TONY GRANT
INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF WATER COMPLIANCE
POLICE have an old saying. You can’t arrest your way out of a policy problem.
It’s a rule of thumb that can be applied to any type of enforcement role, not just policing.
For much of the past decade, the public conversation about water management throughout the Murray-Darling Basin has focused, understandably, on compliance.
That focus was necessary. Compliance failures exposed in 2017 shook public confidence. Communities expect the governments to respond.
They expected unlawful water take to be detected and punished.
Overall, communities demanded better regulators, active compliance checks, and stronger enforcement.
Since then, significant progress has been made.
Basin state regulators are now more active. They are more visible and increasingly sophisticated in their use of compliance tools.
Basin governments have been strengthening compliance funding, tools, powers and penalties.
Compared to several years ago, compliance and enforcement is now a much more mature part of water management in the Murray-Darling Basin.
That positive momentum on compliance matters. It must be maintained because there’s still more to do.
However, the water management themes, which I observe today as the independent Inspector-General of Water Compliance, are more about governance, design, implementation and environmental outcomes.
The risks are in activities like planning, measurement, accounting, modelling, funding agreements and constraints.
Often these are past and present programs of policy reform such as metering, floodplain harvesting, water resource plans, river connectivity, or supply projects.
Sometimes they are discussed in terms of the agencies who manage them, like the state policy agencies or the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, or even those like the CEWH, the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, who are perceived to manage them.
Sometimes these themes and risks manifest in areas like the Darling River or very public, and shocking events like large scale fish deaths.
What they all have in common is they are about performance, not compliance.
In a 2024 survey I commissioned, concerns about compliance and enforcement were nominated by only six per cent of the community as an issue of concern.
The top concerns were sustainability of water take, water quality and water allocation.
As the Inspector-General, my examinations are consistently demonstrating a gap between commitments on paper and on ground delivery for outcomes.
For example, my recent inquiry into the Northern Basin Toolkit found a program which had some achievements but largely undelivered on its commitments.
Its challenges were not compliance, and my inquiry found they were performance issues, including program design flaws, ineffective governance, and a lack of accountability.
New South Wales, the cause of controversy and concern in relation to compliance has made some notable improvements.
Since 2017, there have been new independent compliance agency established, NRAR, which has commenced with more than 1000 investigations over the last two years. Earlier this year.
New South Wales enacted major water compliance reforms under the Water Management Legislation Amendment Stronger Enforcement and Penalties Act (there’s a mouthful!), which increased penalties in some cases by a factor of ten.
However, on their own, stronger enforcement won’t get the desired outcomes.
A recent New South Wales Audit Office performance audit of water management in relation to regulation in New South Wales found that the state could not demonstrate that its water regulation system was effective despite this significant reform.
The audit identified issues like excessive complexity, weak data and information systems, and fragmented governance across these agencies.
These are the consequences of the design of the system itself that I talk about. Not an enforcement failure.
The strengths and weaknesses of the water management system in the Murray-Darling Basin are different in 2026 to those that existed ten years ago, or even five years ago.
The most significant issues are now less about whether rules are being directly enforced, and more about whether the rules, policy instruments and governance arrangements are fit for purpose.
And, if implementation is being sustained, and whether governments can sustain a basin wide approach. The whole system.
Independent survey shows 76 per cent of the community support having an independent oversight body for the Murray-Darling Basin.
Communities tell me frequently they are comforted to know that someone is tasked with assuring the integrity of the system, not just the water users, but government agencies as well.
Yesterday’s narrative does not cut it today. Our collective focus must be where the evidence tells us to look. Improved governance. Better design and implementation of commitments to deliver outcomes.
The basin needs both compliance and performance.
Compliance protects the integrity of the system. Make sure the rules are followed. Good design determines whether the system can deliver its purpose and outcomes are achieved.
As Inspector-General, I continue to contribute to the Basin Plan and Water Act reviews to make the most of a critical, once in a generation opportunity to strengthen the integrity of the system.
The focus of the next 10 years is likely to be on performance, as well as compliance as always.
My work as the Inspector-General, in an oversight role, is to provide independent confidence that the actions and outcomes are managing the systemic risk to prevent the crisis
Evidence from my examinations over recent years is now quite clear. The most significant risk now sit upstream of compliance.
Governments cannot enforce their way to a healthy river system, and they can’t do it without us.