Australia’s Water Policy Must Adapt
Posted on: Tue 6 Apr 2021
Australia, like many nations, is amidst a water crisis. Since the Millennium Drought, ‘Day Zero’ events are an increasingly real threat – with rural NSW and Queensland towns battling on-going drought, while others flood.
In 2004, the National Water Initiative was pledged – followed by the Water Act in 2007 then the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in 2012 – to conserve the health of Australia’s dwindling waterways, among other tasks.
Last month, the Productivity Commission released a draft report assessing the progress made since these objectives were made.
To discuss the implications of this report, Barometer’s Leon Bishop spoke with Quentin Grafton, Professor in Economics at ANU and Chairholder for the UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance.
Produced by Leon Bishop
Image sourced: spelio (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
