Officials from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) fronted senate estimates on Friday morning.
Both the Murray Darling Basin Plan and the North Queensland Water Infrastructure Authority were discussed, with the former resulting in a tense discussion between senator Sarah Hanson-Young and DCCEEW secretary David Fredericks.
The senator asked whether or not the government would commit to delivering to a 2024 deadline for the Murray Darling Basin Plan, with a response the plan was still being worked on.
When further pressed, Fredericks said Hanson-Young’s questioning about whether a 2024 deadline would be met was getting “uncomfortable”.
“State, territory, Commonwealth ministers have given a very firm direction to officials, led by Ms O’Connell working with their officials to go away, with a degree of urgency, to start meeting, and to come back with a package of options in February for all state and territory and Commonwealth ministers to consider,” the secretary said.
“I don’t think this is the right venue to preempt those discussions. It’s not fair to the states and territories.”
When again asked about the 2024 deadline, Fredericks repeated a few times there was a “proper process” in place.
Hanson-Young said she did not give “two hoots” about states and territories dragging the process out further, saying they were gaming it.
In his opening statement, Fredericks acknowledged the role First Nations people had played for 60,000 years as custodians of Australia’s water.
“The establishment by the government of DCCEEW brings increased opportunity for joined-up delivery of the government’s agenda across water, climate change the environment, water and the protection of our heritage,” Fredericks said.
“Our portfolio responsibilities for water include improving the health of our rivers and freshwater management of our national water infrastructure, and improving the sustainable management of Australia’s water supply for agriculture industry, the environment and communities.”
At one point, the pronunciation of the department’s acronym was asked — DCCEEW preferred to be pronounced as “D-Q”. When that was clarified, someone joking said “like the nightclub”.
Fredericks mentioned the appointments of Andrew McConville as the chief executive of the Murray Darling Basin Authority and Dr Simon Banks as the commonwealth environment water holder.
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