Ms O’CONNOR – Minister, I want to do what the Greens have done at the table over the past few years and ask you as the new minister about river health. Despite your predecessor’s best efforts to suppress this report, I refer to Temporal and spatial patterns in river health across Tasmania and the influence of environmental factors produced by the former Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and the Environment.
We did obtain a copy during the caretaker period in the 2020-21 state election, but it examined river health up to the year 2018 and found serious declines in all the major rivers across the state. I understand the department has continued to monitor river health. So what are the trends now in river health over the past six years since this report was produced?
Ms HOWLETT – Collectively, Tasmanian water monitoring programs provide wide coverage and long-term monitoring records for Tasmanian catchments. River health is of interest to all users of Tasmanian water resources. Healthy rivers underpin the state’s economy, environment and way of life. Since 1994, the Department of NRE has conducted broad scale monitoring of river conditions in Tasmania, under the River Health Monitoring Program.
This monitoring provides important datasets on the health of rivers in Tasmania. The Rural Water Use Strategy is delivering several waterway health projects focusing on enhancing sharing of data information, developing a new state-wide water quality monitoring program and enhancing the understanding of the drivers of river health.
Ms O’CONNOR – How about an answer to the question?
Ms HOWLETT – I’d like to bring Catherine Murdoch to the table, who is a specialist in water.
Ms O’CONNOR – We’re actually looking for some data as much as anything else, and if there’s anything you can provide to the committee in terms of data on river health, that would be very helpful.
Ms MURDOCH – In regards to the River Health Monitoring Program that you discussed, which has been in place for a very long time, as you know, there are many factors that actually influence the health of rivers, including variation of climate, droughts, flows, and the range of activities in catchments, but this broad‑scale monitoring program, which we have been doing since 1994 – the overall results up to 2023, based on monitoring during that time period, show that many rivers in the state are healthy and in stable condition, whereas some stretches of rivers are in poor condition and declining. The healthy –
Ms O’CONNOR – Sorry to interrupt you, Ms Murdoch. Are you able to provide information on which rivers are healthy and which rivers are declining? That’s the sort of granularity we’re after.
Ms MURDOCH – Yes. This information is actually on our portal. You can log in and get that; we put it on there every year. Of the 53 long-term sites, 51 per cent of sites are actually in healthy condition and 49 per cent are impacted to varying degrees. Importantly, to get trend data out of that – because the data is inherently variable because of conditions – what we can say is they’re stable trends. On 12 sites, or around 23 per cent, only 10 sites indicated a decline. Improving sites are a trend of one site.
Ms O’CONNOR – How many sites are improving?
Ms MURDOCH – One, but only 10 sites are indicating a decline. That was all included in the State of the Environment report for 2024.
The other thing we also have is monitoring, as I think was mentioned, in regards to the projects under the Rural Water Use Strategy. One of those is the River Health Program, and within that is the Drivers of Change. That’s been doing water quality and nutrient monitoring at 50 sites. Some 61 per cent of those sites have shown that there has been no decline in water quality for nutrients at those sites.
Ms O’CONNOR – Any improvements?
Ms MURDOCH – I haven’t got that granular level. This is new work that we’re doing under the Rural Water Use Strategy, so we have one year worth of data.
Ms O’CONNOR – So you can see through the data that there hasn’t been decline, but you can’t see through the data you have whether there’s been an improvement?
Ms WILSON – What we’re saying is that the new work we’re doing in terms of the Drivers of Change project – we have 50 sites that we’re looking at. It’s a two-year project. We have some preliminary analysis of the first 12 months of data, which demonstrates that 64 per cent of sites have experienced an improvement or minimal change – we’ll need to break that down further when we do the further report – in nutrient conditions since the baseline water quality program finished in 2008’s dataset.
In 12 per cent of sites there has been a moderate or some degradation in nitrogen phosphorus concentrations, but I would like to caveat this – my team are listening – that this is preliminary data. They’ve provided it to me, but we do need the two years of data, and my team needs the time to do the full assessment and then produce a report so that it’s not just based on one year of data.
Ms O’CONNOR – The question was specific to what the trends have been over the past six years, and I don’t know if I’ve misheard, but is it true to say that you’re only looking at data from the past year to determine whether there have been trends? I think the committee should see information that indicates, on those metrics that are detailed on page 105 of the report I referenced earlier, what the trend has been since this body of scientific work was extracted from government through the caretaker period.
Is this available? On all these rivers – is it possible to put it on notice and have an update at that level of data? I would have thought – they’re just columns here, but there are indicators or inputs that are standard, so it wouldn’t be a huge body of work to provide an update. I’m still unclear that there’s been any significant improvement, if any, in our beautiful, life-giving rivers.
Ms WILSON – The water information web portal which was referred to earlier, to which there’s a link on our website, has river health scores for 53 long-term monitoring sites. Full data sets are available since 1994. In terms of provision of information, I need to understand what we could extract and what would be useful in terms of what the honourable member is seeking, because that information is available on our portal.
