Murray-Darling Basin Plan report card finds water reform working

Australia Broadcast Center

25-07-2025

The Murray-Darling Basin Authority has released the findings of a comprehensive evaluation of water reform in the country's largest river system.
The review comes 13 years after the adoption of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, which aimed to improve the health of the system and strike a balance between the environment and water users, including irrigators.
Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) chief executive Andrew McConville says it is clear the basin is better off now.
"When you look across the environmental indicators, the farm productivity indicators and continuing growth in the overall value of the economy of the basin, things are moving forward overall quite well."
The 2025 Basin Plan Evaluation is the most extensive review of the water reform to date.
Mr McConville said "environmental conditions are better now than would have been without " the basin plan, with improvements to waterbird habitat and breeding and vegetation.
The report shows that more than 2,100 gigalitres of water per year have been recovered to support the environment.
That has come from upgrades to infrastructure and water buybacks from farmers.
However, Murray Darling Conservation Alliance does not share MDBA's positive sentiment.
Its national director, Craig Wilkins, said the ecosystems were in decline.
"Without bold action to recover more water, rivers that sustain life across south-eastern Australia potentially face collapse," he said.
"At best, the audit indicates that we are winning very slowly, because the river is already sick and climate change in biting.
Mr Wilkins said the plan had only delivered two thirds of the water that was promised.
"To be frank, that original water target was an artificially low political one, well below what scientists were saying at the time," he said.
"It's a bit like trying to fight to feed a big family with only two thirds of the minimum wage.
However, Mr Wilkins said there was some good news to take away from the reports.
"There's small recoveries in some places, and the good news is environmental water does work," he said.
In high irrigation communities like Shepparton in the Goulburn Valley, the basin plan has long been a hot topic.
Goulburn Murray Irrigation District Leadership Group member, David McKenzie said the plan had caused negative socio-economic impacts.
Mr McKenzie said the evaluation of the basin plan by the MDBA was the authority 'marking their own homework', and was not reflective of what was truly happening across the basin.
"When it's a negative impact, particularly socio-economic impact, they're quick to say there's a lot of things going on and it's not just the basin plan, " he said.
"But when there's any win anywhere, whether it's a cultural, social, economic, environmental outcome, they'll claim it for the basin plan."
Data from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, shows that total milk production in northern Victoria has fallen by about 40 per cent since 2000.
Murrabit Dairy farmer and chair of the Victorian Farmers Federation Water Council, Andrew Leahy, said his community had shrunk over the past 12 years.
"We've gone from about 40 dairy farms back to about six," Mr Leahy said.
"We don't see that in the reports — there's obviously less people in the district."
Mr Leahy said water prices had tripled over the past decade and farmers had been forced to adapt to growing fodder with less water.
"We've changed our ways dramatically," he said.
"How we farm to cope with the less amount of water and that obviously adds a cost."
The MBDA evaluation acknowledged the authority needed to improve support for the values and cultural water uses of First Nations people.
Water law and policy expert at the University of Melbourne Erin O'Donnell said the relationship between First Nations Peoples and the MDBA was slowly getting better.
"It's quite heartening to see that in there because that is a step towards the truth-telling that is so important, but it also tells you a lot about the relationships that exist."
With the review of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan due in 2026, Dr O'Donnell said the MDBA needed to recognise First Nations leadership.
"This evaluation consistently talks about things like consultation, fatigue. Of course, people are tired of being consulted because being consulted is nowhere near enough."
Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations, a confederation of First Nations from the southern part of the Murray Darling Basin, declined to comment.