Developing the Northern Region Sustainable Water Strategy

The Northern Region Sustainable Water Strategy is the result of an 18 month collaborative process involving Government, independent experts, key water industry stakeholders, urban, rural and environmental water users and the broader regional community.

The Minister for Water appointed a Consultative Committee of regional stakeholders to provide strategic guidance and oversight of the Strategy’s development. Its deliberations helped shape the required technical work and provided local perspective on the Strategy’s consultation, option development and assessment processes.

The Consultative Committee comprised:

• Independent Chair- Denis Flett
• Department of Sustainability and Environment - John Cooke, Tony Long, Campbell Fitzpatrick and Jane Doolan
• Department of Primary Industries - Neil McBeath
• Murray-Darling Basin Commission Authority - Wendy Craik and Katrina McGuire
• Victorian Farmers Federation - Richard Anderson
• Northern Victoria Irrigators - Barry Croke
• Community representative - John Dainton
• Fruit Growers Victoria - John Wilson
• Australian Dried Fruits Association - Tony Martin
• United Dairy Farmers of Victoria - Ian Cobbledick
• Municipal Association of Victoria - Neil Repacholi and Barbara Murdoch
• Australian Conservation Foundation (until November 2008) - Paul Sinclair
• Environment Victoria - Juliet Le Feuvre
• North East Catchment Management Authority - John Riddiford
• Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority - Bill O’Kane
• North Central Catchment Management Authority - Gavin Hanlon and Damian Wells
• Mallee Catchment Management Authority - Jenny Collins
• North East Water - Jim Martin and Craig Heiner
• Goulburn Valley Water - Laurie Gleeson and Peter Quinn
• Coliban Water - Geoff Michell and Gavin Hanlon
• Central Highlands Water - Neil Brennan
• Goulburn-Murray Water - Garry Smith and Ian Moorhouse
• Lower Murray Water - Owen Russell
• First Mildura Irrigation Trust (until August 2008) - Ian Matheson

To provide further technical input, working groups were formed to discuss water allocation, the environment, licensing and urban water. Members came from different water users and across northern Victoria, including the Sunraysia, north central, Goulburn Broken and north eastern areas.

Consultation occurred with Traditional Owner groups across the Northern Region, and although each group has its own aspirations, several key points were made about future water management:

• The importance of health of Country
• Ensuring that Traditional Owners are active participants in managing water

In total regional stakeholders hosted more than 75 briefings and meetings with local communities. Two public comment periods drew 135 and 177 submissions respectively. These submissions provided a range of perspectives from the irrigation, environment, tourism, cultural and industry sectors and were used in developing and assessing options for inclusion in this Strategy.

More details about the community input into the Northern Regional Sustainable Water Strategy can be found in Chapter 1 of the Final Strategy, Appendix 1 of the Draft Strategy and the project updates.

Evaluation of engagement processes

An evaluation of the engagement processes used in the Northern Region Sustainable Water Strategy was undertaken, which suggested the process was aligned with deliberative engagement principles.

This work included providing a literature review on deliberative engagement to help support future engagement work by the department and its partners.

Towards deliberation and dialectic: the community engagement process for the Northern Region Sustainable Water Strategy (PDF~290kb)Literature synthesis: Deliberative Engagement (PDF~237kb)