Final Review of the National Partnership Agreement on Implementing Water Reform in the Murray-Darling Basin

Managing Australia’s waterways to ensure healthy systems, sustainable agriculture and certainty for affected communities and water users is no mean feat, particularly when those waterways cross State and Territory borders. This is the challenge the National Partnership Agreement on Implementing Water Reform in the Murray-Darling Basin (the NPA) aims to address.

The institutional framework underpinning the NPA is complex due to the joint authority of the Commonwealth and States for water resource management, compounded by the scale and breadth of policy instruments implemented to achieve significant water reforms in the Murray-Darling Basin.

ARTD Consultants was engaged by the Department of Agriculture to assess how effective and efficient the NPA was in contributing to the implementation of Murray-Darling Basin water reforms.

ARTD were tasked with conducting the final review of progress made by the Basin States in achieving the agreed outcomes of the NPA 12 months before the end of the NPA, and with making recommendations for improvements for current and future National Partnership Agreements.

ARTD’s review looked at effectiveness of the NPA in contributing to water reforms, operations and efficiency of the NPA implementation arrangements, and possible enhancements.

Due to the complexity of the institutional framework and interplay of policies and agreements at a State and Federal level, we discerned effectiveness and possible enhancements to the NPA by looking at the interactions of parts, their performance together, and enablers and barriers, to provide recommendations for future agreements.

We reviewed 171 documents provided by the Department, predominantly relating to annual assessments.

We undertook stakeholder interviews with representatives from all Basin States, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C), the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office (CEWO), the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA), The Treasury and the Department.

And we undertook analysis of wider policy and institutional settings that frame the agreement— including those that relate to water policy in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), and those that relate to financial relations in the federation, such as the Council on Federal Financial Relations’ (CFFR) short guide to reviewing National Partnerships.

The report identifies areas of improvement for current and future National Partnership Agreements, including on structure of future agreements, payment structures, partnership guidance and the role and transparency of intergovernmental arrangements.

The report can be read on our Published Work page