2025-02-18
The Greens WA are committed to updating Western Australia’s 111 year old water legislation Rights in Water and Irrigation Act 1914 (WA).
In 2006, Western Australia signed up to the National Water Initiative (NWI) and committed to reforms in line with the national standards. However, less than a week before Christmas in 2023, WA Labor abandoned the efforts, saying the reforms were no longer needed.
WA now stands out as a major laggard in water reform, falling even further behind other states in terms of enforceable water plans, limiting licenses to sustainable levels, water entitlement regulation, environmental flows, water rights of First Nations people and independent pricing mechanisms.
In the most recent report on NWI progress (2024), the Productivity Commission strongly criticised WA, and called on the State to introduce NWI-consistent water legislation, saying:
In December 2023, the WA Government withdrew a package of proposed water reform legislation that would have made water licensing and planning activities consistent with the NWI. As a result, Western Australia lacks statutory water entitlements and plans, and water planning in the state continues to be based on out-of-date, 110-year-old legislation.
Tim Clifford, Greens WA candidate for the Legislative Council, will be speaking at a water forum in Pickering Brook along with water law expert Emeritus Professor Alex Gardner; Francesca Flynn, Bibbul Ngarma Aboriginal Corporation Program Director; and local resident Diane Owen on Tuesday 18 February at the Pickering Brook Sports Club 35 Weston Rd, Pickering Brook from 6:30pm.
Lines attributable to Greens (WA) Water spokesperson and Legislative Council candidate Jess Beckerling:
“The South West of WA is drying out at one of the fastest rates in the world. We have lost 20% of our rainfall since the 1970s but we are still operating on water law written in 1914.
“Nowhere have the impacts on drought and the absurdity of our water law been more apparent than in the Northern Jarrah Forests.
“These forests are under severe drought pressure and dams and bores are drying up, but water bottling companies, including Coca Cola, have been sucking the system dry with no oversight.
“Coca Cola has now voluntarily and temporarily paused its take of nearly half a million litres of water per week, but could start again at any time given the total failure of the WA Government to regulate water take or update our water law.
“Under the 1914 legislation, the Minister could have declared a water shortage in the system, stopped the take of water and prioritised use for horticulture, agriculture and the environment but in WA, big business rules and WA Labor follows.
“We cannot afford to continue allowing multinational companies to take unknown volumes of water from drought-affected parts of WA for their own profits, leaving communities high and dry.
“The Greens WA are committed to updating WA’s outrageously outdated water law to align with the National Water Initiative. The reforms will include enforceable water plans, limiting licenses to sustainable levels, statutory provisions for environmental flows, the water rights of First Nations people and independent pricing mechanisms.”