Murray-Darling Basin Authority

Living Murray executive awarded Australia Day honour 
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority's Executive Director in charge of Natural Resource Management, Jody Swirepik, was awarded a Public Service Medal in the Australia Day 2010 honours list.

Jody was awarded the honour for outstanding public service in driving The Living Murray program - a joint initiative funded by the New South Wales, Victorian, South Australian, Australian Capital Territory and the Commonwealth governments, coordinated by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.

MDBA Chief Executive Rob Freeman said Jody had been an outstanding public servant, particularly in her contributions to water reform and the science underpinning this reform at both the Commonwealth and State level.
She joined the then Murray-Darling Basin Commission (MDBC) for a short period in 1993, and then went on to spend six years working in the NSW environment protection area.

"She rejoined the MDBC in 2000 and was instrumental in establishing and obtaining commitment from jurisdictional governments to the Sustainable Rivers Audit - a testimony to both her scientific and negotiation abilities," Mr Freeman said.

"Jody was promoted to General Manager, River Environment Management in 2007 and over the last few years has steered The Living Murray program through a lengthy national water reform, all the while building and reinforcing community, state and Commonwealth support for the environment to have an equitable share of the available water resources.

"TLM has been a ground breaking program and much of Jody's work has been pioneering in that there is nowhere in the world where a landscape scale river rehabilitation project of such significance has been implemented successfully, particularly given the challenges of record drought."

Jody transferred to the Authority in December 2008 and has continued to make significant contributions to environmental water and to the work of the Authority generally.

"Jody is a role model for future public servants, demonstrating strong scientific and policy skills, excellent communication and negotiation approaches and adept networking, across Commonwealth and State jurisdictions," Mr Freeman said.

For more information on The Living Murray program go to www.mdba.gov.au/programs/tlm