Principal authors: Mary Maher, Jon Nevill and Peter Nichols.

Mary Maher and Associates were commissioned by the National Rivers Consortium in 1999 to examine legislation relating to river management.  An initial report was published in 2000.  The current project is in some sense a follow-up to this earlier work.  It aims to assess the legislation responsible for establishing the frameworks within which rivers are managed, partly by extending the previous analysis in a focused way, and partly through workshops with river managers and stakeholders.  The project aims to:

• determine ways in which legislation helps or hinders river management;
• gain insights about river management-related legislation in practice through a focus on experiences in a specific catchment in four Australian States (Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania);
• compare and contrast legislative frameworks between jurisdictions; and
• identify best practice legislative initiatives.

A centrepiece of the report is a model legislative framework, which identifies key components applicable to water resource legislation.  Many of these components would be critical in the development of legislation for the management of natural resources generally.

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