Auditor General lashes State Government’s understaffed water wing for failure to patrol trillions of litres

The first direct audit of the State’s water regulator in 16 years has found the department is undertrained, understaffed and not doing “anywhere near enough” to enforce protections of WA’s most important resource. The assessment by the Office of the Auditor General into the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation made the concerning finding that 12,000 water licences, allowing the extraction 4 trillion litres of water each year, were not being monitored effectively. The report — which was helmed by Auditor General Caroline Spencer and examined three years of operations in the Department — revealed 87 per cent of possible non-compliance incidents were never assigned to a staff member. It identified a “shift away” from activities that gave DWER new information to work with, in favour of checking a licence holder’s previous compliance when up for renewal. Staff shortages meant DWER’s on-ground inspections were down 67 per cent during the three-year period, from 425 a year to 142 in 2023-2024. But so too were desktop inspections, falling 71 per cent from 642 to 189 during the same period. Ms Spencer was scathing of the Department, saying it “cannot be confident” that the State’s water licence holders were being appropriately monitored for breaches. Any business, council or organisation that wants to extract water from ground or surface water in Western Australia requires a licence. “This audit shows that DWER is not doing anywhere near enough to adequately protect our water resources, with compliance activities in recent years reactive and ad hoc,” Ms Spencer said. The Auditor General said there was “no effective guidance” to help staff assess potential breaches, and that most were relying on peers for support or advice. The report counted DWER as having only seven dedicated compliance officers. It comes after the State Government revealed to the The West Australian it planned to spend $4.5 million over the next three years to hire 11 more full time positions at DWER. Another five staff will be recruited to the State’s Solicitor’s Office to handle water planning in the Pilbara. “This investment in the Pilbara reflects our Government’s commitment to water investigations and water planning to support long-term growth and climate resilience in regional WA,” Water Minister Don Punch said. A DWER spokeswoman said the department accepted the findings of the report and recognised its approach to water compliance needed improvement. She said a new “water assurance division” had been established to manage the issues to develop a new operating framework and improve procedures. “Since June 2024 there has been an increase in enforcement activity, including the issuing of daily penalty notices, which has resulted in a significant fine for water assurance enforcement activities in the current financial year. About 78 per cent of all water in WA comes from groundwater aquifers which rely on rainfall to recharge. The mining industry was allocated the largest proportion of water in 2023-2024, extracting 45 per cent, according to data compiled by the Office of the Auditor General. Concerns over water usage in the Pilbara have become increasingly prevalent. Earlier this year Robe River Kuruma Aboriginal Corporation argued Rio Tinto’s abstraction of between six gigalitres and seven gigalitres a year was unsustainable. Rio is building a $395 million desalination plant that would ease the strain on Pilbara water sources, with iron ore chief Simon Trott telling an annual general meeting in May the plant would be would be ready to turn on next year, reducing the strain by about 4 gigalitres. Agriculture was second biggest water user at 16 per cent, followed by public water scheme supply (drinking water) at 13 per cent and irrigation schemes at 10 per cent.