More water than needed Review seeks transparency but no licence revocations

FORMER Country Liberal Party candidate Tina Macfarlane was granted a water licence larger than her property, Stylo Station, ever would have needed, an independent review has found.

The review of water licences and policies around licences was released yesterday, after it was commissioned by the Labor Government earlier this year.

The review of the Stylo Station licence found “the quantity allocated (could not) in fact physically be taken by the applicant under its current bores, and that even if seven new bores (were) constructed by the licensee, they would need to run 24 hours per day, yielding at least 60L/sec, in order to take the full amount”.

“Given these constraints, it is unclear on what basis it was appropriate to allocate such a large quantity, for a 10-year period, to the applicant,” the report stated.

Ms Macfarlane initially applied for a water licence in 2005, to extract 5000ML of water each year from the Tindall Limestone Aquifer in Mataranka for her 9500ha property. However, this application was denied, despite multiple reviews and a Supreme Court challenge.

The Macfarlanes were approved for a water licence in 2013, after the former CLP government came to power. This licence permits the station to extract up to 5800 megalitres of water per year for a decade, a yearly equivalent to 2500 Olympic swimming pools, and gives the station five times more water than what is drawn by all other users in the district.

The property, and water licence, has since been sold for a reported $5.5 million.

Despite the criticism the former government faced for granting the licence, the report found there was “no suggestion of ministerial interference or ministerial intervention”.

The review also found there were no grounds for the government to revoke licences.

Instead, it recommended decision-making processes be made more transparent with checklists and paperwork.

Chief Minister Michael Gunner said about half of the report’s recommendations had already been implemented and committed a further $1.8 million in the next financial year to work on the rest.

“To make sure that Territorians have confidence in how we deal with water, we have increased significantly the resources towards the water department and we will completely reform and modernise the Water Act in the NT,” he said. “It’s important ... we draw a line in the sand, we provide certainty to what’s been done, but there are significant reforms we can make so that this process is significantly better going forward.”