The course examines the political, economic, social and environmental factors shaping a range of major controversies and unresolved policy questions relevant to Australian water policy. The course deals with issues involving rural and urban systems in both southern and northern Australia.

The course would apply analysis draw from a wide range of disciplines to a series of case studies. To link them it would use the framework provided by the National Water Initiative (NWI) and the policy and legislation stemming from it. This would include the Living Murray and the Water Act 2007. The NWI - with its major themes, strengths, faults and glaring omissions - brings together most of the major unresolved issues confronting Australian water policy in the early twenty first century.

The policies contained in the NWI provide evidence of pressure from many directions. Some parts of the NWI, for example, show a determined attempt to ensure that policy, planning and management take full account of climate variability but other sections undermine that priority by concessions to ease the pain for water entitlement holders in over-allocated catchments. The contradictory ways in which climate change is treated in the NWI reveals much about the tensions within Australian water policy.

The NWI would also provide a good starting for an examination of the role of governments and their responsibility for mediating risk in contemporary society. Another course theme would focus on the use of water markets to achieve public policy goals. How does the NWI require these water markets to be designed and why? To what extent will their potential efficiency be compromised in order to meet other policy priorities reflecting, say, social and environmental values? What are the historical factors and cultural assumptions that shape the public debate about these conflicting goals?        

In the same way the NWI and the policies and legislation based upon it illuminate many aspects of the Australian federal system. Similarly, the sections that mandate a high priority for Indigenous concerns (which have proved very difficult to implement) would be a useful starting point for discussions about the place of Indigenous people in Australian society and the efficacy or otherwise of the options being considered to right past wrongs.    

• Major essay 40%.  Participants will select topics from the list that will be proposed or they can develop their own in consultation with the course coordinators.
  
  
• Exam 30%.  Students will be required to answer a number of short essay questions designed to test their knowledge of the main issues involved in the five subjects listed in the course objectives.
  
  
• Class presentation 20%.  Subjects can be selected from the list supplied or developed in consultation with the course coordinators
  
  
• Participation 10%.  In addition to general participation each student will be required to respond to one of the class presentations.  

Hussey K, & Dovers S, 2007, Managing water for Australia - the social and economic challenges, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne.

Connell D, 2007, Water politics in the Murray-Darling Basin, Federation Press, Sydney.

Productivity Commission, 2006 August, Rural water use and the environment: the role of market mechanisms, Research Report, Melbourne.

Productivity Commission, 2008 March, Towards Urban Water Reform, A Discussion Paper, Productivity Commission Research Paper, Melbourne.