The biennial report from the National Water Commission shows that Australia’s water system reform continues to be plagued by “interstate bickering”, “slow intergovernmental processes” and “states [that] lack adequate policy and implementation resources”.

One of its key findings was however that “It should be assumed that groundwater and surface water are connected, unless it can be proved otherwise.” Quite so.  Roll on our Independent, Catchment-wide Water Study.

And in recognition of their undeniable impact on water resources, one of NWC recommendations was that  “it’s time to bring the mining industry into water planning processes”.

Since the NSW Mining Act does not even mention the word “water” once, we applaud this approach!