Melbourne Water is owned by the Victorian Government. We manage Melbourne’s water

supply catchments, remove and treat most of Melbourne’s sewage, and manage rivers and creeks and major drainage systems throughout the Port Phillip and Westernport region.

Maribyrnong Catchment Collaboration Implementation Workshop 1

Date: 23 October 2018

Time: 9.30am-1.30pm

Venue: Medway Golf Club, Maidstone

Why this workshop?

This workshop focused on:

Transitioning from Co-Design to Co-Delivery

Exploring how we each take ownership of the Catchment Program

Deciding how the catchment group wants to work together in the co-delivery phase.

Identifying projects/areas we could start to work collaboratively on

Hearing updates on other projects relevant to the collaboration

Who attended?

A total of 46 participants attended the workshop:

26 participants were external stakeholders who represented a diverse array of groups

including: councils, community groups, water authorities, the Catchment Management

Authority, EPA, VicRoads, and DELWP.

20 participants from Melbourne Water helped support the conversations and provide

catchment knowledge. These included representatives from Integrated Planning,

Regional Services, and Customer and Strategy.

Part 1: Setting the scene

Gerald FitzGibbon (General Manager, Service Delivery – Asset Management Services and

Melbourne Water sponsor for the implementation of the Strategy) opened the workshop. He

congratulated the partners on the work done to date and shared his pleasure at joining this

exciting project and community.

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Melbourne Water is owned by the Victorian Government. We manage Melbourne’s water

supply catchments, remove and treat most of Melbourne’s sewage, and manage rivers and creeks and major drainage systems throughout the Port Phillip and Westernport region.

Robert Considine (Manager, Water Services Planning at Melbourne Water) reminded

participants that there has never been a more important time for co-delivery of waterway

management activities. He thanked the workshop participants for their commitment and work

towards refreshing the Healthy Waterways Strategy over the past two years. He highlighted

many collaborative successes already achieved including:

The extension of the stormwater planning requirements to commercial, industrial,

public and multi dwelling residential developments, as recommended by the Improving

Stormwater Management Advisory Committee

The recent renaming of Bunjil Creek in Gisborne

The establishment of the Waterways of the West Ministerial Advisory Committee

Robert also invited the participants to join the upcoming consultation on Melbourne Water’s

Waterways and Drainage Investment Plan, which will start in the new year.

Participants shared their own success stories and upcoming issues for the catchment. We

heard about:

The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding by the 15 organisations committed to

the Moonee Ponds Creek collaboration

The planting of the final millionth tree at Kororoit Creek in the Grow West Program

The recent contamination of Stony Creek after the Footscray industrial fire

The sale process for the Maribyrnong Defence Site.

Part 2: Overview of updated Catchment Program

Anna Zsoldos (Program Leader, Waterways and Land, Melbourne Water) presented the

updated Co-Designed Catchment Program to the group, giving an overview of the key

elements and highlighting changes that were made to the document to improve its useability.

Anna also explained how her team at Melbourne Water had used the Catchment Program to

identify opportunities for works that support the Strategy’s performance objectives and targets

in the Jackson Creek’s catchment. She invited participants to think about how they could use

the Catchment Program in their own organisations. A copy of Anna’s presentation is included in

the document library of the YourSay update page.

Facilitator Anna Kilborn invited participants to reconnect with each other and share their

thoughts on what success of the Healthy Waterways Strategy looks like. (Anna’s Co-Designed

Catchment Program Presentation)

We heard that success included:

Delivering health outcomes for waterways and the community, including getting people

active

Finding a way to connect people to the targets - everyone has a role to play and should

be on-board!

Engaging the community - translating the catchment program into meaningful local

narratives

Having a well-functioning monitoring and reporting framework, supported by increased

participation in citizen science

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Melbourne Water is owned by the Victorian Government. We manage Melbourne’s water

supply catchments, remove and treat most of Melbourne’s sewage, and manage rivers and creeks and major drainage systems throughout the Port Phillip and Westernport region.

A catchment forum that has momentum, works well and is supported by strong

networks, leadership and accountabilities - group culture

An effective platform for planning and collaborating

Early projects that we can learn from – quick wins!

Being able to quickly draw and share the big picture on major projects (such as the

West Gate Tunnel) to enable early identification of opportunities - Early hooks!

Understanding priorities for action

Identifying barriers to achieving outcomes, including knowing where and why we are

getting stuck

Making the most of cultural heritage values/sites

Part 3: How do we want to work together?

