The 2026 Murray-Darling Basin Plan statutory review

The Murray Darling Basin Plan is not Sustainable

The Murray Mouth (1910 photograph of an early map. State Library of South Australia).

Summary

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan, enacted under Australia’s 2007 Water Act, aims to manage water sustainably across this semi-arid region but faces profound challenges. The $13billion water buybacks used to flood forests and irrigate the Southern Ocean is a monumental travesty. Models apportion a larger share of natural flows to the environment post-1996—“ghost water” that was not be provided by rainfall. Inconsistent baselines add to the chaos. The Basin’s boom-bust cycles have been ignored to imply a “garden of Eden” construct. Maintaining that narrative has usurped the productive use of water for agriculture and communities. By sidestepping Section 100 of the Australian Constitution, WWF, Robert Purves, the Purves Environmental Fund and their Wentworth Group monetised a billion-dollar asset class “out of thin air”—a heist of monumental proportions.

Constrained by Ramsar-listed wetlands and the Barmah Choke, demands of the southern-Basin’s corporate almond and nut industry in summer, and unrealistic legislated environmental flows are limited by the system’s capacity.

As rainfall returns to its longer-term trajectory, without aggressively buying more high-security water from irrigators via the market they created, the Plan simply cannot work. The debacle can only end by repealing the undemocratic 2007 Water Act and reinstating Constitutional rights.

The Murray Mouth and the Coorong in the 1930s (photographer: Smith, D. Darian, State Library of South Australia).

The full report is available here: [Link]

Download the 2026 Report Data package – including for Tambo post office [here]