October 22, 2023 • 27 mins
77% of the general population doesn't know whether they live in the Murray-Darling Basin, despite it being the country's largest area of agricultural production - the food bowl producing a third of our food supply.
Join us for this episode of Water's Edge, as we learn more fun facts about how people in the Basin feel about water management through the Inspector-General of Water Compliance's annual community sentiment survey.
Episode guests are Deputy Inspector-General of Capability Bridgett Leopold and Assistant Director of Intelligence and Engagement Rachel McNamara.
Read about the Steady as it Flows report: Steady as it flows – An assessment of River Murray operations and environmental water management (PDF 4.90 MB)
Read our annual community sentiment survey: https://www.igwc.gov.au/publications/annual-survey
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Water's Edge podcast acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout the Murray Daling
(00:05):
Basin and Australia and recognizes the continuing connection to land, waters and community.
Coming up, we find out how the community feels about water management in the Murray Daling
Basin.
Sometimes when people are getting information from word of mouth, it may be that some of those
myths or misperceptions are being replicated and that can make it tricky for us when we're
(00:27):
trying to get people to listen to governments as a source of information or ourselves in
particular.
And what the researchers telling us about Basin knowledge.
What were the interesting thing that I found was those that are heard of the Basin or
identified as living in it and know they live in it, only 6% were able to identify all
(00:51):
of the states that are in the Basin.
I'm your host, Annabelle Hudson.
This is Water's Edge and welcome to the conversation.
77% of the general population doesn't know whether they live in the Murray Daling Basin.
That's despite it being the country's largest area of agricultural production, the food
(01:16):
bowl producing a third of Australia's food supply.
This is just one of the stats we found interesting in our first community sentiment survey, a tool
used by the Inspector General to get a sense from the community about issues affecting the
Basin.
But how can we know what issues people are frustrated by when majority of the community
doesn't even know they live in the Basin?
(01:38):
Well, for today's episode of Water's Edge we're joined by Deputy Inspector General Bridget
Leopold and Assistant Director of Intelligence and Engagement, Rachel McNamara, to find out
more about this important survey.
Firstly, welcome to Water's Edge.
It's both your first time on the show, how are we feeling?
(02:00):
Thanks Annabelle, feeling good?
So we'll start with you Bridget.
You're one of two Deputy Inspector Generals with the Inspector General of Water Compliance.
What's your role at the IGWC?
Thanks Annabelle, so my role is Deputy Inspector General of Capability and so that includes
a number of functions, particularly focused around governance, internal governance and best
(02:24):
practice processes in that space.
We also look after the intergovernmental relations component which does tie into some of this
survey data and it's quite interesting.
And finally I also have the Media and Engagement team within my remit, which does both public
engagements but also supports the office in their publications and with media products.
(02:45):
So, did you sell?
So you're the side of the shop so if people are out and about at Field Days where we've
been recently, you're in charge of all that side of things, the public facing engagement.
That's correct.
Yeah, so the side of the office that focuses on that engagement piece, both with the public
but also with the governments that we work with quite closely as well.
(03:06):
And Rachel, you're fairly new to the IGWC and you're finding your feet very quickly and
you've been thrown in the deep end with the Aurema research.
So what exactly do you do as the Assistant Director of Intelligence and Engagement?
Yeah, thanks Annabelle.
It's a bit of a long name there isn't it?
I'm really lucky to have five field offices in my team.
(03:32):
So we are spread far and wide across the Murray-Dalley Basin.
So we have offices in Gunderwendy, Motura, Lockstone, Dubbo and Aubrey.
I work out of the Aubrey office so I'm really lucky to have one of the field offices in there
with me.
So they are the cornerstone of the on the ground, boots on the ground, eyes and ears of the
(03:57):
IDWC for engagement.
So they are out there speaking to the community, speaking to other government agencies as well
and finding out what is going on and bringing that information back to us.
We're collating that information, reviewing that and using that for our evidence base.
(04:19):
And how have things evolved with the field officer network and the engagement side of things?
I mean, you've started a few months ago but it looks very different now to how it was
when you first came on board Bridget.
That's correct.
In the early stages, we were, as a brand new entity, we were focused on making sure people
knew who the Inspector General of Water Compliance was and the functions that we had so that people
(04:45):
knew relevant issues that they could refer to us or contact us about.
Since that time, since the early stages, we've realised that the information we're gathering
does require a level of analysis and interpretation so that we can identify themes and that we can
feed that up for decision-making around what we might need to do about those issues.
So bringing Rachel on board, Rachel has used her background in policing and intelligence
(05:09):
to bring structure around the analysis of the data we're receiving, which we collate
quarterly through a number of means, do further research onto that and provide some evidence
and recommendations around what we might do.
Yeah, that pretty much encompasses my role, which is a new role to the IGW scene.
It's the next phase of where the IGWC is moving.
(05:31):
And we will be moving forward with that and extracapabilities within that and our team and
what we can do and moving forward into the next phase.
Well, today we're going to be talking about the Annual Community Sentiment Survey, which
for our listeners is basically a survey of people who live in the Murray Daling Basin, asking
(05:52):
a series of questions about water management, compliance and perceptions about everything
water-related.
The Inspector General then uses that information to build up a database of sorts to help him
gain a deeper understanding of the issues and the areas that he should be focusing on.
That's obviously then used in conjunction with the work that your team is doing, Rachel,
(06:12):
and the field officers.
So today we're going to look at some of last year's results because it's very exciting.
