This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A former senior employee of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority has accused it of manipulating data on the amount of environmental water being recovered to back its claim that the “basin plan is being delivered on time and in full”.

She has also told the South Australian royal commission that the MDBA uses a small pool of consultants for its scientific reviews and uses “peer review” in an entirely different context to the way scientists use the term.

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

“The reality is that the basin plan numbers no longer represent actual water,” Maryanne Slattery, the former director of environmental water, said in her submission to the royal commission. “This manipulation will first affect taxpayers but will ultimately adversely impact the property rights of all water licence holders.”

Now a researcher at the Australia Institute, Slattery outlines instances of the MDBA changing figures to suit its purposes, failing to update river models to reflect water-sharing plans in place in the Barwon-Darling, and spending millions of taxpayer dollars on water entitlements that she says are likely to yield only a fraction of that water for the environment.



Relations between the federal agriculture and water minister, David Littleproud, and the royal commission hit a new low on the same day as its commissioner, Bret Walker SC, labelled the government’s approach “irregular and deplorable”.

The commonwealth is refusing to participate in the royal commission and has gone to the high court to argue the MDBA and federal bureaucrats cannot be asked to give evidence.

The reality is that the basin plan numbers no longer represent actual water. Maryanne Slattery, former director of environmental water

Now Littleproud has written to the SA government, saying the royal commission is unnecessary, and included a detailed rebuttal of legal issues raised by the commission about whether the MDBA has complied with the federal Water Act.

This prompted the commissioner, Bret Walker SC, to label the federal government’s approach “irregular and deplorable”.

“This is no way for anyone, least of all a commonwealth department and minister, to communicate with a royal commission and it is in particular a highly irregular and inappropriate way for a submission to be put to a royal commission that has published procedures with which many, many other persons and entities have complied.

“The second thing is that there are a number of highly contestable propositions of fact, law and mixed fact and law contained both in the letter and in the so-called submission.”

Walker said he considered it inappropriate for a federal minister to communicate in this way as it prevented the type of engagement and challenge involved in participation in the royal commission.

The MDBA’s scientific work has also been subject to criticism.



Murray-Darling royal commission: injunctions will not stop flow of information Read more

“The MDBA uses the term ‘peer review’ to describe reviews by a consultant, colleague or sometimes an inter-jursidication group of agency staff,” Slattery said. “The term ‘independent review’ has always referred to a consultancy, as far as I am aware.

“The MDBA selects the consultant, sets the terms of reference, frequently edits or influences the final report and pays the consultants. The terms of reference are intentionally restrictive.”

Slattery described examples where the same consultants had performed “independent reviews” while also undertaking paid specialist work in the same area for the MDBA.

For example, two consultants analysed business cases for projects, known as sustainable diversion limit (SDL) adjustment projects, but then also did an “independent review” of the SDL adjustment process in response to comments from the SA senator Rex Patrick, who had queried the policy.

Slattery also accuses the MDBA of quoting a peer or independent reviews in defence of its position, even when the review had dissenting findings.

This is no way for anyone, least of all a commonwealth department and minister, to communicate with a royal commission. Bret Walker SC

For example, she said the CSIRO did a review of the hydrological models used by the MDBA, known as the “fitness for purpose report”. It found that the models were “adequate for their intended use”. But it warned that when using them for the development of the sustainable diversion limits, the amount of water to be recovered for the environment, “the models may be pushed beyond levels of certainty with respect to water management rules and climatic conditions”.

The MDBA cited the CSIRO review as supporting its hydrological work used in the northern basin review, which reduced the SDL target by 70GL.

Slattery also said a satellite imaging project she developed while at the MDBA to track environmental flows was effectively shelved after it pointed to widespread water theft by irrigators in the Barwon-Darling.



Slattery said the project, called Data Cube, run in 2016, was experimental and was not designed as a compliance measure.



“Almost immediately it was clear from the hydrograph that there were unexpected decreases in river flows. The satellite imagery showed water in irrigation channels including during periods of a river embargo and other times when it was illegal to pump; dams filling and emptying; watering of paddocks, paddocks greening and then browning off.”

This was cross-checked with other data including areas under production, estimated water use per hectare and the water being traded.

High court asked to block SA royal commission from calling witnesses Read more

“That information indicated that … the estimated extractions exceeded our estimations of the total possible account balance,” Slattery said.

Slattery said the MDBA was also receiving reports from the public of water being illegally pumped or diverted. Yet when she presented the findings to the MDBA’s senior executive team they were highly critical that the project had been undertaken.

She said her boss, the executive director of river management, David Dreverman, urged her to finalise the report before “they shut us down.” Slattery said she was later told that the project was not being pursued to “avoid upsetting NSW”.

An abridged version of the work was released in June 2017, just before the Four Corners program on water theft was shown in July 2017.