{"id":821448,"date":"2026-11-02T05:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T05:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/821448\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T05:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T05:54:13","slug":"northern-territory-water-plan-condemned-as-blatant-and-shameless-attack-on-nature-northern-territory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/821448\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Territory water plan condemned as \u2018blatant and shameless\u2019 attack on nature | Northern Territory"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Northern Territory<\/a> government has been accused of making a \u201cblatant and shameless\u201d attack on nature by planning to delete a legal requirement that water must be allocated to the environment.<\/p>\n

In what has been described as the latest in a series of attacks on the environment by the NT\u2019s Country Liberal party, the Finocchiaro government plans to change water rules that govern how much ground and surface water industry can take.<\/p>\n

It comes as the government plans a major expansion of fracking<\/a>, datacentres and agricultural development.<\/p>\n

The Wilderness Society\u2019s chief executive, Kirsty Howey, said the latest move was \u201cextreme even for the NT CLP government\u201d. She called on the federal environment minister, Murray Watt, to withhold commonwealth water funding if the bill passed.<\/p>\n

The Central Land Council, which represents Indigenous people in the southern half of the NT, said the territory government was trying to \u201ccovertly\u201d remove the last remaining protections Territorians had in the use and management of water.<\/p>\n

The council\u2019s chief executive, Les Turner, said: \u201cIt is actively undermining community aspirations for improved and transparent water planning laws. This flies in the face of national trends and ignores the voices of Aboriginal people from across the NT.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turner said it was \u201cclearer than ever\u201d that the federal government needed to strengthen its powers to intervene on projects that affected water and aquatic ecosystems.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn August, the high court quashed the NT government\u2019s decision<\/a> to grant the Singleton Station licence because they found it had been unlawfully granted,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way the law is now, we wouldn\u2019t have been able to support native title holders to challenge the merits of such a licence in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is especially troubling when we might be faced with future high-water-consuming developments like datacentres looking to take advantage of lax regulations and free water.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposed changes would scrap a legal requirement that water allocation plans set aside water for the environment to maintain rivers, springs, wetlands and water-dependent ecosystems. They are part of a larger package that would also make changes to marine pollution, heritage and mining legislation.<\/p>\n

Other planned changes include removing a rule that total water use by industry remains below a limit set in each water allocation plan, and another that requires water resource management to comply with water allocation plans.<\/p>\n

Environment groups said the bill would also weaken the definition of \u201cestimated sustainable yield\u201d, which is the amount of water that may be taken or used from a water resource.<\/p>\n

Howey said the government risked trading the territory\u2019s aquifers and rivers for \u201cshort-term gain and profiteering\u201d by the gas, agriculture and tech industries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so blatant and shameless to literally be deleting the environment\u2019s water allocation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scant safeguards that did exist \u2013 and they were threadbare \u2013 have just been ripped up altogether. They\u2019re not even pretending any more that they\u2019ve got an interest in protecting these places.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

The NT environment minister, Joshua Burgoyne, denied the bill dismantled environmental safeguards. He said the territory\u2019s \u201ccore framework\u201d of environment-related laws \u2013 including those relating to environmental assessments and approvals, mining licences, pollution control, water allocation planning and heritage protection \u2013 remained.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur government remains focused on facts, not the fearmongering tactics of environmental lobby groups,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The bill before the NT parliament follows a raft of earlier changes <\/a>that have dismantled environment and climate protections since the CLP won government.<\/p>\n

They include scrapping the NT\u2019s renewable energy target, abandoning a promise to implement an emissions reduction target of 43% by 2030, and creating a territory coordinator role within the bureaucracy with the power to override 32 territory laws to fast-track developments.<\/p>\n

Bree Ahrens, the executive director of the Environment Centre NT, said the proposal to rewrite water rules puts the needs of industry above nature. \u201cThis is a smash and grab bill that puts water and nature last,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ahrens called on the Albanese government to rule out handing federal assessment and decision-making powers under national nature laws to \u201can increasingly rogue NT government that is dismantling water safeguards\u201d.<\/p>\n

After changes to Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation<\/a> (EPBC) Act last year, the federal government can transfer its decision-making powers about whether or not a development can proceed to state and territory governments.<\/p>\n

Watt declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Burgoyne said the NT government had \u201ca track record of protecting the environment, such as extending the Limmen Bight marine park<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe support responsible development, effective environmental and water regulation, and continuing our work to rebuild the economy and restore our unique Territory lifestyle,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Northern Territory government has been accused of making a \u201cblatant and shameless\u201d attack on nature by planning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":821449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-821448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}