The Murray-Darling 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?