We have our second survey about to commence.
So we wanted to give listeners the chance to learn about the survey, what it's for, in
case they might be contacted by the people conducting the survey and they might want to participate.
(06:34):
So we'll just do a bit of an overview to start with of the last survey.
Bridget, you were involved in getting it up and running.
How did you decide what sort of things go into it?
Yeah, so I think it's important to start with, you know, while we do the survey, which
you've touched on, which is that we're an independent body.
So that while we do receive information from state governments and other entities and organisations,
(06:58):
we also look to gather the information directly ourselves from individuals in the public.
That means that the information we're getting isn't put through a filter of other government
agencies or other entities, we're receiving that data raw.
So as an independent organisation, that's critical for us.
We also have a requirement under the legislation to engage with the Australian community in
(07:19):
relation to the management of base and water resources.
So we do that through a number of means.
Field officers is one.
As Rachel's talked about, the survey is another one as well.
And the intention of the survey and getting it up and running in the first place was that
we intend to form a baseline of data and evidence that can be used annually so we can track
trends over time as well.
(07:41):
As I said, the thought behind this survey is that it doesn't only gather information for
the Inspector General, but also gathers broader community sentiment regarding water
management.
We use this information in our work with Basin States to help guide them around some of
the sentiment.
We're hearing around compliance and enforcement and other water management issues as well.
(08:02):
So the survey interviewed five main groups you'd call them.
So you've got water licence holders, community advocates, active users, community bystanders
and First Nations people.
So obviously, water licence holders, they generally have a pretty good idea of what's going
on in the Basin and the plan and what the Basin plan is about.
(08:23):
But for those who aren't water licence holders, there was quite a low level of Basin knowledge,
would you say?
I think we've found that that's correct.
And I do think it's important to note that the methodology we used and the people we interviewed,
we work really hard to make sure that the percentages of the people that we do engage with is reflective
(08:46):
of the Basin population.
So ABS, data stream, Bureau of Statistics, data is used to work out what percentages of
those various groups exist in the Basin.
And we work to make sure that that's reflective of the people, or the numbers of people that
we interview.
So overall, we did interview or did engage or survey over 1,000 or around 1,200 people
(09:09):
across those five groups.
And as you say, we find that the levels of water literacy is much higher, particularly
among water licence holders because naturally it affects their day-to-day operations or
their livelihood.
But what it means for us is that when we do try and engage with people, we have a broad
spectrum of people.
Some that, as you said right at the introduction, may not know that they live in the Murray-Daling
(09:31):
Basin and therefore may not hold a strong, insensible drive to learn about it, right
through to water licence holders who are often highly educated and well versed in water
management issues.
So what that means for us is when we're engaging or communicating, we have a really broad spectrum
of people and that we must be mindful of that.
(09:52):
And even though there wasn't a great deal of basin knowledge, there was strong support
for an enforcement and compliance element in the Basin, so a role like the Inspector General.
With water licence holders having the strongest level of support for a federal body to oversee
those rules and regulations across the basin.
But what were some of the other concerns that people mentioned in the survey?
(10:16):
Yes, it could be around like, you know, myth, sawmys perceptions and things like that.
Yeah, there was a couple of things here.
So I think we looked at two areas.
So we looked at support for the Basin Plan and looked to understand what the drivers behind
low confidence or low support in the Basin Plan might be.
And what we found actually was that among water licence holders support was around 48%.
(10:40):
You know, of individuals that we interviewed that strongly support the Basin Plan.
And likewise amongst the community, it was roughly 46% of the community who also supported
the intentions of the Basin Plan.
We actually found that in those categories, it was only around 20% of water licence holders
and community members who didn't were unsupported with the Basin Plan or didn't support the
(11:01):
intentions of the Basin Plan.
And what we drew from that as well was that there was around 33 to 34% of both of those
categories who were unsure or undecided.
And when we drew down further, we found that a lot of the drivers behind that were that
people don't know where to get information.
Or they don't understand, you know, what the Basin Plan is intended to do or how it works.
(11:21):
And we also found that a lot of individuals didn't understand the different layers of
government and the roles they play, which isn't surprising because it is an incredibly complicated
space.
And something I found interesting looking at the research myself was that one of the main
sources of information that people go to for information about water management, the
Basin Plan and, you know, anything like that in the Basin is through word of mouth and through
(11:46):
the community.
So do you think that that's, is that reason to be concerned?
Because there might be, you know, levels of mis-miss information going through the community?
It certainly makes it tricky.
So when, when as government agencies, you may be trying to communicate, especially as
an independent body, trying to give out messaging or information that's independent, it can
(12:07):
be difficult when we found that government agencies, I think, is number five or six in
the list of sources.
Quite low.
Yeah.
So word of mouth people go to first and then they go to their workplace, other community
members and also the news and media.
So I think some of the risks we see with that is sometimes those stories can be negatively
skewed or focusing on the bad elements.
(12:28):
But as you say, sometimes when people are getting information from word of mouth, it
may be that some of those myths or misperceptions are being replicated.
And that can make it tricky for us when we're trying to get people to listen to governments
as a source of information or ourselves in particular.
We talked a little bit about the research looking at the Basin plan.
What other things did the research find about that?
(12:51):
Yeah.
So while we found a really, a relatively strong level of support for the Basin plan,
when we asked the community about their sentiment or feelings towards what a management
more generally, which is broader than the Basin plan and includes, you know, state government,
compliance, regimes and decision making at state level, we saw confidence drop off significantly.
