In a major step for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, Water Minister,Tanya Plibersek has approved the first plan for how New South Wales will share water
The approval of the plan is three years overdue, but will finally give authorities a standard from which they can police and prosecute water use breaches.
Under the basin plan, NSW is required to submit 20, 'Water Resource Plans' which set out how water is collected and divided within individual river systems.
In June, the Basin Inspector General, Troy Grant criticised the NSW government for being late with the plans saying it was, "the most critical failure of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to date."
The lack of water resource plans meant the Inspector General could not police and prosecute breaches to the basin plan in NSW.
On Wednesday, the federal government has announced, just one of the 20 water resource plans required has now been approved.
"This is the water resource plan for the northern part of the basin, it's the NSW Border Rivers Alluvium Water Resource Plan so it's a groundwater plan," Ms Plibersek said.
"One of the frustrations is that these plans were supposed to be in place by 2019 and here we are in 2022 and we're just accrediting the first of them, but it is a big step forward."
Plans have been submitted before
New South Wales had submitted its 20 water resource plans in April and June 2020.
However, the state then withdrew them to address concerns raised by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.
It has been suggested by NSW government officials that some of the concerns raised by the MDBA included "formatting issues".
"That's a pretty convenient argument," Ms Plibersek said.
"Because once you've got a plan in place you can have the Inspector General of Water Compliance checking on the plan and whether it's being implemented or not."
The federal government is expecting all 20 Water Resource Plans from NSW will be accredited by "the end of the calendar year."
MINCO in October
The minister has also confirmed that water ministers from the Murray-Darling will meet in October.
Ministers in the basin are meant to meet twice a year, but have not met in since mid-2021.
"We are looking at mid-October for the next ministers meeting and that will be a really great opportunity to recommit to the really important work of making sure the river system is healthy," Ms Plibersek said.
