Draft Mataranka Water Allocation Plan – a failure on all fronts

The recent release of the Draft Mataranka Water Allocation Plan by the Northern Territory Government is blatantly disrespectful to the Traditional Owners who have been fighting for decades to protect the Roper River.

The Government has missed the opportunity to develop an integrated and holistic water plan that equitably shares available water, while protecting cultural and environmental values of the Roper River system.

Instead, Territorians are being presented with a plan that ignores the views of community, and puts the health of the springs at Mataranka and the Roper River at serious risk.

The Draft Plan does not provide adequate information or any appropriate safeguards for the Northern Land Council (NLC) to have confidence that the rights and interests of Traditional Owners and Aboriginal people in the region will be met. The level of water extraction the Government is proposing through the draft plan is excessive. The water licensing arrangements will not keep the springs, the river, nor its floodplains safe. The NLC has heard this message consistently from our constituents and cannot support the Plan in its current form.

As a signatory to the National Water Initiative (NWI), the Government is responsible for managing water sustainably. NT legislation requires cultural and environmental values to be protected when allocating water for extraction. The draft plan fails on both counts; it does not protect cultural sites, nor areas of cultural use. Development of the plan did not involve genuinely consulting with Traditional Owners, and the total volume of water earmarked for extraction has not been informed by best available science, socio-economic analysis, nor community input as is required by the NWI.

The Government has had every opportunity to effectively engage with Traditional Owners over the decade this plan has been in development. The Water Minister’s own Water Advisory Committee regularly raised concerns about the current rate of extraction and the already visible impact on Country. These concerns were repeatedly ignored and those who spoke up were criticised. Failure to meaningfully engage with Traditional Owners led to the three Aboriginal members of the Minister’s Committee resigning prior to drafting of the plan.

The significance of the Roper River, its springs, and its floodplains are well-known. Last year Traditional Owner representatives travelled to Canberra and presented a 13-metre hand-painted map to Parliament. The associated statement which was signed by hundreds of community residents called for the Roper River system to be protected from threats - “All our Songlines follow the water. We are all connected. If you take our water, you kill our culture. If you kill our culture, you kill our people,” reads the Statement.

The biggest threat currently posed to the Roper River system is the NT Government itself, and its archaic management and regulation of the most precious of resources – our water.  

The NLC calls on Minister Kate Worden as Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water Security, and Minister Selena Uibo as the local member for Arnhem to take our concerns seriously, and to listen to the voices of the community – the Water Plan must be rewritten. 

Quotes attributable to Matthew Ryan, Chair of the NLC

• Our waters are sacred, our Songlines follow the water, they are crucial to our people’s way of life. This Plan jeopardises our Country and the future generations who will care for it.
• The Ngalakgan, Alawa, Mangarrayi, Ngandi, Marra, Warndarrang, Nunggubuyu, Ritharrngu-Wagilak and Rembarrnga of the Roper are unified, they have been clear. They want a ban on all further water extraction, protection of environmental and Indigenous cultural values, and joint decision-making, including with the downstream communities.
• This Plan is yet another example of the NTG not properly consulting with Traditional Owners and affected Aboriginal people. Countless submissions, the cultural map, Statement – what will it take for them to listen?
• It’s 2024, we all know about the need to conserve water resources. Water is life for everyone.
• The Government can’t have such short-term thinking and unsustainable planning around water. They are not going to walk over our people on this; there must be meaningful consultation.