(13:14):
So community confidence in or feelings towards water management, only 6% of the community
felt positive about that as opposed to 46% of the community feeling or supporting a Basin
plan, for example.
As nations people were only 8% confident or positive about the management of water and water
licence holders only 19%.
(13:34):
So it's still higher than the other categories, but relatively low in terms of the confidence
or positive feelings towards water management more generally.
Yeah.
So what are people's feelings and perceptions?
In relation to this, we drew down to what are some of the drivers behind why people are
feeling this way?
Because there were some positive perceptions such as environmental flows have improved
(13:56):
biodiversity and that water management encourages greater efficiency, but we did hear a lot
of negative perceptions as well, such as, you know, decisions about the Murray-Dulling Basin
are driven by political motives, was a quite a strong theme that came out from the community
members and that government organisations don't work together effectively to work towards
the national outcome.
And that's been one of the driving pieces of data or evidence that we've used to fuel
(14:19):
the regulatory leaders forum, which is a forum that was established by the Inspector General
with the regulatory leaders of each state.
And they get together around quarterly and we work through some of these issues that
each state does in their own way because they're entitled to run things their own way, but
we find that we uncover the same issues or the same difficulties and so we get together
(14:39):
to work on some of those things or how we might approach reporting or building confidence
as a base in a renation instead of at a state-by-state level.
Would you hope to see that by the time we do this survey next time and there's a question
around, you know, governments not working together or agencies not working together, would
you hope to see that maybe there's been a shift of the dial there?
(15:00):
It might be a little bit early, we're only in the early stages and we haven't really
done any public information about that yet, but we're working towards, so on our website
you'll find a metering report card, which is working with the Basin states through the
regulatory leaders forum to create transparency around the status of metering by state.
So that's one of those, I guess, products that we're working on to provide that whole
(15:23):
of Basin transparency.
We're also working towards compliance performance reporting with the states, which is really a
product that will demonstrate the different compliance activities that the states are undertaking,
how they go about compliance and therefore a level of public reporting that demonstrates
or brings about a level of assurance of people that compliance has been undertaken effectively
(15:44):
in each of those states.
As part of the research, it kind of broke down what some of the key issues were, so what
were the top three or four concerns of people in the survey?
Yes, so in relation to the generic water management question where there were lower levels
of confidence, we drew down to find out what were some of those drivers behind the lower
levels of confidence or positive sentiment towards water management.
(16:09):
And we thought it might relate to compliance and enforcement, but actually that was not
a top of mind concern for the majority of respondents to the survey.
Rather, we found the top three issues to focus number one on distribution and allocation
of water.
It was around 36% of people demonstrated a low level of confidence said that that was a
driver for them, lack of transparency around those decision making, around allocations
(16:33):
and distribution of water.
Number two was concerns around the sustainability of water take or level of supply available.
And level with that was also concerns around the quality of water, so 26% of people in that
category both showed concerns around both of those issues.
And the third concern was that people believed there was a mismanagement of water occurring.
(16:57):
So they were the drivers behind the low levels of positive community sentiment regarding
water management in the basin.
Does that is those survey responses broken down by water licence holder community member?
Or is that that's just generally speaking?
That's generally speaking and we also don't break down the data by state necessarily because
our approach is to try to approach some of the community sentiment issues as a basin.
(17:24):
And we in the next round, the Rachel might talk about shortly, we will be doing some
more detailed surveys where we can drill down into some of these issues possibly by location
or by theme over time to give us that next level of information.
How do we tackle these concerns of the community?
Can we tackle these concerns?
I think firstly it comes back to the fact that because water is so complicated, some of
(17:48):
these issues don't actually relate to the role of the Inspector General, but when you
survey people you can't necessarily say I only want to speak to you about these issues
and not these other ones because water is all entwined.
So number one, we first consider whether it relates to the role of the Inspector General
that we have.
If it's really a state responsibility, what we do is we take the data and we share it
with the state governments through that regulatory leaders forum and say look, you need to be
(18:12):
aware that this was coming through as a strong theme.
People have concerns around the transparency of decision making and water allocations.
So what we do is we make sure we take that information, it's not wasted, we share it
with the regulatory leaders forum and let them know that they have an issue.
And in that instance, even the regulatory leaders forum, they may need to take it back
to their central government as well, but we do make sure that the information is shared
(18:34):
with all appropriate agencies even if it doesn't fall within our remit.
Because we don't want to be one of those, I guess, there's obviously distrust of government
and government agencies.
We don't want to be one of those agencies where people go, I spoke to the Inspector General,
but they didn't do anything about it.
That's right.
I think those issues that do fall within our remit, like the coordination between government
(18:55):
agencies, we've identified that we do have a role or could have a role to play there.
So we've taken the initiative, for example, in that instance to set up the regulatory
leaders forum.
In other instances, for example, the myths that you mentioned before, we have yourself
Annabelle and our media team who's working on sometimes helping to rectify some of those
myths or misperceptions or at least acting as a conduit for people to go to the right areas
(19:18):
for information.
Which is, I think, another theme that came out is that 50 to 60% of people interviewed said
that they felt there was not enough information about water.
I think the reality is we know there is a lot of information about water, possibly too much,
but there's not one collective space that people can easily go to.
There's many, many, many websites all sharing different types of information.
That's what we've found as part of the study is at Flows Report as well, which I think you
(19:41):
were involved with and we've done a podcast on before.