In the last workshop, 6 June 2018, participants were asked to give feedback on the proposed

Governance Model for collaborative implementation of the Strategy. Geraldine Plas presented

the updated version of the model and highlighted the key themes of the feedback. Participants

discussed the importance of aligning the catchment implementation forums with existing

processes, forums and networks (e.g. IWM Forums, Moonee Ponds Creek Collaboration,

Waterways of the West). It was suggested that the catchment forums could act as an advisory

consultative committee to the IWM forums. Geraldine encouraged participants to reflect on

how the new governance model would fit their waterway management work.

The participants also identified the need to include sub-catchment level forums, as the

majority of projects will be carried out at this scale.

Building on this, Anna Kilborn invited the participants to work in small groups to think about

decisions they would need to make to enable the group to work together to co-deliver the

Strategy.

The decisions we heard related to:

Region wide alignment

Assessment & prioritisation of projects

Funding and grants

Influence/education/awareness

Monitoring and evaluation

Communication and relationships in this group

Collaborative advocacy between organisations

How do we get a role in the outcomes with the Maribyrnong Defence land?

How do we maintain open space (i.e. stop it from being sold off or appropriated for

roads/other uses?

How do we prioritise projects at landscape scale to include both waterways objectives

with biodiversity, conservation, landscape scale, biolinks include all stakeholders

How does Maribyrnong/Moonee Ponds fit into bigger picture?

How many forms do we truly need?

How do we align the roles of each forum?

What forums are there in the catchment and what are their roles?

This groups is consulted by the higher project working group – so decisions can be

made at a governance level.

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Melbourne Water is owned by the Victorian Government. We manage Melbourne’s water

supply catchments, remove and treat most of Melbourne’s sewage, and manage rivers and creeks and major drainage systems throughout the Port Phillip and Westernport region.

How do we establish a meaningful and effective relationship between this forum and

government decision makers so waterways aren’t overridden by projects like Citylink,

Westgate Tunnel.

Role of each forum / alignment.

Large catchment = how to prioritise?

Feasibility – planning scheme governance and arrangements, technical options, economics

Grant applications as a catchment – lots of supporting groups, major catchment projects

When are we getting to action

Alignment with their strategies / projects – IWM, CMA, DELWP, LGA’s

How do we engage with other existing groups / forums to raise awareness, including

industry groups, waste/development/tourism/water.

How does CC remain effective with all the other activity.

Identify transformational projects requiring collaboration, i.e. West Gate Tunnel Project

Determine what the right mix of actions will deliver the best outcome for the waterways.

What are the combined priorities for this catchment?

e.g.. Develop an investment prospectus with collective priorities.

5

Melbourne Water is owned by the Victorian Government. We manage Melbourne’s water

supply catchments, remove and treat most of Melbourne’s sewage, and manage rivers and creeks and major drainage systems throughout the Port Phillip and Westernport region.

What’s happening in our areas that are not being addressed by agencies / other community

groups.

Tangibility + practicality – as success factors

Part 4: Identifying project/areas we could work collaboratively on

Social network map

To get started on implementation planning, facilitator Anna Kilborn invited participants to add

to the Maribyrnong catchment ‘social network map’ to identify where organisations are

active and what projects they are working on. This information will be integrated into an

interactive map that will help identify opportunities to build relationships and collaborate on

projects throughout implementation of the Strategy.

Working together on the performance objectives

Facilitator Anna Kilborn then introduced the Maribyrnong catchment performance objective

spreadsheets and asked participants to choose the performance objectives they are

particularly interested in and add details to the spreadsheets about mechanisms that are

already in place or projects they are currently working on that are relevant to achieving each

performance objectives.

By identifying mechanisms/projects already in place that support achieving the objectives of

the strategy this activity formed the start of a plan for implementing the strategy.

(Output spreadsheets from the activity)

6

Melbourne Water is owned by the Victorian Government. We manage Melbourne’s water

supply catchments, remove and treat most of Melbourne’s sewage, and manage rivers and creeks and major drainage systems throughout the Port Phillip and Westernport region.

7

Melbourne Water is owned by the Victorian Government. We manage Melbourne’s water

supply catchments, remove and treat most of Melbourne’s sewage, and manage rivers and creeks and major drainage systems throughout the Port Phillip and Westernport region.

Learning from existing collaboration

Helen Radnedge and Amanda Gauci presented the story behind the renaming of Bunjil

Creek as an example of a successful collaboration between the Community, Local Council and

Traditional Owners. Helen and Amanda particularly highlighted the importance of raising

community awareness and understanding of their local environment.

(Renaming of ‘Bunjil Creek’ Presentation)

Nigel Corby explained how Western Water uses development-scale Integrated Water

Management Plans to go beyond prescriptive guidelines and create a common narrative that

will make a true difference to how we use and relate to water in growth areas. Nigel

highlighted that Melbourne’s current growth offers a once in a generation opportunity to create

complementary integrated water management systems that can recycle water, harvest

stormwater and create passive irrigation for trees and streetscapes while protecting and

improving waterways. Nigel also gave a heads-up that he would be seeking input on the

upcoming “Macedon Ranges Southern Region IWM Study”.

