Andrew Drysdale reappointed chair of Lake Eyre Basin advisory committee

Mr Drysdale is one of six members reappointed to the committee, which includes Stonehenge grazier and Longreach Regional Council deputy mayor Leonie Nunn, Peter Douglas, Judith Harrison, Jason Barns, and Professor Robert Fowler.

The five people reappointed to the Scientific Advisory Panel are chairman Dr Stephen Morton, Professor Angela Arthington, (fish), Professor Sue Jackson, (socio-economic), and two people representing hydrology, Tim Ransley of Geoscience Australia, and the CSIRO's Dr Francis Chiew.

All appointments are for a 12-month period.

Federal Minister for Resources and Water Keith Pitt said both Mr Drysdale and Dr Morton were a pair of steady hands leading the committees through a tranche of work in 2022.

"The Lake Eyre Basin is one of the world's largest internally draining river systems - its streams do not reach the sea, spanning 1.2 million square kilometres, which is almost one-sixth of Australia," he said.

"It provides significant social and economic value to almost 60,000 Australian who work and live in the basin and the surrounding communities.

"These reappointments, together with their fellow committee members, will continue their important work developing a strategic plan and reviewing current governance arrangements around the Lake Eyre Basin."

The Lake Eyre Basin Intergovernmental Agreement is a commitment between federal, Queensland, South Australian and Northern Territory governments to cross-border collaboration for the management of the basin's water and related natural resources.

Mr Drysdale said there were a lot of regional plans that natural resource management groups were operating under but nothing for the whole of the basin.

"The Great Artesian Basin does (have a plan), but it doesn't have the legislative underpinning we do," he said, adding he had been advocating for a plan for quite a while.

He understood it would soon be out for public comment.

Describing the work of the advisory committee, Mr Drysdale said it kept a watching eye on a number of issues such as infrastructure on the floodplain, pests and feral species, and non-endemic fish species.

The committee was originally set up in response to the threat of cotton being grown on the Cooper, and Mr Drysdale said gas development potentially wasn't as big as the cotton issue.

"We have pastoral, environmental, indigenous and tourism interests sitting around the table - resources should be there too, and we should all be able to co-exist without being detrimental to each other," he said.

Mr Drysdale said things they dealt with were on a policy level and fairly removed from what was happening in the paddock, although it ultimately affected what was happening in the paddock.

"We don't yet have a consistent definition of a floodplain across all jurisdictions - I'd like to get that," he said. "It's good for when you're monitoring river systems, to have all the same sort of conditions measured."

The fragmented nature of basin management was also reflected in funding, he said, giving an example of a Desert Channels Queensland program that was funded to control cane toads, to a state border.

NSW is an observer to the agreement, and Mr Drysdale said there was conjecture around whether the Bulloo River system should be part of the basin or not.

It runs out into the Bulloo Lakes in northern NSW but Mr Drysdale said the Bureau of Meteorology considered it part of the Lake Eyre Basin system.

He added that the committee was a good one to sit around.

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