That's right.
So we can link that in the show notes if anyone's interested.
Absolutely.
But there's so many different avenues that people can go down to get information that it
can almost seem overwhelming.
It's overwhelming.
Yeah.
And try to pull the information together yourself because many agencies have many different
(20:04):
roles, but a holistic approach to water information doesn't exist at the moment.
Well, we might talk about the next survey, which is going to be coming out soon.
We'll talk about that with Rachel.
So what's the next survey going to entail?
When's it kick off?
When can people expect to start hearing from the people conducting the survey?
(20:26):
Yeah.
Thanks, Annabelle.
We're pretty excited.
The next survey is going to be completed in this last quarter of this year.
And we'll have all of the results in early 2024.
So it's going to be great to have this smaller survey at the end of this year.
(20:48):
So the largest survey will be their biennial.
So every second year and then we'll do that smaller survey in between, which is great to have
that continuous data and to see where we are with the trends and the themes.
So what sort of things are you looking at asking people in this next survey?
(21:08):
The three different themes that we're going to be looking at are compliance and enforcement
with the findings relating to the understanding of perceptions and the behaviours.
The second one is the findings relating to the Inspector General of Water Compliance.
So the third thing we're going to be looking at for this smaller survey is the indicators
and drivers of community sentiment across the basin.
(21:31):
So that is that community sentiment towards the basin plan, towards water management in
general, is it anything specific?
So it's a couple of those things.
And part of our role as an independent oversight or integrity agency is understanding some of
the drivers of the community that would increase confidence across the areas you talked about
(21:53):
Annabelle, so cross water management but also across confidence in the delivery, for example,
of the basin plan.
So if we can understand what those drivers are, then we can work with governments, state
government and the Commonwealth government to ensure that either they work to address those
or if we can do something within our remit that we consider that as well as part of our
annual work plan.
(22:13):
So it's a lot smaller than we did last year.
They will be looking at about over 1,000 people to be surveyed still.
So are we still getting the number there, you know, a high number?
It's representative.
Yeah, absolutely.
So we're still getting that.
It's just a smaller survey.
Still just as many people being surveyed, but just fewer questions.
(22:36):
Absolutely.
It's easy to get through.
Yeah, that's it.
So you know, we'll just finish off the year with that.
And so why is it shorter than the biannual version?
Yeah, because we just want to be able to, we don't want to crowd people.
We don't want to overwhelm people.
We just want to be able to get that information when required.
(22:56):
We don't need to do it every single year and ask the same questions over and over again.
We need to get the big one, then do the small one, compare it and then compare it each year.
So after reading all the survey results of the last survey, wondering if each of you could
share with me something interesting about the results or something that might have shocked
(23:20):
you or stood out to you.
Might go with you first, Bridget.
I think the key takeaway of the thing that stood out for me the most was while we were relatively
new agency and you know, a lot of people still didn't know we existed when we undertook this
survey.
When we asked the question, is it important to have an independent federal body overseeing
(23:41):
water rules and regulations across the basin, across all categories we got overwhelming support
for an independent federal body, which is exactly what the Inspector General Water Compliance
is.
So we'll remain in business hopefully for a bit longer.
I think it's positive to show that there is a community need or a community want for this.
(24:03):
You know, with 72% of the community saying it was important, 76% of first nations and 84%
of water licence holders supporting an independent federal body.
It's pretty high.
Yeah, it is.
And it is a strong support for the role that we play.
And as Rachel said, you know, with the survey this year, we hopefully see an increase in
(24:24):
the number of people who know who we are and what we do.
What about you, Rachel?
Yeah, thanks, Annabelle.
We're the interesting thing that I found was of those who had a heard of the basin or identified
as living in it and know they live in it.
Only 6% were able to identify all of the states that are in the basin and territory and
(24:48):
that's right.
And the ACT, being the least well-known and I grew up in the ACT.
I can honestly say when I was growing up in the ACT, I had no idea that we were in the basin
there either.
So I find that really interesting.
I actually didn't know that the ACT was in the basin until I started working here.
(25:10):
So it goes to show, I mean, it's obviously in comparison to the other basin states.
Absolutely.
It's quite a small water user in the scheme of things, but that doesn't mean it's not part
of the basin for sure.
And the largest city in the basin.
Most densely populated.
So if people want to participate, or can people even participate in the next survey?
(25:33):
So part of the methodology behind this survey is that the people we survey must be indicative
of the population in the basin.
So using the Australian Bureau of Statistics data, there is a really strong methodology
of both qualitative and quantitative processes that we undertake to ensure that the results
we get are reflective of the population in the basin.
(25:54):
So there's a lot of work we put into that, but unfortunately that means it's not open
for the general public because people who are generally interested in water are more likely
than to fill out the survey, which can skew our data.
And would skew the data from us knowing how many people know they live in the basin, or
the work we have to do to make sure people understand the role that the basin plays.
So no, the survey is closed to the general public.
(26:18):
But certainly if you've got any questions, feel free to reach out to us or come and see us
at the field days, or reach out through our phone number.
Our phone number, which is 1,3RGWC or 134492.
Well, thank you, Bridget and Rachel, for your first ever appearance on water's edge.
I'm sure there will be plenty more to come and we'll have to wrap up the next survey.
(26:41):
But as always, for anyone listening, if you want to find any of the work that we do at
the Inspector General of Water Compliance, including our annual community sentiment survey results,
you can find that on the publications page of our website.
That's igwc.gov.au.
