CANBERRA—The Australian Greens have called on the Federal Government to explain why the CSIRO was not invited to take part in its audit of the Murray Darling Basin.
CSIRO scientist Bill Young today told a Senate inquiry into water availability in the basin that the national science agency was not involved in the audit.
"I have no information other than what I've heard in this hearing this morning about the terms of reference for that audit," said Dr Young, principal research scientist in the land and water division.
The Greens, who initiated the inquiry, said it was astounding that CSIRO would not be a part of the analytic work.
"We found out first off that the so-called independent audit is not in fact being carried out independently, it's been carried out by the Murray Darling Basin Commission, and the methodology itself it will then be audited," Greens water spokeswoman Rachel Siewert told reporters in Canberra.
"But more importantly we also discovered that CSIRO - who have just carried out the most comprehensive sustainability yield analysis of the Murray Darling Basin - was not even asked to provide any modelling of whether water is available and can be delivered to the Coorong."
The Coorong is among bodies of water in South Australia threatened by the crisis in the Murray-Darling.
"Why didn't the Government ask CSIRO, which is our foremost scientific body in this country - who has just spent 18 months doing the most in-depth analysis on modelling in the Murray Darling Basin - why did they not ask them to model whether water was available in the system?" Senator Siewert said.
Fellow Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young took issue with the Government's submission to the inquiry, which talks about the difficulty of transporting water downstream because of transmission losses.
"And yet we find out today they haven't even asked the experts who know that the transmission losses are significant enough to make an impact, so they're making assumptions about the options to put forward," Senator Hanson-Young said.
The whole idea of the inquiry was to get "the numbers on the table", she said.
"We know that there is some water in the system.
"What we need to be figuring out is how we can access it and how we can transfer it.
"What we've found out today is that the experts to tell us that have not even been consulted by the minister's own department."
Senator Siewert quoted CSIRO water specialist Tom Hatton as saying the agency could do modelling "within weeks" if it was supplied with the audit data.
The Rural, Regional Affairs and Transport Committee is expected to report back to the Senate on its findings by September 30.