The Murray-Darling Basin Exorcizing the past NeWater Workshop – August 28 th 2007 Daniel Connell Australian National University

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

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 a rights and responsibilities system designed to manage a wide range of competing interests (courts meant to replace ministerial discretion)

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

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

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

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

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?