And you can also get in touch with us by our phone, as I mentioned before, on 1,3RGWC.
(27:03):
That's 134492.
Thank you so much, Rachel and Bridget, for joining us.
Thanks, Annabelle.
Annabelle.
Water's edge is produced by the Inspector General of Water Compliance, Australian Government
Camera.
For more information, visit www.igwc.gov.au.
Water's Edge podcast acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout the Murray Daling
(00:05):
Basin and Australia and recognizes the continuing connection to land, waters and community.
Coming up, we find out how the community feels about water management in the Murray Daling
Basin.
Sometimes when people are getting information from word of mouth, it may be that some of those
myths or misperceptions are being replicated and that can make it tricky for us when we're
(00:27):
trying to get people to listen to governments as a source of information or ourselves in
particular.
And what the researchers telling us about Basin knowledge.
What were the interesting thing that I found was those that are heard of the Basin or
identified as living in it and know they live in it, only 6% were able to identify all
(00:51):
of the states that are in the Basin.
I'm your host, Annabelle Hudson.
This is Water's Edge and welcome to the conversation.
77% of the general population doesn't know whether they live in the Murray Daling Basin.
That's despite it being the country's largest area of agricultural production, the food
(01:16):
bowl producing a third of Australia's food supply.
This is just one of the stats we found interesting in our first community sentiment survey, a tool
used by the Inspector General to get a sense from the community about issues affecting the
Basin.
But how can we know what issues people are frustrated by when majority of the community
doesn't even know they live in the Basin?
(01:38):
Well, for today's episode of Water's Edge we're joined by Deputy Inspector General Bridget
Leopold and Assistant Director of Intelligence and Engagement, Rachel McNamara, to find out
more about this important survey.
Firstly, welcome to Water's Edge.
It's both your first time on the show, how are we feeling?
(02:00):
Thanks Annabelle, feeling good?
So we'll start with you Bridget.
You're one of two Deputy Inspector Generals with the Inspector General of Water Compliance.
What's your role at the IGWC?
Thanks Annabelle, so my role is Deputy Inspector General of Capability and so that includes
a number of functions, particularly focused around governance, internal governance and best
(02:24):
practice processes in that space.
We also look after the intergovernmental relations component which does tie into some of this
survey data and it's quite interesting.
And finally I also have the Media and Engagement team within my remit, which does both public
engagements but also supports the office in their publications and with media products.
(02:45):
So, did you sell?
So you're the side of the shop so if people are out and about at Field Days where we've
been recently, you're in charge of all that side of things, the public facing engagement.
That's correct.
Yeah, so the side of the office that focuses on that engagement piece, both with the public
but also with the governments that we work with quite closely as well.
(03:06):
And Rachel, you're fairly new to the IGWC and you're finding your feet very quickly and
you've been thrown in the deep end with the Aurema research.
So what exactly do you do as the Assistant Director of Intelligence and Engagement?
Yeah, thanks Annabelle.
It's a bit of a long name there isn't it?
I'm really lucky to have five field offices in my team.
(03:32):
So we are spread far and wide across the Murray-Dalley Basin.
So we have offices in Gunderwendy, Motura, Lockstone, Dubbo and Aubrey.
I work out of the Aubrey office so I'm really lucky to have one of the field offices in there
with me.
So they are the cornerstone of the on the ground, boots on the ground, eyes and ears of the
(03:57):
IDWC for engagement.
So they are out there speaking to the community, speaking to other government agencies as well
and finding out what is going on and bringing that information back to us.
We're collating that information, reviewing that and using that for our evidence base.
(04:19):
And how have things evolved with the field officer network and the engagement side of things?
I mean, you've started a few months ago but it looks very different now to how it was
when you first came on board Bridget.
That's correct.
In the early stages, we were, as a brand new entity, we were focused on making sure people
knew who the Inspector General of Water Compliance was and the functions that we had so that people
(04:45):
knew relevant issues that they could refer to us or contact us about.
Since that time, since the early stages, we've realised that the information we're gathering
does require a level of analysis and interpretation so that we can identify themes and that we can
feed that up for decision-making around what we might need to do about those issues.
So bringing Rachel on board, Rachel has used her background in policing and intelligence
(05:09):
to bring structure around the analysis of the data we're receiving, which we collate
quarterly through a number of means, do further research onto that and provide some evidence
and recommendations around what we might do.
Yeah, that pretty much encompasses my role, which is a new role to the IGW scene.
It's the next phase of where the IGWC is moving.
(05:31):
And we will be moving forward with that and extracapabilities within that and our team and
what we can do and moving forward into the next phase.
Well, today we're going to be talking about the Annual Community Sentiment Survey, which
for our listeners is basically a survey of people who live in the Murray Daling Basin, asking
(05:52):
a series of questions about water management, compliance and perceptions about everything
water-related.
The Inspector General then uses that information to build up a database of sorts to help him
gain a deeper understanding of the issues and the areas that he should be focusing on.
That's obviously then used in conjunction with the work that your team is doing, Rachel,
(06:12):
and the field officers.
So today we're going to look at some of last year's results because it's very exciting.
We have our second survey about to commence.
So we wanted to give listeners the chance to learn about the survey, what it's for, in
case they might be contacted by the people conducting the survey and they might want to participate.
(06:34):
So we'll just do a bit of an overview to start with of the last survey.
Bridget, you were involved in getting it up and running.
How did you decide what sort of things go into it?
