The MurrayDarling Basin Exorcizing the past

1
The Murray-Darling BasinExorcizing the past

• NeWater Workshop August 28th 2007
• Daniel Connell
• Australian National University

2
Past Present Future

• Men make their own history, but they do not make
  it as they please they do not make it under
  self-selected circumstances, but under
  circumstances existing already, given and
  transmitted from the past. The tradition of all
  dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the
  brains of the living.
• Karl Marx 1852 The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis
  Napoleon

3
1990s-2000s attempt to make a fundamental
cultural shift

• Century old administrative system was based on
  close identification of interests between State
  govts and irrigation communities supported by
  wider public(ministerial discretion was/is
  central)
• National Water Initiative 2004 - a rights and
  responsibilities system designed to manage a wide
  range of competing interests(courts meant to
  replace ministerial discretion)

4
National Water Initiative

• Management of competing demands through water
  plans
• Systems approach is fundamental
• Political process to determine
• Acceptable level of modification
• then first priority is water to maintain
  sustainability-stability at that level
• remainder is available for production

5
Resistance

• Long tradition of production first
• Confusion re regional implementation
• Conflicts between water quantity focus of the NWI
  and other public policy priorities
• Widespread ambivalence re compliance
• Monitoring and entitlement systems need to be
  redefined and redirected
• Salutary fate of Gwydir water sharing plan

6
Positive factors(but all contested at some level)

• Significant cross-society agreement re aims
• Acceptance major decisions are public policy
• Institutional history re adaptation to climate
  variability
• Tested forums for decision making
• Strong institutional framework to build on
• Idea of sustainability widely distributed
• Long history of monitoring and data
• Cultural values re fairness and equity reduce
  the heat of controversies
• Robust political system and cohesive society

7
Overview

• MDB is an example of the international dilemma
• MDB crisis shows that major decisions re water
  are cultural and political
• MDB reform debate highlights the importance of
  systemic institutional issues
• MDB history reveals the power of the past to
  influence the future

8
Implications for future research

• Premises
• past defines potential positively as well as
  negatively
• strengths and weaknesses of socio-ecosystems are
  most clearly revealed under stress (eg
  droughts-floods, demand pressure)
• Societies in the northern and southern temperate
  zones have been managing climate variability for
  a long time.
• Can that experience contribute to future policy?