By: David Nixon, NSW SQID Taskforce Chair, Sydney
Date: October 11, 2025
Imagine driving from Sydney to Melbourne, and with every state border you cross, the road rules fundamentally change. The speed limits, the give way rules, the meaning of a yellow light—all different. It would be inefficient, confusing, and dangerous.
This is the current reality for stormwater maintenance in Australia.
We lack a single, nationally accepted standard for how to maintain our critical stormwater assets. While NSW has the excellent Guidelines for the Maintenance of Stormwater Treatment Measures—widely known as the “Yellow Book”—its adoption is voluntary and inconsistent across state lines. The NSW SQID Taskforce Report asks a simple but transformative question: what if we made this the official National Standard? 📖
The Power of a Single Standard
Adopting a single, national maintenance guide would be one of the most significant steps forward our industry could take. The benefits would be immediate and far-reaching:
- Clarity and Consistency: A national standard would eliminate the current patchwork of guidelines. Councils, designers, and contractors across the country would finally be working from the same playbook, ensuring a consistent and predictable level of maintenance everywhere.
- A Level Playing Field: It would establish a clear, enforceable benchmark for quality. No more “postcode lottery” where environmental outcomes depend on which side of a state border an asset is located.
- A Foundation for Training: A national standard is the bedrock upon which a national training and accreditation program can be built. We cannot train people to a consistent standard if the standard itself is constantly changing.
- Simplified Procurement: Councils could simply specify “Compliance with the National Stormwater Maintenance Standard” in their contracts, streamlining the procurement process and guaranteeing a minimum quality of service.
Why the “Yellow Book”?
We don’t need to start from scratch. The NSW “Yellow Book” is the perfect candidate to become the national standard. It is already the de facto guide in many parts of the country, respected for its practical, comprehensive, and expert-led advice. It represents a massive investment of industry knowledge over many years. The wheel has already been invented; we just need to agree to all drive on the same side of the road.
The Challenges on the Path to Nationalisation
Of course, elevating a state-based guide to a national standard isn’t as simple as changing the cover page. The NSW SQID Taskforce Report acknowledges the key challenges we must address:
- Ownership and Governance: Who would be the custodian of a national document? The logical home is Stormwater Australia, which would be responsible for its ongoing review and updates.
- Digitisation for the 21st Century: To be a truly useful modern tool, the Yellow Book must be transformed from a static PDF into a living, interactive, web-based portal. This will require a significant but worthwhile investment.
- Flexibility for Local Conditions: The national standard must be a robust framework, but it also needs to be flexible enough to accommodate legitimate regional differences in climate, geology, or local regulations.
The benefits of a single national standard for stormwater maintenance are immense and far outweigh the challenges. The NSW SQID Taskforce Report presents a concrete plan to make this happen. Is this the right move? Your feedback is essential as we debate the path toward national consistency.
We have commenced a broad consultation process across industry, government, councils and industries. We are aiming to prepare a feedback supplement at the conclusion of the consultation period.
Review the consultation draft, Volume One, outlining recommendations, available on the Stormwater 2030 website.
Submit feedback via the Taskforce Feedback Form by Monday, December 1, 2025.