Yeah, so I think it's important to start with, you know, while we do the survey, which
you've touched on, which is that we're an independent body.
So that while we do receive information from state governments and other entities and organisations,
(06:58):
we also look to gather the information directly ourselves from individuals in the public.
That means that the information we're getting isn't put through a filter of other government
agencies or other entities, we're receiving that data raw.
So as an independent organisation, that's critical for us.
We also have a requirement under the legislation to engage with the Australian community in
(07:19):
relation to the management of base and water resources.
So we do that through a number of means.
Field officers is one.
As Rachel's talked about, the survey is another one as well.
And the intention of the survey and getting it up and running in the first place was that
we intend to form a baseline of data and evidence that can be used annually so we can track
trends over time as well.
(07:41):
As I said, the thought behind this survey is that it doesn't only gather information for
the Inspector General, but also gathers broader community sentiment regarding water
management.
We use this information in our work with Basin States to help guide them around some of
the sentiment.
We're hearing around compliance and enforcement and other water management issues as well.
(08:02):
So the survey interviewed five main groups you'd call them.
So you've got water licence holders, community advocates, active users, community bystanders
and First Nations people.
So obviously, water licence holders, they generally have a pretty good idea of what's going
on in the Basin and the plan and what the Basin plan is about.
(08:23):
But for those who aren't water licence holders, there was quite a low level of Basin knowledge,
would you say?
I think we've found that that's correct.
And I do think it's important to note that the methodology we used and the people we interviewed,
we work really hard to make sure that the percentages of the people that we do engage with is reflective
(08:46):
of the Basin population.
So ABS, data stream, Bureau of Statistics, data is used to work out what percentages of
those various groups exist in the Basin.
And we work to make sure that that's reflective of the people, or the numbers of people that
we interview.
So overall, we did interview or did engage or survey over 1,000 or around 1,200 people
(09:09):
across those five groups.
And as you say, we find that the levels of water literacy is much higher, particularly
among water licence holders because naturally it affects their day-to-day operations or
their livelihood.
But what it means for us is that when we do try and engage with people, we have a broad
spectrum of people.
Some that, as you said right at the introduction, may not know that they live in the Murray-Daling
(09:31):
Basin and therefore may not hold a strong, insensible drive to learn about it, right
through to water licence holders who are often highly educated and well versed in water
management issues.
So what that means for us is when we're engaging or communicating, we have a really broad spectrum
of people and that we must be mindful of that.
(09:52):
And even though there wasn't a great deal of basin knowledge, there was strong support
for an enforcement and compliance element in the Basin, so a role like the Inspector General.
With water licence holders having the strongest level of support for a federal body to oversee
those rules and regulations across the basin.
But what were some of the other concerns that people mentioned in the survey?
(10:16):
Yes, it could be around like, you know, myth, sawmys perceptions and things like that.
Yeah, there was a couple of things here.
So I think we looked at two areas.
So we looked at support for the Basin Plan and looked to understand what the drivers behind
low confidence or low support in the Basin Plan might be.
And what we found actually was that among water licence holders support was around 48%.
(10:40):
You know, of individuals that we interviewed that strongly support the Basin Plan.
And likewise amongst the community, it was roughly 46% of the community who also supported
the intentions of the Basin Plan.
We actually found that in those categories, it was only around 20% of water licence holders
and community members who didn't were unsupported with the Basin Plan or didn't support the
(11:01):
intentions of the Basin Plan.
And what we drew from that as well was that there was around 33 to 34% of both of those
categories who were unsure or undecided.
And when we drew down further, we found that a lot of the drivers behind that were that
people don't know where to get information.
Or they don't understand, you know, what the Basin Plan is intended to do or how it works.
(11:21):
And we also found that a lot of individuals didn't understand the different layers of
government and the roles they play, which isn't surprising because it is an incredibly complicated
space.
And something I found interesting looking at the research myself was that one of the main
sources of information that people go to for information about water management, the
Basin Plan and, you know, anything like that in the Basin is through word of mouth and through
(11:46):
the community.
So do you think that that's, is that reason to be concerned?
Because there might be, you know, levels of mis-miss information going through the community?
It certainly makes it tricky.
So when, when as government agencies, you may be trying to communicate, especially as
an independent body, trying to give out messaging or information that's independent, it can
(12:07):
be difficult when we found that government agencies, I think, is number five or six in
the list of sources.
Quite low.
Yeah.
So word of mouth people go to first and then they go to their workplace, other community
members and also the news and media.
So I think some of the risks we see with that is sometimes those stories can be negatively
skewed or focusing on the bad elements.
(12:28):
But as you say, sometimes when people are getting information from word of mouth, it
may be that some of those myths or misperceptions are being replicated.
And that can make it tricky for us when we're trying to get people to listen to governments
as a source of information or ourselves in particular.
We talked a little bit about the research looking at the Basin plan.
What other things did the research find about that?
(12:51):
Yeah.
So while we found a really, a relatively strong level of support for the Basin plan,
when we asked the community about their sentiment or feelings towards what a management
more generally, which is broader than the Basin plan and includes, you know, state government,
compliance, regimes and decision making at state level, we saw confidence drop off significantly.
(13:14):
So community confidence in or feelings towards water management, only 6% of the community
felt positive about that as opposed to 46% of the community feeling or supporting a Basin
plan, for example.
As nations people were only 8% confident or positive about the management of water and water
licence holders only 19%.
(13:34):
So it's still higher than the other categories, but relatively low in terms of the confidence
or positive feelings towards water management more generally.
