The Senate Environment and Communications References Committee, chaired by Senator Anne Urquhart (ALP, TAS) has recently concluded an inquiry into stormwater management in Australia. You can read the full report here. WSAA provided an initial submission and was invited as a witness to the Committee hearing in Adelaide in August 2015. Broadly the terms of reference covered many aspects of the current state of play of stormwater in Australia including the quantity and quality, flooding management, institutional and governance and the role of innovation. Although not explicitly stated, there was scope to discuss the role of stormwater in contributing to liveable cities and communities through public good and productivity benefits to communities.
The 5 recommendations of the Senate Committee (read more here) are certainly a step along the journey, although I think a potential missed opportunity. Paraphrased the recommendations are:
- Develop a National Stormwater Initiative with the States and Territories
- Audits by independent expert panels on the scope of stormwater opportunities and collation of stormwater knowledge into a central repository together with whole of community analysis for potential stormwater projects and policy reforms
- Water policy be placed on the agendas of an upcoming COAG meeting, recognising the benefits of improved stormwater management
- Develop new funding models and financial incentives to facilitate improved stormwater management
- Funding for stormwater research be ‘restored’ and include co-investment for other levels of government and private sector.
The third recommendation undoubtedly gets a big tick: urban water is long overdue for consideration at COAG level, and raising the profile of stormwater and the role it can play in developing Australia’s liveable cities and communities would be a very positive step forward. With a new Minister for Cities (Jamie Briggs) and an opposition Minister for Cities (Anthony Albanese) a definite contest of ideas will develop with an election next year and that will provide a fantastic opportunity to raise the profile of urban water including stormwater.
I appreciate this won’t please everyone but I am happy to see that a ‘bucket of money’ for pet projects has not been recommended. Surely we have reached a time where the three levels of government in Australia, together with utilities and the private sector can develop value capture methods to progress innovative, green infrastructure projects that have stormwater management at their core. Whilst there is a recommendation that stormwater research funding be restored, I would like to see the benefits of the wonderful research of the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities be realised as a priority. I expect that further research may need even more multidisciplinary approaches including the physical and mental health benefits of using stormwater for greening our urban communities (including the benefits of mitigating urban heat island) or new ways of decentralised service delivery of water, energy and waste.
Senator Nick Xenophon (IND, SA) provided additional comments to the Senate Committee report. Although he takes aim at ‘the dominance of water utilities… distorting policy settings and leading to inefficient investments’ and that ‘monopoly positions… act as barriers to entry for the private sector’. On those points I do disagree: after all only Melbourne Water and Sydney Water have any direct control over stormwater assets in their areas of operations. With Melbourne Water providing $2.9M to 41 council stormwater projects in 2014/15 and operating over 8400 kms of waterways and 500 wetlands for water quality management, water utilities where possible are working harder than ever to provide liveable city solutions with stormwater.
I prefer to look at these comments as a genuine concern that policy and regulatory settings are just not up to the mark to (a) sustainably fund stormwater management and assets for our liveable cities and (b) to facilitate the innovation and investment that the private sector can bring to the table. On (b) WSAA and Infrastructure Partnerships Australia released a report (launched by the Federal Treasurer on November 12) that argues for a renewed focus on regulatory and governance settings to allow for just this. You can read our report and media release here.
My final thoughts: these recommendations are robust and importantly implementable. However…. Many submissions and many witnesses argued for stormwater not to be thought of as the ‘poor cousin’ anymore, that this was in fact a genuine opportunity to start the process of bringing stormwater into the total urban water cycle. To that end I fear we are missing an opportunity here. When the States and Territories are not even focused on the existing National Water Initiative, is it realistic they will buy into a separate and new National Stormwater Initiative? Me thinks the time is right to use this Inquiry to focus on a new National Water Initiative that looks at all of our challenges ahead: population growth, climate extremes, liveable cities and brings stormwater into the fold, without questions of ownership, just focussed on collaboration between stakeholders, governments and our communities that will ultimately benefit from a total urban water cycle approach.
4 Dec 2015
