Improving outcomes

The current water plan includes economic, social and ecological goals that we’ve set strategies to achieve. In a water plan, we call these goals ‘outcomes’.

For example, one of the economic outcomes is to support tourism in the area, by protecting water flows needed in areas such as the Gulf of Carpentaria. A strategy (or way) to achieve this outcome is to consider how much water flow is needed to maintain these areas when we allocate water entitlements.

Across Queensland there are 23 water plans with multiple outcomes. We will review how effective the Gulf water plan is at meeting the outcomes and work to standardise similar outcomes across all plans where that’s possible. That will make all water plans easier to understand and implement.

The Gulf water plan currently doesn’t include any stand-alone cultural outcomes that reflect the local Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ values, aspirations and uses of water. We will be working closely with local First Nations representatives to identify cultural values and address these by including specific cultural outcomes in the water plan.