Yeah.
So what are people's feelings and perceptions?
In relation to this, we drew down to what are some of the drivers behind why people are
feeling this way?
Because there were some positive perceptions such as environmental flows have improved
(13:56):
biodiversity and that water management encourages greater efficiency, but we did hear a lot
of negative perceptions as well, such as, you know, decisions about the Murray-Dulling Basin
are driven by political motives, was a quite a strong theme that came out from the community
members and that government organisations don't work together effectively to work towards
the national outcome.
And that's been one of the driving pieces of data or evidence that we've used to fuel
(14:19):
the regulatory leaders forum, which is a forum that was established by the Inspector General
with the regulatory leaders of each state.
And they get together around quarterly and we work through some of these issues that
each state does in their own way because they're entitled to run things their own way, but
we find that we uncover the same issues or the same difficulties and so we get together
(14:39):
to work on some of those things or how we might approach reporting or building confidence
as a base in a renation instead of at a state-by-state level.
Would you hope to see that by the time we do this survey next time and there's a question
around, you know, governments not working together or agencies not working together, would
you hope to see that maybe there's been a shift of the dial there?
(15:00):
It might be a little bit early, we're only in the early stages and we haven't really
done any public information about that yet, but we're working towards, so on our website
you'll find a metering report card, which is working with the Basin states through the
regulatory leaders forum to create transparency around the status of metering by state.
So that's one of those, I guess, products that we're working on to provide that whole
(15:23):
of Basin transparency.
We're also working towards compliance performance reporting with the states, which is really a
product that will demonstrate the different compliance activities that the states are undertaking,
how they go about compliance and therefore a level of public reporting that demonstrates
or brings about a level of assurance of people that compliance has been undertaken effectively
(15:44):
in each of those states.
As part of the research, it kind of broke down what some of the key issues were, so what
were the top three or four concerns of people in the survey?
Yes, so in relation to the generic water management question where there were lower levels
of confidence, we drew down to find out what were some of those drivers behind the lower
levels of confidence or positive sentiment towards water management.
(16:09):
And we thought it might relate to compliance and enforcement, but actually that was not
a top of mind concern for the majority of respondents to the survey.
Rather, we found the top three issues to focus number one on distribution and allocation
of water.
It was around 36% of people demonstrated a low level of confidence said that that was a
driver for them, lack of transparency around those decision making, around allocations
(16:33):
and distribution of water.
Number two was concerns around the sustainability of water take or level of supply available.
And level with that was also concerns around the quality of water, so 26% of people in that
category both showed concerns around both of those issues.
And the third concern was that people believed there was a mismanagement of water occurring.
(16:57):
So they were the drivers behind the low levels of positive community sentiment regarding
water management in the basin.
Does that is those survey responses broken down by water licence holder community member?
Or is that that's just generally speaking?
That's generally speaking and we also don't break down the data by state necessarily because
our approach is to try to approach some of the community sentiment issues as a basin.
(17:24):
And we in the next round, the Rachel might talk about shortly, we will be doing some
more detailed surveys where we can drill down into some of these issues possibly by location
or by theme over time to give us that next level of information.
How do we tackle these concerns of the community?
Can we tackle these concerns?
I think firstly it comes back to the fact that because water is so complicated, some of
(17:48):
these issues don't actually relate to the role of the Inspector General, but when you
survey people you can't necessarily say I only want to speak to you about these issues
and not these other ones because water is all entwined.
So number one, we first consider whether it relates to the role of the Inspector General
that we have.
If it's really a state responsibility, what we do is we take the data and we share it
with the state governments through that regulatory leaders forum and say look, you need to be
(18:12):
aware that this was coming through as a strong theme.
People have concerns around the transparency of decision making and water allocations.
So what we do is we make sure we take that information, it's not wasted, we share it
with the regulatory leaders forum and let them know that they have an issue.
And in that instance, even the regulatory leaders forum, they may need to take it back
to their central government as well, but we do make sure that the information is shared
(18:34):
with all appropriate agencies even if it doesn't fall within our remit.
Because we don't want to be one of those, I guess, there's obviously distrust of government
and government agencies.
We don't want to be one of those agencies where people go, I spoke to the Inspector General,
but they didn't do anything about it.
That's right.
I think those issues that do fall within our remit, like the coordination between government
(18:55):
agencies, we've identified that we do have a role or could have a role to play there.
So we've taken the initiative, for example, in that instance to set up the regulatory
leaders forum.
In other instances, for example, the myths that you mentioned before, we have yourself
Annabelle and our media team who's working on sometimes helping to rectify some of those
myths or misperceptions or at least acting as a conduit for people to go to the right areas
(19:18):
for information.
Which is, I think, another theme that came out is that 50 to 60% of people interviewed said
that they felt there was not enough information about water.
I think the reality is we know there is a lot of information about water, possibly too much,
but there's not one collective space that people can easily go to.
There's many, many, many websites all sharing different types of information.
That's what we've found as part of the study is at Flows Report as well, which I think you
(19:41):
were involved with and we've done a podcast on before.
That's right.
So we can link that in the show notes if anyone's interested.
Absolutely.
But there's so many different avenues that people can go down to get information that it
can almost seem overwhelming.
It's overwhelming.
Yeah.
And try to pull the information together yourself because many agencies have many different
(20:04):
roles, but a holistic approach to water information doesn't exist at the moment.
Well, we might talk about the next survey, which is going to be coming out soon.
