Water colonialism and Indigenous water justice in south-eastern Australia

Abstract

Political theorists argue that justice for cultural groups must account for socioeconomic distribution, political representation and cultural recognition. Combining this tripartite justice framework with settler colonial theory, we analyse novel data sets relating to Aboriginal peoples' water experiences in south-eastern Australia. We construe persistent injustices as 'water colonialism', showing that the development of Australia's water resources has so far delivered little economic benefit to Aboriginal peoples, who remain marginalized from decision-making. We argue that justice theories need to encompass a fourth dimension -the vitally important socio-ecological realm -if they are to serve as conceptual resources for advancing Indigenous peoples' rights and needs.

Benchmarking Indigenous water holdings in the Murray-Darling Basin: a crucial step towards developing water rights targets for Australia

“…The need to develop such a nation-wide consistent measure should not, however, restrict or delay commitments by governments to increase the Indigenous share of water interests in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, for example. Indeed, this is something that Indigenous peoples have long been calling for (Hartwig et al 2021;Jackson 2017;Marshall 2017;O'Donnell, Godden, and O'Bryan 2021).…”

“…Second, most of the water access through regulated entitlements occurs through comparatively less reliable or secure entitlements which are, perhaps, of lower market value, particularly in NSW. These conditions likely affect how Indigenous entities can use and benefit from their water and their land (Hartwig et al 2021;O'Donnell, Godden, and O'Bryan 2021). Reliability is only likely to worsen with a drying climate and the associated implications for water availability and access (Interim Inspector-General of MDB Water Resources 2020).…”

“…Our recent research from NSW demonstrates the need to have a clear grasp of trends in water holding patterns, population geography, the causes of inequalities in water rights, as well as the policy infrastructure to implement and monitor change over time (see Hartwig, Jackson, and Osborne 2020;Hartwig et al 2021). To date, however, Australian governments have not quantified Indigenous water holdings or established uniform standards for progressing or evaluating policy change.…”

“…Given the complexity of water governance arrangements in the MDB, ensuring that up-to-date and accurate data is collected both about Indigenous-held water entitlements and the communities that hold them is critical. Understanding the distribution of water entitlements between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is a first step towards reparations for Indigenous water dispossession (see Hartwig et al 2021).…”

Indigenous water knowledge and values in an Australasian context

“…Indigenous people from the region continue to struggle with colonial settler water laws that are written to benefit the settler states (Hartwig et al 2021;Berry et al 2018) and the dispossession of water that this has generated. There is a movement that has enabled the Indigenous water voice along with the granting of legal rights to rivers in several areas to emerge, from localised to across the region, and the listening to those voices has been slow and the actions even slower.…”