Water’s Edge

How to improve collaboration, compliance and enforcement across the Murray Darling Basin with Des Pearson and Troy Grant

Troy Grant and Annabelle are joined by former Auditor General of Victoria and Western Australia, Des Pearson, who conducted a review into compliance and enforcement across the Murray Darling Basin. Des and Troy are honest and forthcoming with their views about the report, and provide an insight into how water can be better managed across the Basin; with a more consistent approach to water terminologies and water accounting. 
Des says in all his years of being an auditor and working in the public sector, the water space is unique in that there are so many inconsistencies with terminologies. Listen to how he thinks better collaboration between the Basin states could help resolve these issues. 
Download the Des Pearson Report into compliance and enforcement here: https://www.igwc.gov.au/reviews-reports
 
Guests: Troy Grant, Des Pearson
Host: Annabelle Hudson
Produced by: Inspector-General of Water Compliance (IGWC)
Episode music by: NaturesEye from Pixabay

Sustainable Diversion Limit Statement of Compliance - what is it and why is it important? Why is NSW behind and what are the consequences for not having a Water Resource Plan?

In this episode, join the Inspector-General of Water Compliance Troy Grant and Director of Compliance Monitoring Edwina Carter as we dive into the Annual Statement of Compliance for Sustainable Diversion Limits (SDLs). NSW is behind with submitting its Water Resource Plans, so Troy explains why he's worried about the late submissions, and what it means for the communities in the Murray Darling Basin.
To read more about the Statement of Compliance, visit www.igwc.gov.au.
Intro music by Leigh Robinson from Pixabay.
Functions of the Inspector General
IGWC function 
The new statutory role of the Inspector-General of Water Compliance (Inspector-General) brings together the Commonwealth’s responsibilities into a single statutory office.
The Inspector-General will also have the compliance and enforcement functions currently held by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.
The new Inspector-General of Water Compliance will have regulatory powers under Commonwealth law.
The Inspector-General will be able to work across the whole Basin to strengthen compliance, increase transparency and improve trust.
The Inspector-General will provide independent oversight and monitoring of Commonwealth and Basin state compliance.
A key priority for the Inspector-General will be to encourage greater consistency in the guidelines and standards across the Basin—so all water users are held to the same high bar. To do this, the Inspector-General will have new powers to make guidelines and standards, which will help build greater consistency across the Basin.
The Inspector-General’s main areas of compliance responsibility are:
monitoring and auditing of water resource plan compliance
investigating and enforcing non-compliance with sustainable diversion limits and assurance of Basin state compliance and enforcement frameworks, through audits and investigations
supporting the development and implementation of standards and methods to improve the accuracy of water measurement to increase the transparency of water take across the Basin
enforcing compliance with the Basin Plan water trading rules
monitoring and reporting on the requirements of the Basin Plan and water resource plans related to the protection of planned environmental water
The MDBA will retain its roles in:
assessing water resource plans
SDL accounting and reporting and
the development of remote sensing and emerging technologies and the evaluation of Basin Plan outcomes

Who is the Inspector-General of Water Compliance, Troy Grant? And what role does the Inspector-General play in water compliance?

In this first episode of "Water's Edge", we meet Troy Grant. We learn about how Troy came to the role, and what his vision and purpose is for the IGWC. 
The IGWC aims to improve trust and transparency in implementing the Commonwealth’s Basin water reform agenda, deliver greater consistency and harmonisation of water regulation across the Basin and strengthen Basin Plan compliance and enforcement.
Visit www.igwc.gov.au