The assessment indicates poor Indigenous, environmental and social outcomes, despite $13 billion spent on water reforms. The report, Murky waters running clearer?, says trends of most indicators show no improvement or are worsening.
The Murray Regional Strategy Group says the findings of the new report are in contradiction of assessments by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.
Group chair Geoff Moar said all his member organisations comprise individuals who live in the NSW Murray region and are dismayed with some of the Wentworth Group claims.
“I’m at a loss to understand their motivation and cannot comprehend how a group of well-funded academics can be so out of touch with reality,” Mr Moar said
Federal opposition water spokesperson Perin Davey said the report was proof that the approach taken to the Murray-Darling Basin has to change.
“Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting a different result and that is what we have been doing in water reform since the late 1980s,” Senator Davey said.
“Instead of focusing on water recovery as we have done since the turn of the century, we should focus on system management.
“For example, we know in the Darling-Baaka we have seen fish deaths following both record low and record high flows so the problem can’t be just volume.
“We also have reports going back 40 years identifying the lack of fish passage in the Darling-Baaka, yet this has never been addressed.”
Senator Davey also pointed to the failure of any progress on constraints management as to the reason why the scientists found a lack of floodplain connection with 79 per cent of environmental water releases remaining within channel.
The report has found that irrigators were advantaged under the plan and water buybacks were beneficial to farmers.
“By relying only on environmental flows as a management tool, the best that can be hoped for is the maintenance of wetlands in their modified, degraded state as they were at the time of listing,” the report stated.
“A more ambitious target for restoration of wetland ecosystem functions and biodiversity that goes beyond ‘just add water’ would include addressing the impacts of those drivers of ecological change other than alterations in flow regimes.”
The report noted the Federal Government recently increased funding of the Aboriginal Water Entitlements Program from $40 million to $100 million but even this increased sum is unlikely to substantially increase rights to water for Indigenous nations.
On a positive note, the report found NSW (fish) populations showed marked increases over the 28-year period of record, but with considerable variation among years, and salinity targets were being met.
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