Many people may well be shocked by slow progress towards an extra 450 gigalitres for the environment under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, but the headlines do not tell the whole story.
The basin plan is not perfect, but it is very far from the failure too many politicians and stakeholders want the Australian public to believe.
More than 2100GL has already been recovered, mainly from irrigated agriculture. This has reduced extraction for irrigation, towns and industries from 35 per cent of total basin inflows down to 28 per cent.
The Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek in her State of the Environment speech credited this held environmental water with saving the rivers in the severe drought of 2019.
As the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder has explained, the water was used to prime ecosystems so that wetlands and rivers could bounce back as soon as conditions turned wet.
State and federal agencies regularly report on the exciting boom in bird and fish breeding, and native vegetation resurgence. Aerial photos over the last two years show anabranches, billabongs and wetlands full to overflowing.
But good news just doesn't grab the headlines the same way as those claiming the basin is still no better off after more than a decade, $13 billion and one in five litres of irrigation water returned to the environment.
The basin plan is presented as a simplistic numbers game in which recovery of target volumes of water is the only measure of success. This game is increasingly detached from environmental outcomes, a concern raised by the Productivity Commission in its 2018 review.
This view ignores the basin plan's intent, which is to set sustainable diversion limits, boost environmental outcomes, and build-up ecosystem resilience to survive the inevitable droughts.
It ignores what has been learnt and gained in the decade since the basin plan was signed.
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Murray Darling Basin Authority audits found diversion limits are not only being met but exceeded: water take in 2019-20 was 18 per cent less than permitted.
The 2100GL recovered so far is meeting the plan's KPIs on freshness and water levels in the lower lakes, even during the stress test of the 2019 drought.
Improved outcomes observed elsewhere in the basin could be even better, if not for constraints such as rules preventing intentional inundation of private land.
But environmental water holders, irrigation companies and many landholders are not waiting for thousands of formal voluntary flood easements to be negotiated.
They are already working together in partnerships to work around constraints and get more environmental water where it needs to go.
It is important to remember that the basin plan's benchmark recovery target is 2750GL, not the 3200GL some claim. Direct water recovery is largely complete, SDLs are in place, and the Plan is largely delivering its intended environmental outcomes.
Additional components of the basin plan should not overshadow this achievement.
The then water minister Tony Burke made it clear the 450GL was an add-on to the benchmark on ABC Country Hour on 26 October 2012, the day the promise to South Australia was announced. He also said buybacks were off the table due to socioeconomic impact concerns.
The 450GL is not mandatory - its recovery depends on voluntary participation. Its socio-economic test matters when nearly 30 per cent less water a year is now available to grow food and fibre, due to the basin plan and earlier environmental recovery programs such as The Living Murray.
While the basin plan still has a way to go, we also need to appreciate just how far we have come.
- Claire Miller is the chief executive officer of the NSW Irrigators' Council