We'll talk about that with Rachel.
So what's the next survey going to entail?
When's it kick off?
When can people expect to start hearing from the people conducting the survey?
(20:26):
Yeah.
Thanks, Annabelle.
We're pretty excited.
The next survey is going to be completed in this last quarter of this year.
And we'll have all of the results in early 2024.
So it's going to be great to have this smaller survey at the end of this year.
(20:48):
So the largest survey will be their biennial.
So every second year and then we'll do that smaller survey in between, which is great to have
that continuous data and to see where we are with the trends and the themes.
So what sort of things are you looking at asking people in this next survey?
(21:08):
The three different themes that we're going to be looking at are compliance and enforcement
with the findings relating to the understanding of perceptions and the behaviours.
The second one is the findings relating to the Inspector General of Water Compliance.
So the third thing we're going to be looking at for this smaller survey is the indicators
and drivers of community sentiment across the basin.
(21:31):
So that is that community sentiment towards the basin plan, towards water management in
general, is it anything specific?
So it's a couple of those things.
And part of our role as an independent oversight or integrity agency is understanding some of
the drivers of the community that would increase confidence across the areas you talked about
(21:53):
Annabelle, so cross water management but also across confidence in the delivery, for example,
of the basin plan.
So if we can understand what those drivers are, then we can work with governments, state
government and the Commonwealth government to ensure that either they work to address those
or if we can do something within our remit that we consider that as well as part of our
annual work plan.
(22:13):
So it's a lot smaller than we did last year.
They will be looking at about over 1,000 people to be surveyed still.
So are we still getting the number there, you know, a high number?
It's representative.
Yeah, absolutely.
So we're still getting that.
It's just a smaller survey.
Still just as many people being surveyed, but just fewer questions.
(22:36):
Absolutely.
It's easy to get through.
Yeah, that's it.
So you know, we'll just finish off the year with that.
And so why is it shorter than the biannual version?
Yeah, because we just want to be able to, we don't want to crowd people.
We don't want to overwhelm people.
We just want to be able to get that information when required.
(22:56):
We don't need to do it every single year and ask the same questions over and over again.
We need to get the big one, then do the small one, compare it and then compare it each year.
So after reading all the survey results of the last survey, wondering if each of you could
share with me something interesting about the results or something that might have shocked
(23:20):
you or stood out to you.
Might go with you first, Bridget.
I think the key takeaway of the thing that stood out for me the most was while we were relatively
new agency and you know, a lot of people still didn't know we existed when we undertook this
survey.
When we asked the question, is it important to have an independent federal body overseeing
(23:41):
water rules and regulations across the basin, across all categories we got overwhelming support
for an independent federal body, which is exactly what the Inspector General Water Compliance
is.
So we'll remain in business hopefully for a bit longer.
I think it's positive to show that there is a community need or a community want for this.
(24:03):
You know, with 72% of the community saying it was important, 76% of first nations and 84%
of water licence holders supporting an independent federal body.
It's pretty high.
Yeah, it is.
And it is a strong support for the role that we play.
And as Rachel said, you know, with the survey this year, we hopefully see an increase in
(24:24):
the number of people who know who we are and what we do.
What about you, Rachel?
Yeah, thanks, Annabelle.
We're the interesting thing that I found was of those who had a heard of the basin or identified
as living in it and know they live in it.
Only 6% were able to identify all of the states that are in the basin and territory and
(24:48):
that's right.
And the ACT, being the least well-known and I grew up in the ACT.
I can honestly say when I was growing up in the ACT, I had no idea that we were in the basin
there either.
So I find that really interesting.
I actually didn't know that the ACT was in the basin until I started working here.
(25:10):
So it goes to show, I mean, it's obviously in comparison to the other basin states.
Absolutely.
It's quite a small water user in the scheme of things, but that doesn't mean it's not part
of the basin for sure.
And the largest city in the basin.
Most densely populated.
So if people want to participate, or can people even participate in the next survey?
(25:33):
So part of the methodology behind this survey is that the people we survey must be indicative
of the population in the basin.
So using the Australian Bureau of Statistics data, there is a really strong methodology
of both qualitative and quantitative processes that we undertake to ensure that the results
we get are reflective of the population in the basin.
(25:54):
So there's a lot of work we put into that, but unfortunately that means it's not open
for the general public because people who are generally interested in water are more likely
than to fill out the survey, which can skew our data.
And would skew the data from us knowing how many people know they live in the basin, or
the work we have to do to make sure people understand the role that the basin plays.
So no, the survey is closed to the general public.
(26:18):
But certainly if you've got any questions, feel free to reach out to us or come and see us
at the field days, or reach out through our phone number.
Our phone number, which is 1,3RGWC or 134492.
Well, thank you, Bridget and Rachel, for your first ever appearance on water's edge.
I'm sure there will be plenty more to come and we'll have to wrap up the next survey.
(26:41):
But as always, for anyone listening, if you want to find any of the work that we do at
the Inspector General of Water Compliance, including our annual community sentiment survey results,
you can find that on the publications page of our website.
That's igwc.gov.au.
And you can also get in touch with us by our phone, as I mentioned before, on 1,3RGWC.
(27:03):
That's 134492.
Thank you so much, Rachel and Bridget, for joining us.
Thanks, Annabelle.
Annabelle.
Water's edge is produced by the Inspector General of Water Compliance, Australian Government
Camera.
For more information, visit www.igwc.gov.au.
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