The bill introduced by Minister Burgoyne significantly weakens the legal framework for allocating water resources sustainably in the territory.

The NT Environment Minister has introduced a bill to Parliament which includes a suite of changes to environment and water laws.

Many of these changes increase the Minister’s own power, and reduce public and legal accountability, while putting NT water at risk.

The proposed changes include:

• Removing the requirement for water to be allocated to the environment
• The Minister giving himself the power to revoke a water plan at any time without public consultation
• Removing the legislative requirement for water usage to stay under the amount deemed sustainable in a water plan
• When determining what is considered “sustainable” water usage, the Northern Territory government needs only to “have regard for the environment” rather than to protect or avoid harm to the environment.

Quotes attributable to Kathleen Herbert, Policy and Advocacy Officer

“Minister Burgoyne’s bill is an attack on democracy and nature.”

"Only a rogue government which has little regard for nature and communities would introduce such a bill.”

“The Northern Territory’s already has the weakest water protections in the country, they will be even weaker under these changes.”

“These changes are the CLP NT Government continuing to turn the Territory’s nature into a sacrifice zone for industry, rolling out the regulatory red carpet for large-scale water extraction projects such as fracking, AI data centres and agriculture.”

"The federal Environment Minister, Murray Watt, must speak up as this rogue government continues to attack nature with the backing of Commonwealth funding."

“Across the Territory there are water-guzzling projects being challenged by the community at every stage. From cotton farming to AI data centres to the trillion-litre groundwater-guzzling Singleton Station water licence.” 

Contact: Kathleen Herbert, 0415 703 313

Background: 

• The bill guts water regulations and appears designed to avoid legal challenges and accountability. The bill renders Water Allocation Plans (plans which are supposed to allocate water sustainably) powerless by allowing the Minister to revoke them at any time without public consultation.
• The bill also whittles down environmental protections in the already weak water laws. It removes the legal requirement that water be allocated to the environment, removing an important safeguard for the environment in water allocation decision-making. 
• The bill also creates a weak definition of how much water can sustainably be used, the “Estimated Sustainable Yield” (ESY). The ESY, under the proposed changes, only needs to have “regard” for the environment rather than, for example, to protect or avoid harm to the environment. This vague term creates near-zero protection and avoids accountability and legal challenges.
• The bill removes the requirement for water usage to be below what was deemed “sustainable” in a Water Allocation Plan. This makes the Water Allocation Plans weak and hard to enforce.
• The bill removes the explicit requirement that water resources are managed in accordance with the Water Allocation Plan, further weakening the ability to enforce fair allocation of water.
• The bill weakens the Water Advisory Committee, a committee of representatives from the community which advises on water allocation. The changes remove the definition of the committee, leaving its purpose wide open. Environmental protections are further weakened through this change because the committee's function included advising the Minister on “maximising economic and social benefits within ecological constraints”.
• The bill reduces public accountability in other areas, including:
• Reducing public consultation periods for mining licences 
• Reducing pathways for the public to challenge heritage listing decisions
• Expanding ministerial discretion over returning security deposits to mining companies, weakening protections for the public bearing the cost of rehabilitating mining sites
• Licences under the Waste Management and Pollution Control Act would remain unless surrendered or cancelled, removing opportunities for scrutiny