Ms O’CONNOR – I understand that the department’s Healthy Waterways Project is doing some case studies – I think four case studies – to understand what factors are behind the quite depressing river health decline, to be honest. My question is not about why, it’s what. What are the statewide trends in river health? We want a holistic picture here. Has the water management branch engaged in further detailed work to update our understanding of these trends since 2018?
Ms WILSON – In terms of that broad‑scale river health since 1994, of the 50, I think we’ve already ‑
Ms O’CONNOR – 2018.
Ms WILSON – Apologies. The 28 sites and the four case studies – that’s work in action, and the intent is to finalise that. The team have given me an update that they are aiming to do that early 2025, and that information will be released at that time, once the report is finalised.
Ms O’CONNOR – So we don’t have any clarity here at the table yet, and I’m probably slightly annoying the Chair by having another crack at the question ‑
CHAIR – This is the last time.
Ms O’CONNOR – It’s just really important to all our communities. What are the statewide trends in river health?
Ms HOWLETT – Based on the monitoring from 1994 to 2023, many rivers in the state are healthy and in a stable condition, whereas some stretches of river are in poor condition and some are declining.
Ms O’CONNOR – Most of the rivers are in a state of decline.
Ms HOWLETT – Of the 53 long‑term monitoring sites, 51 per cent of sites are in a healthy condition and 49 per cent are impacted to varying degrees, based on average scores for 2018 to 2023. Many – 17 per cent – of the sites have stable trends, indicating that they have remained healthy over a long period ‑
Ms O’CONNOR – The last thing I’ll say – sorry, minister – the Spatial and Temporal Patterns Report found that the rivers at more than half of the monitoring sites are in decline. Is that trend being reversed?
Ms HOWLETT – Can I just finish my sentence?
Ms O’CONNOR – Can you finish reading your brief? Sure.
Ms HOWLETT – So, 15 per cent of the impacted sites have declining trends, which suggests the status of these sites has been changing in recent years. In addition, 6 per cent of the impacted sites have stable trends, which indicates that the status of these sites has remained the same in recent years.
Ms O’CONNOR – I didn’t get an answer, but we’ll keep at you.
Ms O’CONNOR – Another water question. I know we need to move on. The recently released review of Tasmania’s water accountability framework, which is connected to the Chair’s previous questions, is the latest report to highlight that the current cost arrangements are not consistent with basic economic principles or the national water pricing principles. The report said:
Tasmania needs to move to greater levels of cost recovery to fund the water management activities it critically needs … Not doing so means having an ineffective and unsustainable water management approach or cross‑subsidisation from other areas of government.
Can you give us at least your in‑principle support for the recommendations of the water accountability framework and give your in‑principle support for a cost recovery process, so we’re not having this inequitable system where some producers pay metered prices for their water, some don’t, and the Tasmanian taxpayer is subsidising that?
CHAIR – That’s why you need self‑management so that your costs don’t get out of control.
Ms O’CONNOR – If you had a metre, it would be easier to manage and it would be fairer, but that’s when you’re attached to an irrigation scheme properly.
Ms HOWLETT – The government supports all 23 recommendations in the independent report which span policy, legislative, administrative and operational changes. These recommendations will be implemented in consultation with key stakeholders –
Ms O’CONNOR – Time line?
Ms HOWLETT – I can’t give you a time line on that unless the deputy secretary –
Ms O’CONNOR – I understood from this morning’s hearing – sorry to interject – that you said you’d commence a review of water cost allocations on the completion of the Rural Water Use Strategy.
Ms WILSON – The Rural Water Use Strategy has a program of activities. The government has committed to that program of activities. One of those would be to review the water management framework in terms of understanding fees and charges. It is to review.
I’d point out that there was a review of fees and charges in 2019. There was a regulatory impact statement which was released at that time. That regulatory impact statement was subject to public consultation, and that went to water pricing. That’s on the public record. It’s available for people to see. That was not that long ago.
The other point we would normally make – we’ve made in these hearings before is the Rural Water Use Strategy has a number of pieces of work which will inform water management into the future. That will then determine our compliance regime and how we undertake our activities. It would be pre‑emptive to undertake any work without having that new model in place.
Ms O’CONNOR – Pre‑emptive? Sorry.
Ms WILSON – It’s about a staged approach, which is put forward in the Rural Water Use Strategy.
Ms O’CONNOR – You talk about it being pre‑emptive, but previously you’d referenced work from 2019 that touched on the same pricing issues. It’s not like this is a surprise to government that there’s inequity and economic foolishness and massive public subsidy associated with this. I don’t think it’s reasonable to say it would be pre‑emptive to take some action here. You’ve had multiple reviews, you know what the issue is.
Ms HOWLETT – Is that a comment or would you like to add to that, deputy secretary?
Ms O’CONNOR – I want to know, is the government going to implement any of the recommendations of the review into Tasmania’s Water Accountability Framework?
Ms HOWLETT – I have already stated that the government supports all 23 recommendations in the independent report.
Ms O’CONNOR – Are you going to implement them?
Ms HOWLETT – I stated that the government supports all 23 recommendations in the independent report, which span policy, legislative, administrative and operational changes, and these recommendations will be implemented in consultation with key stakeholders.
Ms O’CONNOR – Sounds like taxpayers are going to be footing the bill for a lot longer.
