Australian water law frameworks, which authorise water use, have historically excluded indigenous people. Indigenous land now exceeds 30 per cent of the total land in Australia.[1] Yet indigenous water use rights are estimated at less than 0.01 per cent of total Australian water allocations.[2] In the limited situations where water law frameworks have engaged with indigenous interests, they typically conceive of such interests as falling outside of the ‘consumptive pool’[3] of water applicable to commercial uses associated with activities on land such as irrigation, agriculture, industry or tourism.[4]
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(2017) 40(3) UNSWLJ 1130: https://doi.org/10.53637/YQWY6573
- Jon Altman and Francis Markham, ‘Values Mapping Indigenous Lands: An Exploration of Development Possibilities’ (Paper presented at Shaping the Future: National Native Title Conference, Alice Springs Convention Centre, 3–5 June 2013) 6.
- Sue Jackson and Marcia Langton, ‘Trends in the Recognition of Indigenous Water Needs in Australian Water Reform: The Limitations of “Cultural” Entitlements in Achieving Water Equity’ (2011) 22 Journal of Water Law 109, 110.
- See Council of Australian Governments, ‘Intergovernmental Agreement on a National Water Initiative’ (Intergovernmental Agreement, 25 June 2004) sch B(i) <http://www.nwc.gov.au>, which defines the µconsumptive pool’ as µthe amount of water resource that can be made available for consumptive use in a given water system under the rules of the relevant water plan’ (emphasis in original).
- Ibid sch B(i) (definition of ‘consumptive use’).