Update on Waterways of the West

Simone Wilkie (Melbourne Water, on secondment to DELWP) gave the group an update on the

Waterways of the West, outlining the background to the formation of the Ministerial Advisory

Committee (MAC) for Waterways of the West, the Terms of Reference for the MAC, what has

happened so far (including meetings with Traditional Owners) and the next steps in the

process of developing the Waterways of the West Action Plan (e.g. draft vision and discussion

paper).

(‘Waterways of the West’ update)

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Melbourne Water is owned by the Victorian Government. We manage Melbourne’s water

supply catchments, remove and treat most of Melbourne’s sewage, and manage rivers and creeks and major drainage systems throughout the Port Phillip and Westernport region.

Part 5: Next steps

Facilitator Anna Kilborn asked the group to consider and discuss where they want to be 6

months from now.

We heard that within the next six months the group would like Melbourne Water to propose an

order of priority for the actions to be undertaken, and to:

Understand what actions they could take, their order of priority (is work on the West

Gate Tunnel a priority?) and if there are any low-hanging fruits

Identify a worthwhile set of projects for which federal support could be sought

Build their capacity to respond to calls for submissions timely, and where possible in an

aligned manner

Discuss barriers to achieving common goals

Experiment working together

Determine how to best understand, access and share their collective knowledge and

resources

Build capacity to respond together as a group to incidents that affect waterways in the

catchment

Project case studies were identified as a useful body of knowledge the group could use to get

started. Case studies would allow the group to learn from prior projects, identify issues they

may face working together, explore how a project might work using collaborative

implementation and communicate

Further discussion around ‘how do we best communicate’ continued highlighting the need for

the group to establish their key points of contact (i.e. online/paper/ face-to-face) and

determine how best to: capture and share data, map projects and publicise successes. Monthly

e-newsletters, access to a web-site where each can have a profile and post news, as well as

face-to-face meetings in some of the sub-catchments were suggested

To close the workshop, Anna Kilborn and Rachel Lopes thanked the participants and described

the next steps in the process. These included:

Two upcoming region-wide labs in February-March about key waterways messages

and resources, and the monitoring, evaluation and reporting framework (MER).

The start of the government caretaker period on 30 October, where limited

communication from government agencies will occur until the post-election State

Government is appointed

A proposed date of April/May 2019 for the next catchment forum

The volunteer group to meet (Dec 6, invitation coming) to shape the next steps of the

collaboration including: Robert Hall, Darren Coughlan, Simon Purves, Anna Zsoldos,

Jesse Barrett, Micah Pendergast, Tony Smith, Billy Gray, David Galloway, Amanda

Gauci and Ross Colliver. If your name isn’t here and you’d like to be included, please

contact Rachel Lopes, 0431-372-134.

All to complete evaluation survey for the collaboration design process to date.

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Melbourne Water is owned by the Victorian Government. We manage Melbourne’s water

supply catchments, remove and treat most of Melbourne’s sewage, and manage rivers and creeks and major drainage systems throughout the Port Phillip and Westernport region.

Part 6: Evaluation from the sensing sheets

The project and each workshop are being evaluated to provide opportunity for ongoing

learning. As a final action, participants completed a sensing sheet and provided comments on

the design of the workshop and their experience of collaboration.

The response rate was 65% (36 out of 55 participants):

• At least 60% of respondents felt clear about the projects they want to contribute to and

who they will collaborate with on these

• 89% of respondents felt positive about the group, although only 53% felt the group is being

strategic about what to do next

• 83% of respondents feel that they are advocating for the HWS

• During this workshop, respondents particularly enjoyed getting into the detail about

implementation, thinking about how they will work together collaboratively and hearing

from successful/inspirational projects.

Quotes from participants

What changes in collaboration in waterways management do you want to see among

the organisation you know?

“Need to understand other forums, what they do and how they could interact with HWS.”

“Better knowledge about the group’s individual’s knowledge, expertise and abilities.”

What does this implementation group need to give more attention to next time it

meets?

“Would like to share a portal for cross-talk with members.”

“A map showing the projects underway/planned at all levels (State, Local Gov, Community,

Federal).”

“Locking in some outcomes, easy wins or pilot projects.”

(Sensing Sheet Analysis)

Keep up to date with what’s happening

For more information about this project or our other

activities please call Geraldine Plas on 03 9679 7403

or visit

https://yoursay.melbournewater.com.au/healthy-

waterways

For an interpreter, please call the

Translating and Interpreting Service

(TIS National) on 13 14 50

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Visit us www.melbournewater.com.au