The long-awaited Water Security Plan outlines the Victorian Government's strategy to address water scarcity in Greater Melbourne, Geelong and connected towns, driven by rapid population growth and climate change. It acknowledges declining rainfall and increasing demand on the South-Central Water Grid, necessitating action to prevent severe water restrictions. The plan completes Action 9.2 from the Central and Gippsland Region Sustainable Water Strategy (CGRSWS).
From the perspective of the Concerned Waterways Alliance, a key strength of the plan is its explicit recognition that new water supplies must not place further demand on our already flow-stressed rivers. The plan clearly states that options such as building new dams or increasing water harvesting from existing ones are not viable. There is no spare water in the vast majority of our rivers, and such actions would only worsen their already degraded condition.
The plan acknowledges what river advocates across the state are all too aware, that the past summer in Victoria was the driest since 2013–14 and the fourth warmest since 1910, with waterways struggling to cope.
Figure 1: Rare winter outbreak of Azola in a refuge pool in the lower Moorabool River
Consequently, consumption levels rose by 5.5% in Melbourne and a staggering 14% in the Geelong region over the last water year, even as long-term inflows into storages dropped by 17% due to a shifting climate. Adding to this pressure is the forecast 800,000 new homes planned for Victoria in the next 10 years, demanding an extra 95 GL of water per annum.
The plan seeks to ensure access to “reliable, high-quality water” at an affordable price while supporting “prosperity and wellbeing”. It highlights the question of securing supply to sustain emerging industries, such as data centres, while also enabling the return of much needed water to the environment and to Traditional Owners.
Given the commitments in the CGRSWS to restoring environmental flows to some of the most flow-stressed systems in the region, this is encouraging, and the government deserves credit for maintaining consistent policy on the need for restorative justice for our struggling waterways.
The plan discusses the following potential water supply options:
- Desalination – Wonthaggi expansion
- Desalination – new site
- Non-drinking use of recycled water and stormwater reuse (integrated water management)
- Water efficiency
- Purified recycled water or stormwater (for supplementation of rivers, groundwater or reservoirs)
- North–south pipeline
Disappointingly, the Victorian Government states it is “not contemplating any options that involve direct injection of this purified water into town water supply pipes.” However, apparent support for purified recycled water to be “shandied” with natural water in some reservoirs is a welcome step forward.
It must be acknowledged that a strong positive in the plan is the government’s universal acceptance that the region’s water future lies in climate-independent sources in keeping with both the CGRSWS and Infrastructure Victoria’s draft 30-year strategy. This gives organisations like Barwon Water the green light to develop a business case for a second desalination plant west of Melbourne as well as purified recycled water opportunities. Such plans must reduce reliance on surface and groundwater water extraction, and create pathways for returning environmental water to stressed rivers of the region, as envisaged in the CGRSWS.
The Concerned Waterways Alliance has been advocating for a more aggressive pursuit of IWM and water efficiency measures to maximize the amount of water that can be left in or returned to rivers, and we fully support the plan’s statement that:
“Increasing water efficiency, making the best use of all water sources through integrated water management, investigating purified recycled water or stormwater, and additional desalination capacity, diversifies our water sources and will allow Victoria to reduce the reliance on river water for urban supplies across the connected South-Central region.”
However, it will take an explicit commitment to ensure that each new water augmentation delivers a measurable reduction in the pressure placed on our waterways, many of which are already heavily over-extracted.
Urgent Gaps and Priorities
While the plan provides a sound strategic framework, it lacks critical detail on timelines and urgent works. One area of concern is the absence of a clear pathway to secure high-quality, drought-resilient supplies for the rapidly growing western and north-western suburbs of Melbourne. Local supply systems in these districts are already under significant strain. They rely on small storages and limited distribution networks that provide poorer water quality and little capacity to withstand dry periods. Unlike areas connected to the Melbourne Water Grid, these systems lack the resilience and flexibility to cope with the pressures of population growth.
This vulnerability is particularly acute in communities dependent on the Werribee and Maribyrnong River systems for supply. Both systems are already severely flow-stressed, and ongoing over-extraction threatens habitats and the survival of platypus populations. Environmental water must be urgently restored, yet this will only be possible through stronger interconnections with the Melbourne Water Grid. Neither a second desalination plant nor treated effluent supplementation alone can adequately meet this need.
To reduce the risk of failure during drought, the implementation of the plan must set clear commitments to expand grid connections into the Macedon Ranges and the Western Growth Corridor, relieving the unsustainable pressure currently placed on the Lerderderg, Goodman and Pyrites systems. Equally important is renewed investment to re-establish headwater stream connectivity, beginning with Jacksons and Riddells Creek and the Bolinda and Emu Creek systems, and to deliver the long- promised 7GL in environmental flows for the Maribyrnong system.
Other areas that need strengthening
There are several areas where the plan requires firmer grounding. It is not evident whether modelling fully incorporates the government’s commitments under the Central and Gippsland Sustainable Water Strategy to return water to the environment. If excluded, the forecasts underestimate the true volume of additional supply required. Planning must be explicit in accounting for these recovery targets.
Similarly, the plan’s framing of affordability requires careful reappraisal. The aspiration to maintain “some of the lowest water bills in the country” will be viewed as a positive but shouldn’t come at the expense of long-term resilience. Affordability must be balanced with sustainability and intergenerational equity, ensuring the true costs of maintaining infrastructure, securing supply and protecting rivers are met without leaving a legacy of underinvestment. The UK water sector offers a warning: years of constrained pricing and under-investment have left many assets degraded, and now customers face sharply higher costs to address the deferred maintenance and resilience deficits. A more constructive framing would be to pursue fair and sustainable pricing rather than simply the lowest price.
Bipartisan Opportunity
Finally, we welcome the inclusion of both sides of politics in Lisa Neville and Peter Walsh being part of the Water Security Taskforce. It provides an opportunity for a genuinely bipartisan approach led by two respected figures with deep experience in water policy. Such leadership recognises that our water future, including the fate of our rivers, requires a united approach.
Conclusion
The Water Security Plan sets out a credible and forward-looking framework that rightly recognises the limits of Victoria’s rivers and the imperative to build a climate-independent water future. Its rejection of new or expanded river harvesting is a critical affirmation that healthy waterways must not be further sacrificed to meet urban growth. The plan’s emphasis on desalination, purified recycled water, stormwater reuse and efficiency measures is both pragmatic and necessary, and it provides a clear pathway to reduce pressure on overstressed catchments while meeting the needs of a rapidly growing population.
Yet ambition must be matched by action. Without urgent measures to secure resilient supplies for Melbourne’s western and north-western growth areas, and without clear commitments to restore flows to the Werribee, Maribyrnong and other rivers of the region, the risks of failure under drought conditions remain high. The Concerned Waterways Alliance urges the Victorian Government to turn planning principles into binding commitments: every augmentation of supply should be tied to measurable reductions in river extractions, easing the pressure and supporting our rivers as the living entities they are. Only by coupling new, climate-independent sources with enforceable outcomes for environmental flows can the State honour the restorative intent of the Central and Gippsland Sustainable Water Strategy and safeguard the long-term health of our rivers and the communities that depend on them.