Water policy
Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (11:46): (488) My question is for the Minister for Water. In 2022 your government released the Water Is Life road map. It is an aspirational document that sets out the ways in which water can be recovered by traditional owners across Victoria. While the plan is commendable, it has led to limited tangible outcomes to date. This is particularly evident for target 7, which refers to water returns to traditional owners. Part of the issue is that the process is incredibly lengthy and difficult and only applies to unallocated water, of which there is a negligible amount available. For example, the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action currently holds 1.4 gigalitres of water as a section 51 licence on the Birrarung which it committed to return to the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung in 2020, but as at the end of last year this still had not occurred. Since 2021 there have only been three water entitlement transfers to traditional owners. What is your government doing to speed up this process?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (11:47): Thank you, Dr Mansfield, for your question and for the opportunity for us all to reflect upon a series of systems, regulatory frameworks and legislative arrangements that have led, over many generations, to systematic exclusion of First Peoples from the way in which water entitlements and access to water country have been granted. In fact it is hard to imagine a design of systems that could have excluded more fulsomely the voices, experience and priorities of First Peoples from it than that which we see in the water sector not just here in Victoria but indeed around Australia.
We have come a significant way since the work that was first identified as needing to happen around even a consideration of the connection that First Peoples have to water as being essential for health and wellbeing, of essential importance to connection to country, and that the oldest continuous culture on earth was denied the opportunity to even access water, whether bundled or unbundled, in the way in which the entitlement framework operated. When we think about the Echuca declaration in 2007, relevantly to the place that we are at today, the consideration of First Peoples rights did not extend to water use for other purposes beyond the cultural.
Water Is Life takes us some way from what has previously been the case in our understanding of and appreciation for that innate, multifaceted connection to water of traditional owner communities, story, lived experience and culture. In 2022 when this was launched, relevantly to Ms Ermacora’s comment earlier, Budj Bim and water being returned to Tae Rak in the west of the state were of essential importance in indicating a changed approach to the way in which a road map for traditional owner access to water could and indeed should be developed and delivered. It was also a recognition of the importance of a move to self-determination. This is about partnerships. It is about making sure that self-determination around the way in which water is allocated and made available is guided by and for and with traditional owner groups and communities. I do note that there are a number of First Nations communities, whether recognised formally or not, who do not agree with the principles and approaches and processes set out in Water Is Life. We are, however, determined to walk this path and to undo these generations of denial of opportunity and access to water. It is central to the Aboriginal water program. I am very happy to take you through the detail of the progress of works to date and the ongoing commitment that we have to ensuring that this continues into the future.
Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (11:50): I thank the minister for her answer and look forward to ongoing discussions about how those processes may be potentially improved. Victorian traditional owners currently hold just 0.18 per cent of water entitlements in Victoria, and on Monday the Yoorrook Justice Commission heard that currently there is no clear pathway to surface water access rights for traditional owners and that direct funding to traditional owners to purchase these rights via the water market is long overdue. The current position as set out in Water Is Life is that the government will not establish a direct water entitlement purchase program for traditional owners. Given the limitations in the current process of transferring unallocated water entitlements and in light of this evidence presented at the Yoorrook Justice Commission, will the government reconsider their position?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (11:51): Thank you, Dr Mansfield, for that further question. I do not wish to interrupt the process of the Yoorrook Justice Commission, and to that end, without wanting to circumnavigate the process of answering this supplementary, I do want to foreshadow that I am appearing before the Yoorrook Justice Commission next week. It will be a privilege and an honour to meet on country at Robinvale to talk further about the work on water and on country as part of truth telling.
We are already seeing some traditional owners across Victoria accessing water entitlements. That might be 2000 meg in the Mitchell River, 200 meg in Buchan Caves, 500 meg in the Tambo for Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation and 2500 megalitres in the Palawarra for the Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation community representative. As at 28 August last year, traditional owners and Aboriginal Victorians held 7592 megalitres of water entitlements. We have a long way to go, and the work goes on.