Freshwater ecosystems

6.9 Northern Territory

6.9.1 Strategies for protecting freshwater biodiversity

The National Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory has produced two strategies: the first (1999) dealing with threatened species and communities²¹⁹, the second (2000) dealing with wetlands²²⁰. The NT has no plans to develop a Biodiversity Strategy.
Both of the NT's strategies follow similar formats: a goal and guiding principles lead to objectives, and action statements addressing the objectives. Both strategies acknowledge international and national biodiversity protection frameworks.
Surprisingly, neither strategy lists either Principle 8 of the national biodiversity strategy, or the precautionary principle, two critically important principles for biodiversity conservation.
Although both the goal statement²²¹ and the list of principles of the 'threatened communities' strategy identify the need to prevent communities becoming threatened, the strategy does not explicitly acknowledge the need for comprehensive ecosystem inventories, the IBRA framework, or the need to establish systems of comprehensive, adequate and representative reserves.
These deficiencies are partially addressed in the more recent 'wetlands' strategy. Here we find a clear commitment to the establishment of representative wetland reserves.

Objective five:

To enhance the system of National Parks and other protected areas to maintain the full range of wetland types and ecological functions.

Action statements follow, and include the following:

• 
  identify wetlands in each biogeographic region of the Northern Territory;
  
• 
  undertake biological and environmental surveys of wetlands;
  
• 
  develop a geographical information system wetland inventory; and
  
• 
  examine the range of wetland types included in the current reserve system, and identify gaps in representation.
  

This framework provides an reasonable basis on which to develop CAR freshwater reserves, and places the NT in the same position as most other Australian jurisdictions: the commitments have been made, but not yet implemented.

6.9.2 The Northern Territory's water management framework

The Northern Territory (formerly operating under South Australian water legislation) put in place the present Water Act in 1992. The NT has been particularly slow to embrace the COAG water reform agenda²²². The Water Act has recently (June 2000) been amended with the aim of meeting COAG water reform agenda commitments.
In keeping with revisions to water legislation in other States, the Water Act abolishes common law rights to water, vesting water ownership in the State. Statutory rights are established to riparian water and groundwater for stock and domestic use.
The Act relies heavily on the judgement and discretion of the responsible minister (currently the Minister for Lands, Planning and the Environment) and his appointee, the Controller of Water Resources - both have unconstrained powers of delegation. The minister and the controller are responsible for the designation of Water Control Districts, and the development of Water Allocation Plans applying to those districts.
The Act provides little guidance on how allocation plans are to be prepared, although s.22B does contain the important requirement that "water is allocated within the estimated sustainable yield for beneficial uses" - including an allocation for the environment.
According to the Controller of Water Resources, the NT manages environmental flows in accordance with the ARMCANZ/ANZECC "National Principles for the Provision of Water for Ecosystems"²²³. While it is encouraging to see this commitment clearly re-stated, the fact that the NT has not published environmental flow guidelines ten years after the publication of such guidelines by some other States (1989 in the case of Victoria) raises questions relating to the commitment and enthusiasm lying behind this policy position.
The districts and the allocation plans form the only statutory planning framework for the management of the water resource. Although the Department of Lands, Planning and Environment (DLPE) prepares Water Resource Management Strategies, and encourages the development of Integrated Catchment Management Plans, neither has any statutory base - a similar situation to that existing in Tasmania.
Several important elements found in revised water legislation in other States are absent from the NT's statute. For example, the Act does not follow the precedents of the Tasmanian, Queensland, NSW and South Australian legislation, in having a clearly stated object, and in requiring the minister and other responsible agents to further the object of the Act in reaching decisions on the management of the resource. The minister and the controller have wide discretion in issuing permits to construct works or to drill bores, and similar wide discretion in issuing licences to harvest and use surface water or groundwater²²⁴. Statutes in other Australian jurisdictions commonly require that such permits or licences should only be issued after certain matters²²⁵ have been taken into account, and consultation procedures followed.
Section 40 of the Act provides loose, and arguably ineffective, controls over both drainage and the harvesting of surface waters outside watercourses²²⁶.
Under the Act, the minister can seek advice from a Water Resources Review Panel, or from Water Advisory Committees. In both cases these advisory groups are set up by the minister, of the minister's nominees. There are no statutory links with catchment planning groups or other government agencies, or requirements relating to expertise.
The absence of statutory links between the Act's water allocation plans (which can be prepared without community involvement) and the mechanisms of integrated catchment planning (which, if the national Implementation Guidelines are followed, rely heavily on community input) is - in my view - a serious weakness of both the NT and the Tasmanian water management regimes. The absence of statutory links robs the catchment planning processes of authority, and thus effect. In my view, the lack of tiered authorities and plans, keyed to ‘sustainable’ objectives and principles, and linked with statutory catchment planning processes, will prove to be a fatal weakness in years to come.
Summary: the NT framework:

The NT's framework, relying so heavily on discretion and judgement, may produce both very good results, or very bad ones. A framework so heavily dependent on the competence of program managers is considerably more vulnerable than the prescribed frameworks typified by that of NSW. In my view, cumulative effects will prove difficult or impossible to manage (over the long term) within this framework.