Community confidence and trust

The department has reviewed and updated its water stakeholder and community engagement policy. The purpose of the policy is to embed a transparent and consistent approach for the department to engage with stakeholders by identifying strategic principles to underpin engagement activities. The policy statement principles are:

• Purposeful: Engagement activities are to deliver on the NSW Government priorities and the department’s corporate goals and be undertaken with a clear understanding of what we want to achieve.
• Inclusive: The department will identify and enable the participation of all relevant stakeholders.
• Timely: The department will provide sufficient time for meaningful consultation, outline timeframes up front and conduct engagement activities in an efficient manner.
• Transparent: The department will explain the engagement process, provide information to enable meaningful participation and set clear expectations around how participants’ input will inform outcomes. To ensure transparency consultation plans and schedules of stakeholder engagement activities will be published on relevant department websites.
• Respectful: Engagement activities will acknowledge the needs, experience, perspective and expertise of participants.

In line with the policy principles, the department launched a new ‘Have your say’ section on the website to make it easier for people to find out about consultations and information events. The ‘Have your say’ page is updated with opportunities to hear from and meet with our stakeholders.  This webpage is supported by the monthly Water Engagement Roundup webinar providing updates on current consultation and engagement activities and discussions on key water topics.  Participation in the webinar is open to all interested stakeholders.

Additionally, the water libraries section on the website provides various resources about water management in NSW. This includes reports, newsletters, presentations, webinars, videos, and fact sheets covering a range of topics in water management. It also features an annual list of all past engagement activities.

Feedback from engagement activities, such as the engagement for regional water strategies, review of domestic and stock basic landholder rights, listening tours for floodplain management planning, metering information sessions to support a review of non-urban water metering policy, and key stakeholder updates for water infrastructure projects, continue to inform water strategy and policy directions.

During the reporting period, over 60 face-to-face public engagement activities were conducted across the state. Additionally, 10 What We Heard Reports summarising feedback received from these consultations were published. Regular and ongoing discussions were held with landholders and Aboriginal communities to develop water infrastructure projects. Insights from these engagement activities were gathered from a range of stakeholders, including water users, Aboriginal groups, environmental groups, water sector agencies, interested groups, and members of the general community.

The department is dedicated to increasing transparency in the water sector by making our data, models, information products and publications open to the public. We believe all water data in NSW, gathered from both public and private sources, should be considered ‘open data’ by default.

Supporting the open data framework are information guidelines setting out principles for how we will implement ‘open by default’ data. Implementation of the open data framework and release of data is managed by a Publication, Disclosure and Open Data Committee, ensuring that data is released appropriately. There is a target to achieve a quarterly growth rate of 5% in the number of newly released open datasets. Performance against the target is monitored by the committee and reviewed annually.

A range of data sets and systems are available on the website including environmental data, modelling, and monitoring information.

Environmental data is made available through the Sharing and Enabling Environmental Data (SEED) portal.  The department’s Water Group currently has over 100 datasets available through SEED, with the most recent being the Hunter Valley Flood Mitigation Scheme - Historical Assets. For many years, this database of historical files contains records such as flood heights, surveys and detailed engineering drawings. These documents provide insights about how often flood occur and their impacts on transport and property assets. This dataset will help inform planning and policy decisions for land and water management in the Hunter Valley region.

Also, now available through SEED are:

• the regional water strategy spatial data sets that show new climate data and modelling to provide a more accurate picture of extreme climate events
• a new river condition Index that includes information that monitors the environmental health of rivers and river flows to provide assurance of the effectiveness of water management policies.

The NSW Government recognises the importance of simplifying processes to ensure that customer interactions with the government are hassle free. This includes simplifying the process to obtain or manage water licences and approvals by bringing these functions together in one place. Centralising this process reduces the number of involved agencies, making the system more accessible and user-friendly. Ongoing reforms are underway to improve the water licencing system, ensuring streamlined and efficient processes for both customers and the water sector.

The department has a customer enquiries line that operates using a ‘no wrong door’ principle. The team manage multi-faceted issues requiring coordination across agencies, making it easier for customers to access information.

To build community confidence in how the state’s water is managed, the NSW Government is reviewing the non-urban metering framework to ensure robustness and to check progress made.

The framework commenced in 2018 to measure and meter non-urban water take. Over the last 5 years, it has been rolled out in different stages.

While there is overwhelming support for non-urban metering, reporting data indicated a slow uptake of metering, a need to remove barriers to implementation and the need to strengthen compliance. More than 90% of large water users with surface water pumps larger than 500 mm have accurate, tamper-proof meters in place. However, thousands of smaller water users do not. There are valid reasons why metering obligations are not being met by some water users. Record breaking floods, market barriers around access to certified meter installers and validators, supply chain issues created by the pandemic and prescriptive requirements, have created obstacles.

In response to the slow progress, the department, in collaboration with WaterNSW and the Natural Resources Access Regulator, has brought forward a review of the framework to identify what is and isn’t working and how the rules can be improved to make it quicker and easier for water users to comply. Consultation on proposed options that remove barriers to compliance has been announced with consultation activities occurring in 2023.

To support a resilient liveable Western Sydney, the NSW Government has committed to opening Prospect Reservoir for recreational activities. The department has developed a discussion paper outlining recreational possibilities and consultation on options was undertaken. Feedback from the consultation will inform the development of a feasibility study.