Sciences & Technology
Always was and always will be Aboriginal water
‘The fundamental and inherent rights of First Peoples to water’
The need for major water reform in Victoria and Australia is clear – and Traditional Owners should be at its heart
Published 28 August 2025
In the aftermath of both world wars, Victoria’s Soldier Settlement Scheme provided land to thousands of returning soldiers. It was an initiative intended to recognise their service and to aid in their return to civilian life.
In regions like the Mallee and the Goulburn Valley, where irrigation was crucial, water entitlements were often included with the land parcels.
These allocations meant settlers could engage in more intensive and profitable farming.
Aboriginal veterans, despite fighting for their country, were almost completely excluded from the soldier settler schemes.
As documented by the Public Record Office Victoria and SBS NITV, only two Aboriginal men – Percy Pepper and George Winter McDonald – received soldier settler land. The rest returned to a country that denied them the opportunities given to others.
The denial of land and associated water rights to Aboriginal veterans in Victoria was just one instance in two centuries of injustice. Another came in the 1990s.
As part of the National Competition Policy, water rights were separated from the land and turned into a tradable, financialised commodity. The water market reforms failed to take into account all the values and rights that water serves.
Aboriginal voices in particular were once again left out. This double exclusion – first from land and then from water markets – entrenched disadvantage and had long-term consequences.
In our book Sold Down the River, on the Murray-Darling Basin water market, we interviewed Gunditjmara man, Damein Bell, about water and the World Heritage-listed Budj Bim complex.
This lava-flow landscape contains one of the world’s oldest known aquaculture networks.
In 2010, a 70-metre-long weir wall (with a ‘fish ladder’ for eels and fish) was completed to fill the lake of Budj Bim.
Damein Bell said at the time:
“The government was really good working with us, in how we wanted things done in regard to the hydrology, the digital landscaping, but each time you sort of had this man come down and he said, ‘Well, how are you going to work out your water allocation?’ So, we would say, ‘Well, we will get them from our ancestors. Where do you get yours from?’ And he sort of scuttled away.”
Recent discussions, including those from Victoria’s first formal truth‑telling inquiry, the Yoorrook Justice Commission, have highlighted these historical injustices, prompting calls for recognition and redress.
In the Commission’s final report, water was prominent.
The Commission found that between 2010 and 2023, Victoria had generated over $AU83 billion from water-related activities – and not one cent of that wealth was shared with Traditional Owners.
The Gunditjmara people have long advocated for the recognition and return of water rights linked to their ancient aquaculture system at Budj Bim.
In recent years, the Victorian Government supported efforts to include that invaluable site on the UNESCO World Heritage List and committed limited environmental water flows to help manage and sustain the system.
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However, as noted in the Yoorrook report, these allocations have not yet returned meaningful rights or economic benefit for Indigenous people.
Uncle Denis Rose and the Gunditjmara continue to campaign for direct entitlements that allow for autonomous management and use.
The Commission concluded that the doctrine of terra nullius – and its water equivalent, aqua nullius – was a central idea in Victoria’s current water law and governance.
Three of the report’s 146 recommendations relate to water as the heart of Victoria’s cultural, environmental and economic landscape.
The first of those recommendations called on the Victorian Government to formally recognise the fundamental and inherent rights of First Peoples to water.
The next called for a new legal and institutional framework for shared water governance between the Crown and Traditional Owners.
And the third called for immediate negotiations to ensure Traditional Owners receive a fair and proportionate share of the state’s water wealth, including entitlements and income streams.
Water justice in Victoria has small precedents and big opportunities.
In 2022, the Victorian Government allocated two gigalitres of water to the Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation (GLaWAC) in Gippsland.
The water, designated for cultural flows, was seen as a modest beginning. But the response from First Nations leaders was clear: it’s not enough.
The allocation, while symbolically significant, came without a commercial entitlement and no direct input into broader governance or planning.
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As of 2025, GLaWAC has used the allocation to support wetlands restoration and community engagement – but the scale of need far exceeds what was given.
In East Gippsland, GLaWAC is trialling something extraordinary: the farming of Sydney rock oysters in the Gippsland Lakes. Partnering with the Victorian Fisheries Authority, the initiative aims to create jobs, revive Country and reconnect community with the water.
The project uses traditional knowledge and modern aquaculture methods to produce native shellfish for local and commercial use.
It is the first Aboriginal-led oyster farming project in the region – and a powerful symbol of resilience, adaptation and renewal. This example of enterprise grounded in culture is a potential foretaste of future water justice.
As Victoria moves towards treaty, water must be on the table. This means more than consultation – it means real entitlements, the capacity to trade and invest and a seat at the governance table.
And opportunity is knocking. Coal-fired power stations like Yallourn and Loy Yang are shutting down. Their decommissioning frees up tens of gigalitres of high-reliability water – entitlements that could and should be returned to Traditional Owners.
There is already a precedent for returning power station water to Traditional Owners.
The Latrobe 3-4 Bench Bulk Water Entitlement, originally allocated 25 gigalitres in 1996 for proposed expansions of the Loy Yang power stations, has been partially reallocated.
In 2024, 16 gigalitres of this entitlement was redistributed to support agriculture, environmental flows and Traditional Owner cultural uses in the Gippsland region.
Water is essential to life, culture and justice.
But as the Yoorrook Commission has shown, the current institutional arrangements are not delivering on the range of cultural values inherent in water.
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This is part of a larger failure in which the water policy framework has not delivered on non-economic values.
As a result, water is wasted and misdirected; and riverbank damage, cold water pollution and mass fish-kills have increased.
The need for a further wave of major water reform in Victoria and Australia is clear.
The Yoorrook Commission’s report should be a catalyst for a reform program – and water justice for Indigenous communities should be at the program’s heart.
Associate Professor Hamilton and Professor Kells co-authored the book, A Better Australia: Politics, public policy and how to achieve lasting reform, with John Brumby.