Lake Eyre Basin Rivers Assessment Implementation Plan Project: Milestone 3 Report Governance arrangements for the lebra

The governance framework and LEBRA implications

The current institutional arrangements applying to the LEB can be visualised in Figure 1. The arrangements cover the Intergovernmental Agreement itself, the Ministerial Forum representing the highest level of governance, the Community Advisory Committee and Scientific Advisory panels which provide counsel to the Ministerial Forum and the member Governments. The Figure 1 emphasises the role of the CAC, while the relationship to State and Territory water resource policies and plans is depicted in Figure 2. Each of the constituent parts of the LEB framework are described and reviewed in the context of the LEBRA below.

Figure 1: LEB institutional arrangements

Source: LEBMF (2009)

The Ministerial Forum

The LEBMF comprises Ministerial representation from the Australian, Queensland, South Australian and Northern Territory governments. Dr Mike Kelly, Parliamentary Secretary for Water, representing the Australian Government, chairs the Forum. The Forum meets about once per year, and following consideration of the 2007 LEBIA review, now attempts to align its meetings with those of the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council. The suggestion that the two Ministerial level bodies combine has been rejected.

Consultations to date suggest that the Ministerial Forum very much relies on the Senior Officers Group (SOG) and the Secretariat to drive its agenda, with advice taken from the Community Advisory Committee (CAC) and Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP). Finding time when all Ministers are available to meet has been problematic at times, although consultations suggest that the level of commitment by Ministers is very high.

The LEBRA can, and should, play a pivotal role in alerting the LEBMF to significant issues requiring coordinated policy responses. The LEBRA should also act to provide a clear understanding of the condition of the Basin to help jurisdictional representatives avoid articulating mixed or inconsistent messages. Both these issues are consistent with widely accepted governance principles of evidence-based decision making.

The Senior Officers Group

The SOG comprises senior governmental officials from the relevant government agencies associated with each LEBMF member.

As previously noted, the LEB Ministerial arrangements are relatively unique in that they are not supported by head-of-department level representation to act as the body assigned to administer implementation of the LEBIA. The material in support of the draft 5 Year Action Plan noted the lack of a clear implementation pathway for the LEBIA, with goodwill and voluntary responses filling the void. To the SOG’s credit, such realisation has galvanised it towards accepting a leadership role that had not been articulated for it in the LEBIA but one which is fundamental to the Agreement’s success. The 5 Year Pan adopted by the LEB Ministerial Forum formalises this leadership role in the SOG.

The LEBRA should act to provide the kind of information required to guide policy and program responses. In many respects, the SOG is in the fortuitous position to influence the conduct of the LEBRA as well as many of the responses to the information it provides. The SOG needs to play a stronger role than it has to date in the LEBRA process to ensure that the assessment process is aligned to the response mechanisms available through its jurisdictional representatives.

The LEBIA makes specific provision for the establishment of two groups within the terms of the Agreement. One is to provide advice on community matters (Clause 5.10); the other to provide advice on scientific and technical matters (Clause 7.2).

The Community Advisory Committee

The CAC is an important legacy of longstanding community participation in the affairs of the LEB. It comprises representatives of those people and organisations that either live within the LEB (its citizens) or are dependent to some extent on the values of the LEB (its industries and societal stakeholders). The CAC is also an artefact of shifts towards regional governance that have taken place across many western societies over the past two decades (Lawrence 2004), perhaps most prominently in Australia (Lockie and Vanclay 2007).

The CAC shares with the SOG a characteristic vital to the successful implementation of the LEBRA within the context of adaptive management as proposed: the capacity to respond, if necessary, to the information provided by the assessments. More importantly, the CAC comprises those interests with the major personal or corporate motivation to respond, and by implication those with the strongest stake in ensuring that the LEBRA is both rigorous and provides information of utilitarian value.

The Scientific Advisory Panel

The SAP is established by the LEBMF to provide scientific and technical advice relevant to the LEBIA. The areas of expertise are not set out in the Agreement, however, the existing members cover a wide range of disciplines spanning the natural sciences, and to a lesser extent the social sciences.

The LEBRA receives implicit mention in the Agreement in the context of the SAP’s role:

The Ministerial Forum may obtain scientific/technical advice in relation to the requirements for the effective monitoring of the condition of the rivers and catchments within the Lake Eyre Basin Agreement Area and the establishment of programs to meet those requirements. (Clause 7.1)

The SAP’s role as prescribed in the LEBIA is to ‘provide advice’. This is consistent with commonly accepted interpretations of good governance; keeping the SAP independent of monitoring performance, so that it can provide advice not only on what ought to be performed, but how it was performed. Maintaining this independence is a principle that should be adopted in the LEBRA governance arrangements.

Another important role for the SAP in the LEBRA should be to interpret the implications of the findings for further investigation and research.

The Regional NRM Boards

Three regional NRM Boards have responsibility for regions within the LEB: The Desert Channels Qld, South Australian Arid Lands NRM Board and the NT NRM Board. In response to a 2007 LEBIA Review recommendation, these Boards each now nominate two members on the CAC, one of whom has to be a Board members. An annual meeting between these NRM Boards and SOG members has also recently been established.

To some extent, the NRM Boards provide a link between government agencies, technical capacity and community engagement. They are involved in both monitoring and on-ground responses to resource condition, although the breadth and depth to which these activities take place is subject to the exigencies of competitive funding topping up limited core capacity.

The level to which the regional NRM Boards can undertake LEBRA activities hinges not simply on funding availability, but on the level of trust placed in them by government and industry agencies. Their capacity to motivate and focus existing community networks on wider LEB initiatives should be an important element of advancing the adaptive management approach proposed for the LEBRA.

The LEB Secretariat

The LEB Secretariat performs two distinct roles; facilitating accountability of LEBIA arrangements through supporting governance, administrative and communication; and facilitating action and progress through coordination, networking and, to a lesser extent, guidance. The LEB Facilitator in particular has a unique role in interacting with each of the other LEB institutional components by and large in the context of implementation.

The LEB Facilitator can play an important part in ensuring that the findings of the LEBRA inform the diverse range of interests in a position to respond. This can be achieved through guiding the knowledge and communication strategies as well as in helping set the agendas for the various bodies such as the SOG, SAP and CAC.