November 2025
The Concerned Waterways Alliance has released its first Victorian Budget Submission, marking an important milestone in the Alliance’s growing policy and advocacy work. This inaugural submission represents the collective knowledge of community advocates, scientists, and local waterway groups across southern Victoria. It also hopefully begins a process of deeper engagement with Treasury, water corporations and government agencies, one that will enable the CWA to deliver increasingly focused, data-driven and strategically aligned submissions in future years.
Our waterways are entering a period of profound vulnerability. Reduced inflows, intensifying climate extremes, over-extraction, ageing infrastructure and escalating urban growth are placing unprecedented pressure on rivers, creeks, wetlands and groundwater systems. These stresses are now outpacing the capacity of existing programs and funding streams to maintain ecological, cultural and public-health outcomes.
In response, the CWA’s Victorian Budget 2026 submission outlines a suite of practical, high-value reforms designed to stabilise and restore waterway health in the decades ahead. Grounded in the principle of treating waterways as living, interconnected entities, and consistent with commitments made in the Central and Gippsland Region Sustainable Water Strategy, the submission highlights priority areas where targeted investment will deliver immediate and long-term benefits.
Key proposals include:
• Strengthening the Environmental Contribution Levy (ECL)
Ensuring it funds genuine waterway restoration—not business-as-usual operations—and increasing its contribution to reflect the scale of degradation.
• Delivering promised environmental water
Updating bulk entitlements so they reflect climate realities, and strengthening the financial capacity of Melbourne Water and Greater Western Water to expand and modernise the Grid.
• Reforming water tariffs
Protecting essential residential water use, improving conservation incentives, and ensuring high-demand industrial users pay a fair and appropriate share.
• Major climate-resilience initiatives
Investment in environmental flows, fish passage remediation, stormwater and IWM infrastructure, wastewater treatment plant upgrades, blue-green algae mitigation, riparian carbon projects and farm dam reform.
• Rebuilding the monitoring, compliance and water-accounting framework
Restoring ecological and water-quality monitoring, improving groundwater oversight, expanding load monitoring and publishing transparent, regular reporting.
While this is the CWA’s first Budget submission, the process of developing it has already strengthened our shared understanding of statewide waterway vulnerabilities, policy gaps and the structural pressures shaping Victoria’s water future. What we have learnt through preparing this submission will allow the Alliance to produce even more focused, technically informed, and strategically aligned budget advice in coming years.
The message is clear: investing now will prevent far greater costs later. This submission sets out responsible, evidence-based measures that protect the health of Victoria’s waterways, reduce long-term risks and support resilient communities and ecosystems.