McKay, J. (2006).
Issues for CEOs of Water Utilities with the Implementation of Australian Water Laws. Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education
.
, pp115-130.
 |
Abstract/Summary
The Australian Government has embarked on two phases of ambitious reform of state laws and policies for water management. The first in 1994 was known as Council of Australian Government reforms (CoAG) and the second in 2004 is known as the National Water Initiative reforms. These were prompted by a number of domestic environmental and social issues and international processes targeted at reducing government activity in water management. The first set required massive changes to water governance that is separating functions into environmental, economic, and water supplier and also requiring Environmentally Sustainable Development (ESD) and integration in all water development proposals. The second phase extends the first but is much more prescriptive and sets out 80 goals that water supply businesses and state governments must encourage rural and urban communities to achieve.
This paper presents empirical data of the results of telephone interviews with 183 Chief Executive Officers of the major water supply businesses in Australia. These respondents are highly educated and experienced business professionals. Bearing this in mind, the instrument designed for them required sophisticated responses to approximately 100 questions about Environmentally Sustainable Development, integration, and other issues about water policy changes under CoAG and to a lesser extent the National Water Initiative. The interviews were conducted between late September 2005 and late January 2006. This paper will report on responses to questions about integration and Environmentally Sustainable Development in water policy. For the Environmentally Sustainable Development questions, respondents were simultaneously emailed response sets so they could provide their view of the rank or order of the specified issues.
|
URL
http://www.ucowr.siu.edu/updates/135/14.pdf |
Project
1.06 - An evaluation of the Corporate Governance arrangements of Australian Irrigation Water Providers |
