Water - Policy | Sustainable Australia Party

In short:

Better manage and conserve our water

  • Facilitate reduced water use where possible
  • Protect environmental flows in all river systems
  • Prioritise water for Australia’s environment, food security and local communities over export-related uses

Related Policies

Policy Objective

Better manage and conserve our water in urban and regional areas.

"Melbourne could begin to experience chronic water shortages within about a decade, even if the desalination plant is cranked up to its full capacity, as climate change and population growth rapidly deplete the city's dams." The Age

"Once the third is completed, the Perth [desalination] plants will have a combined capacity of about 200 billion litres of water per year... This has a cost. Desalination is 40 times more energy intensive than sourcing water from dams. Dedicated renewables are meant to put as much energy into the grid as the desal take out. But in practice, these plants run off a grid that heavily relies on fossil fuels, and in a state which is decarbonising at a slower rate than others. 'It’s very costly to supply more and more water [significantly increasing everyone's water costs]...'” ABC News

Policy Actions (Federal & State)

To support this objective, Sustainable Australia Party will:

  • Facilitate reduced water use where possible, while achieving greater water reuse and recycling, particularly in commercial industry and agriculture operations
  • Protect environmental flows in all river systems to ensure that the quantity and quality of water sustains communities, including traditional custodians, and entire river ecosystems
  • Allow floodplains to naturally rehydrate

"The flows are a cornerstone of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, aiming to provide water to important natural ecosystems... They're essentially what's sustaining a lot of environments on the rivers... That water is helping native fish get up and down the rivers, it's going out to flood river red gums and some of the really special places we have in the Murray Darling Basin. Just remembering, all the water in the rivers used to go to the environment before we built dams and diverted that water... Professor Kingsford said it should be acknowledged that prior to development, water flowed naturally through large parts of the basin." ABC News

  • Prioritise water for Australia’s environment, food security and local communities over export-related uses
  • Implement a public register listing all owners of water entitlements
  • Better monitoring, metering and reporting of water levels and irrigation diversions, including through satellite and drone imagery
  • Prefer crops with lower and minimal irrigation needs
  • Buy back water licenses from irrigators where required
  • Support all communities through an environmental job guarantee program (also see Job Guarantee policy)
  • Conduct a Federal Royal Commission into water management in the Murray–Darling Basin, to scientifically determine, among other things:
    • An appropriate cap on water diversions
    • An investigation of total return flows from irrigation water and total water actually delivered to the environment
    • The appropriateness of speculative water trading and commodification

“You don’t even need a DA to set up a nut farm... Where Victoria has put in a moratorium on permanent plantings, NSW is still rolling out the red carpet to these international investors." Michael West Media

  • Slow population growth then stabilise Australia’s population size as soon as practicable (also see Population & Immigration (Australia) policy)

"Around one million of this projected population growth is also expected to occur in Sydney’s West, whose water supply is already buckling." MacroBusiness

"All Sydney residents will see their water bills rise by 50 per cent... Sydney Water said the money would pay for the delivery of new infrastructure, such as pipes and treatment plants to new growth areas." ABC News

  • Implement a ban on all coal seam gas exploration and new coal mines, which among other things, threaten to pollute groundwater including within the Great Artesian Basin (also see Energy policy)