In response to a request from Melbourne Water and incorporating some content supplied by them, this was to convey the outcomes of a lead up region-wide collaboration while expanding it out across the scale range of waterways by identifying current issues and achievements across the Maribyrnong catchment with some emphasis on the Stony Creek and Moonee Ponds Creek sub-catchments recently grafted on. The final slide is a placeholder for a 15 second video grab which can be viewed at: https://vimeo.com/258001479

1. May 2018 Collaborative implementation lab
Healthy Waterways Strategy: Top to Bottom

3. Hydrology
Climate
Intensification
Sea Level Rise
Ecology
Industrial Extraction
Chemical Assault
Heritage
Local Indigenous
Caring for Country
Transport
Drainage Treatment
Biolinks Remnants
Systems View
Grandfather’s backyard plumbing business
President Master Plumbers Association
Melbourne & Metropolitan Board of Works
Introduced to iconic infrastructure places
53 years IBM-trained Systems Analyst
32 years Complex Systems Research
57 years Community Leadership Roles
46 years dealing with Local Government
BSc (Melb.) Mathematics & Computing
MSc (Melb.) Science Technology & Society
Trade Press & Government Policy Reporting
Publishing Technology Business Overseas Travel
70 years around Moonee Ponds Creek
62 years around Maribyrnong River
58 years Cumberland River Otway Coast
Western Region Group of Historical Societies

4. Iterative Reentrant Process
part of Cynefin Framework
introduced by Twyfords

6. • Respect for process
• The process is political
• Build on previous work
• Collaboration is limited by levels of
power
• Agree on achievable goals
• People need to know what they are
responsible for...
• …and be adequately resourced
• We need to look forward
• We need to find a way to plan
investment together in meaningful
collaboration
• Have the authority for decisions
• Is opt-in the way to go, or, should it
be mandated?
• We need a new language
• Communicate the problem and the
way we could move
• We need a mechanism to transfer
knowledge from now into the future
• People need to know who is responsible
- multiscale connectivity
- internal external
• Experiment with how the process moves
forward
• Generosity of spirit
• Avoid too much formality
• Use technology to enhance connectivity
• Use various ways of collaboration
• Use story and narrative
• Use networks in ongoing collaborative
forums
• Rough model
- A shared purpose
- Bring in all players
- Find easy initial steps to begin
- Convene around commitments
- Open it up to those with knowledge

7. • Preceding slide was answers to our second question: What would
be required for collaborative implementation to be successful?
• We had started out with a round of (re)introducing ourselves.
• Requested nominations of other successful collaborations were
noted, primarily via MCMC’s Luisa Macmillan and me.
• Only spotted nomination of “multiscale” after using that for this.
• Early in our Maribyrnong series Helen and I demanded it be
Waterway priorities, not Priority waterways.
• So while this presentation reports on the umbrella Collaborative
Implementation Lab, it needs to invoke real impacts of the very
existence of the Refresh collaborations.
• These push down to the “sub catchments”, especially two which
were grafted on late: Moonee Ponds Creek and Stony Creek.
• Starting with access to west side of MPC around Arden-Macaulay.

11. Melbourne Water sent Bruce Rush, Zoe Samson and their
counsel Emma Peppler to site inspection of land subject
to C188 part 2 rezoning proposal and Planning Panel.

12. • The bigger challenge was to work out what arrangements we need
to successfully implement the strategy together?
• This was divided into three sub-tasks:
• An on-going platform of collaboration which I will get back to;
• Governing the implementation of the strategy as per next slide; and
• Tracking the effectiveness of the strategy, about which we propose:
• Identify the data and evidence that is needed to assess progress
• Be clear on how the reports made are used, what stories are
needed and what language they should be expressed in
• Use standard methods so that data can be aggregated and used
for different scales
• Minimise, minimise, minimise, as large, complex, tell-everything
tracking hasn’t proved to be sustainable.

14. Recent breakthrough Upper Stony Creek project
once off collaboration may serve as wider pilot

18. Eastern branch of Stony Creek
diverted into the Maribyrnong

19. • Inescapable quest for an ongoing platform for collaborative has
been redefined by innovations in information technology.
• Having been a personal focus since 1981, I avoid going over old
ground to stop me saying way too much, glazing over or dozing.
• So somebody else compressing it into a less formal schematic
summary has a lot of appeal.
• This was clearly not of my doing or “Voice of nature/animals”
would have been a lot more prominent.
• Earlier composite slide introduced an emerging opportunity lost
to the absence of a collaborative framework:
• Lower Stony Creek exits central Sunshine drainage network
with litter and water quality needing wetland treatment.
• Short section defines municipal boundary with iconic culvert.
• Orion townhouse estate development next door digs its own
retarding basin with its overflow to join lower Stony.

20. “on-going platform of collaboration”

21. Overcoming barriers to fish movement

22. Deep Creek flow recovery suppressed
by refilling near empty farm dams.

24. Moonee Valley’s Integrated Waterways Advisory Committee
forced collaboration when Melbourne Water’s infrastructure
renewal program would have reinstated outdated footbridge.

25. If we really want to monitor the health of the Maribyrnong
those perched at the top of the food chain might be useful

26. While only a few river kilometres have the luxury of
inspection from on water, many more have restricted
public access and so avoid even passive surveillance.