The Australia Institute welcomes the opportunity to make a submission on the Long-Term Diversion Limit Extraction (LTDLE) factors.

LTDLEs are required to determine how much water has been recovered to meet the government’s water recovery target under the Murray-Darling Basin reforms. LTDLE factors need to be resolved to bring certainty to communities and water licence holders about how much water has been recovered to date and the progress towards water recovery targets. The calculation of LTDLE’s has been contentious and has generated distrust of governments among stakeholders since 2011.

It is critical that this process is transparent so stakeholders now, and in the future, can understand how LTDLE’s have been calculated, and that there is ample opportunity for them to be scrutinised.

This submission outlines The Australia Institute’s concerns with the proposed LTDLEs, which include:

– risks to the integrity of the water market;- the contradiction between claims that LTDLE’s represent ‘real’ water, yet directions that they should not be used by the finance sector to value water
– the perception that this process meets a predetermined outcome in relation to over-recovery in the Gwydir and Macquarie valleys, and no further recovery in other valleys; and
– attempts to limit the use of CEWH’s portfolio to the LTDLE.We have also offered some recommendations to progress the issues we have raised.

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