This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A “ground breaking” new plan to enshrine Aboriginal water rights in law and practice has been released, which gives governments a way to overturn “aqua nullius” and demands Aboriginal people have more say in how water is allocated and managed across Australia.

The national cultural flows research project is the “unfinished business of national water reform,” Nari Nari man and chair of the Murray lower Darling river Indigenous nations (MLDRIN) Rene Woods said.

The project, released on Friday morning, has taken more than five years, and involved Aboriginal traditional owners, legal experts, water management agencies and scientists.

“For a long time, governments have refused to make meaningful changes to water rights and rules without documented evidence to justify First Nations peoples’ needs, interests and rights to water. The [national cultural flows research] project fills this gap,” Jamie Lowe, chair of the National native title council said.

Palm Islanders win official apology for police violence and discrimination Read more

The project gives Aboriginal communities a detailed way to calculate their water needs for cultural and economic use. It outlines the legal and policy reforms needed to achieve Aboriginal water rights, and makes a case for how Aboriginal knowledge and custodianship can revitalise ailing waterways, especially the Murray-Darling river system.

“More than 40 unique first nations and over 75,000 Aboriginal people call the Murray-Darling basin home,” Woods said.



“The basin’s rivers are our lifeblood yet we have watched our sacred rivers and cultural landscapes suffer. We have not benefitted equally from the development of the region’s most precious resource – water.”

The report recommends three approaches to end “aqua nullius”: giving Aboriginal people water rights in law, greater influence over environment and land use and greater role in water decision-making.



“These three approaches support each other. None of them is optional,” it said.

The project says water laws are essential to protect “cultural flows”.

“Cultural flows are water entitlements that are legally and beneficially owned by the Indigenous nations, of a sufficient and adequate quantity and quality to improve the spiritual, cultural environmental, social and economic conditions of those nations. This is our inherent right,” the project declared.

“It goes beyond controlling the water itself.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Darling river, which has now ceased to flow at Wilcannia. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

“It’s about improving the laws that deal with the water landscape. For example, water pollution laws need to work alongside first nations’ water rights, to make sure the water in first nations control is clean and healthy.”

In April, the small town of Wilcannia in far west NSW, where the majority of the population is Indigenous, held a “rally for the river”, to draw attention to the low levels of water in the Darling. Locals said large sections are dry or brown, dirty and undrinkable.

The report also points to new and innovative water laws, including giving legal rights to rivers. Last year New Zealand gave the Whanganui river the same legal rights as a human being, ending a 140-year long fight by local Maori for recognition of the Whanganui as an ancestor.

Indigenous voices have never been more important to Australian literature | Timmah Ball Read more

“Without a change in understanding of water as something to be unceasingly exploited, the environmental catastrophes seen up and down the river systems ... cannot be reversed,” Damien Bell, chair of the research committee said.

Last month the Labor party agreed to a federal government policy package intended to to ensure the survival of the Murray-Darling basin plan. As part of the deal, the government committed $40m to acquire water entitlements for Aboriginal cultural and economic use.

Six weeks previous, Labor had voted with the Greens and independents in the Senate, arguing that there was evidence of maladministration and unresolved questions of water theft in the basin.

Labor’s water spokesman, Tony Burke, said the government has now provided measures that gave Labor sufficient confidence that the basin plan is back on track.

Northern Basin Aboriginal Nations Chair (NBAN) Fred Hooper said: “Years of hard work, innovative science and rigorous review have gone into this project. Now we need governments, the water industry and water managers to work with us to implement this landmark research.”