, most of the climate change and other risks have been imposed on the environment.

It is not clear how the new sustainable diversion limit regimes will be implemented. Disappointingly, this is left for negotiation with States. It is not clear how the Commonwealth will administer the environmental water entitlements is will acquire.

Issues to consider carefully include the question of why groundwater are much less than surface water reductions. States are given the option of imposing some of the impact of the proposed changes on those who own farm dams and plant forests.

The proposed minimum reallocation increases flow to the mouth, beyond that most environmental benefits will be retained within the region from which water is sourced. How far we go is a question that each community will need to resolve.

There is a lot of opportunity to implement the plan is beneficial to communities. Careful engagement is critical. It will be important for all to step beyond the numbers and debate the policy detail so that Australia never has to go through this process again.”

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Peter Cosier is Director of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists

“The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists welcomes the release of the draft Guide issued by the Murray Darling Basin Authority today. There is a lot of work ahead and this draft Guide provides the basis for an informed discussion on the options available to ensure we have a healthy Murray Darling Basin.

We all recognise that we have taken too much water from the rivers of the Murray Darling Basin to sustain their long-term health. We must now reset the system. We would like to congratulate the Authority on their whole of system approach. The plan appears to have hydrologic integrity in the development of a range of 3,000GL to 7,600GL of water for the river.

However, the Guide document does not provide either socio-economic or environmental benefit justification for limiting the options to a range of only 3,000GL to 4,000GL. Our analysis shows that it is in the public interest that the Authority look at options above 4,000GL.

The socio economic impacts of this reform are not fixed. These impacts can be substantially reduced if water is bought to bridge the gap and money for physical infrastructure is re-directed to help communities deal with a future with less water. This will be a difficult adjustment. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that the Commonwealth government has allocated in excess of $9 billion to facilitate this adjustment to a future with less water.

This provides sufficient money to fully compensate irrigators for lost profits and provide significant additional funds to invest in the communities hardest hit by these reforms, to assist them adjust to a future with less water.”

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Professor Wayne Meyer is Professor of Natural Resource Science at the University of Adelaide

“I previously lived in Griffith NSW for 17 years, so I understand their dependence on water for irrigation. I now live downstream and have watched the drying and dying from the mouth, the dependant wetlands and the floodplains.

The projected reductions are consistent with the minimum needs to keep this river system from becoming a highly degraded saline drain – that prospect is good for no-one.

This will be a very difficult adjustment but it is imperative for our longer term wellbeing that we adjust, refine and re-organise. Our wellbeing is not only about our immediate financial position; it is also about maintaining our Australian rivers and our unique plants and animals.

Water is a finite resource and our demand has grown to severely compromise the functioning of the complete river system. The adjustment is about some difficult trade-offs – short term economics against medium and longer term retention of quality natural resources for everyone’s benefit.

The adjustment for irrigated areas will be difficult but it is possible given the right help, clear direction and a defined timeframe. There will be less area irrigated on a permanent basis but it can be just as productive as it is now. In fact, it will certainly be more productive than it has been over the last seven years of drought. If we make this change now it will increase reliability of water quantity and quality, an improvement we should all welcome.

People are great innovators – we respond magnificently to crises when they are clear and present. Some areas will perceive this as a crisis and will mobilise to relocate, consolidate and improve.

We have needed to adjust and relocate in our landscape before as evidenced by our expansion into and subsequent withdrawal from some of our more arid areas. That adjustment was without the financial and social support that is on offer now.”

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Professor Kevin Parton is from the Institute for Land, Water and Society at Charles Sturt University

“Uncertainty, Uncertainty and More Uncertainty:

The release of this document marks the start of a process by which we can put things right in the Murray Darling Basin (MDB). Additional water flows for the environment of 3,000-4,000 GL/y are envisaged. What does this imply?

Some startling truths are revealed in the document. The most significant is that there is uncertainty everywhere you look. Uncertainty about how much water is required to restore the ecological balance. Uncertainty about how much agricultural output will be reduced as water is diverted to the environment. Uncertainty about how resilient communities will be as they face the challenge of less water. And on top of all this, how uncertainty about the vagaries of the climate will pervade and magnify all the other uncertainties.
The existence of this substantial uncertainty does not mean that we know nothing. Previous research, backed up by the report, shows that reductions in agricultural output will be far less in proportionate terms than reductions in the amount of irrigation water. This is because water in low productivity activities will be removed first, and because there is scope for investment in more efficient forms of irrigation.

The projected cost to irrigated agriculture is ‘$805 million/y (if 3,000 GL/y is adopted).’ This is estimated to be about ‘13% of the gross value of irrigated production’ and will result in a flow-on effect to regional economies producing a reduction of around ‘1.1% in gross regional product’.

On the ecological side of the equation there are likely to be significant gains in critical locations as more water is released. While some ecological niches require periodic floods, other locations will respond to relatively small amounts of additional water. These considerations suggest that the report is correct in emphasising a whole-of catchment approach.

Despite some positive aspects, social costs may be significant in some locations where adjustment is difficult. The document states that ‘the Authority is concerned that the short-term social and economic impacts on some communities and regions could be severe without structural adjustment’. In these instances it will be important to engage with the members of the communities concerned to develop a sustainable future that they support.

More research to generate information and reduce the uncertainty would of course be useful in all of these various fields. The world is observing Australia to see how it will deal with these massive challenges of water re-allocation. As suggested in the document, the process before us is one of striving for balance. I’m sure this will be a process of vigorous debate between the various interests. This is a normal process, in a democracy, of dealing with uncertainty.”

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Professor John Quiggin is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow in the School of Economics at the University of Queensland

“A crucial feature of the draft plan that has not received much attention is the determination that the entire reduction in water allocations should be regarded as the result of a change in policy, rather than as a correction of previous over-allocation. This means that the full cost of the reduction in allocations will fall on the Commonwealth Government. To finance this, it will probably be necessary to increase the proportion of funding from the Water for the Future Plan allocated to the buyback of water entitlements.”

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