This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The Murray-Darling Basin Authority was “a politically motivated organisation, which developed a dishonest culture” and used an advisory committee overseeing the northern basin of the river system to “rubber-stamp” its plans to reduce environmental water, a former committee member has said in evidence to the South Australian royal commission into the Murray-Darling river system.

John Clements, a former adviser to the independent MP Tony Windsor, said he had reflected on his experience on the Northern Basin Advisory Committee (NBAC), which ran from 2012 to 2016 and concluded it was used “to rubber-stamp the ambitions of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority” to deliver a major cut to the 390GL environmental water target.



In scathing evidence to the South Australian royal commission into the Murray-Darling river system, Clements said the committee formed the view the MDBA’s modelling and data was deficient.

Murray-Darling Basin Authority: former employee accuses agency of manipulating data Read more

Yet he said the authority consistently refused to acknowledge the failings of its hydrological modelling, which did not take account of climate change, natural losses in the system and was informed by limited data on what was really happening in the river.



The result, he said, was an outcome that would probably only be delivered on a desktop computer.

The commissioner, Bret Walker SC, is forensically examining the processes that led the government to set the 2,750GL environmental water recovery target for the Murray-Darling basin in 2012 and subsequent amendments that will further reduce environmental flows.

He is also drilling into the science and modelling used by the MDBA. The federal government and the MDBA have refused to participate.

“In my view, regrettably, the committee and its members were never treated by the MDBA as an advisory body,” Clements said. “Instead it became apparent to me that the committee was a strategy used by the MDBA solely to feed information back to the members’ communities and rubber-stamp the MDBA’s ambitions.

“My view that the committee was never treated as an advisory body is based on many instances where the MDBA refused reasonable instruction from the committee and ignored requests for information, including information about the assumptions underpinning the MDBA’s hydrological modelling. It is almost as if the MDBA was offended by being asked details on issues such as modelling.”

In November 2017, the MDBA proposed changes to the basin plan, including a reduction of 70GL to the water recovery target in the north of the basin, from 390GL to 320GL.



“The recommendations are based on research and monitoring, as well as talking to local communities and working with industry experts,” the MDBA said at the time.

They were passed in May 2018 with Labor’s support.

The former chairman of the committee, Mal Peters, a beef cattle farmer and former director of the National Farmers Federation, is due to give evidence next week.



He put in a highly critical submission to the public review of the northern basin in 2016 warning that its modelling was not based on the best available science.

In particular he said the MDBA modelling did not take account of the Barwon-Darling water-sharing plan of 2012 – a state agreement – which set the rules for when irrigators could take water when the river was low.

Head of inquiry into Murray-Darling Basin plan questions its use of science Read more

He also said he was concerned that the MDBA has stopped important monitoring tools – notably the CAP audit – which looks at how much is being taken out of each river valley and the total for the whole river system.

Walker spent the morning forensically reviewing the Bewsher report, which assessed the hydrological modelling relied on by the MDBA in its northern basin review. He noted the numerous caveats Bewsher had put on his conclusions.

“It leaves open that this is a completely meaningless review as it didn’t have the real data on flows within the northern basin,” Walker said.

He again invited the MDBA to come and answer the criticism.