What is a water right?

© 2011 Susan P. PearceThis research asks ‘what is a water right’? It was prompted by drought in 2006-2007 causing urban and rural water restrictions throughout the Murray-Darling Basin and by proposals to decommission northern Victoria’s Lake Mokoan with potential to further limit localised supplies. Northern Victoria is the focus due to its reliance on water for irrigated agriculture. The aim is to define water rights and discover why anticipated supplies can be altered without compensation. To find the answer it has to be determined if water rights are legal or moral, capable of enforcement and compensation. To achieve this four more questions are asked: 1. Do water rights differ from rights to water? 2. Is there a difference between urban and rural water rights? 3. Are water rights secure and enforceable in practise? 4. What is the priority of water allocation between major users and how is this decided? The intention is to use available evidence and desk top analysis to define rights, users, security of supply and recognition in law. This is followed by a detailed chronological review of influences that governed water access and use developments which reveals two hundred years of developments followed by twenty years of reforms. There was a shift from common to state statutory law and intergovernmental agreements introduced to achieve socio-economic benefits. Reforms resulting from the 1980s Franklin Dam dispute widened legal influence to include Federal and International considerations and environmental concerns. Federal policy led to the environment becoming an allocated water user and Native Title holders having registered land and water interests. The National Reform Initiative 2004 required that water rights be reconfigured to enable best use of water through water trade and to address environmental issues. The simple thesis question became complex to answer because of the range of expectations of users and policies to satisfy. In 2007 and concurrent with this research, northern Victorian irrigation water rights on regulated waterways were unbundled from land and converted into water shares and the first Commonwealth Water Act introduced. These developments created state and federal systems of present and potential water rights which can be seen as either complicating the situation for water users or clarifying their role in the Murray Darling Basin. They do not guarantee full delivery of anticipated water supplies before 2014