THERE has been spirited debate and productive discussion about the Murray-Darling Basin Plan Review at the 2026 Basin Leadership Summit.
Nearly 200 senior leaders from across communities, agriculture and tourism industries, environmental groups, First Nations, government and science converged in Brisbane over two days to discuss the future management of the Murray–Darling Basin.
Stakeholders included National Irrigators Council CEO Zara Lowien, Northern and Southern Basin, South Australia First Nations representative Vanessa Cook and Cotton Australia general manager, Michael Murray.
Murray-Darling Basin Authority chief executive Andrew McConville said the summit achieved exactly what it set out to do.
“The Summit was designed to bring people together to create some colliding perspectives and spark new ideas,” Mr McConville said.
“The future of the Basin is going to be realised through a mosaic of ideas and approaches that ultimately deliver us rivers, for generations.”
This year’s Summit focused on supporting Basin leaders to engage confidently and constructively with their communities to ensure that a diversity of perspectives and lived experiences are represented in discussions about the Basin’s future.
“If we can facilitate a process like this, we get people to understand that holding tension and feeling uncomfortable is ok, because ultimately you will get a better breakthrough,” Mr McConville said.
Key themes to emerge over the two-day event include the importance of recognising the contribution of all groups to the Basin and the need for everyone to compromise to achieve a shared goal of healthy rivers and waterways.
“What’s clear to me is that there’s more that unites us than divides us,” Mr McConville said.
“We need to leverage that in developing a Basin Plan that’s going to be different from where we’ve come but sets us up for a future which is going to be much more uncertain.”
Zara Lowien said the summit is a once-in-a-decade chance to have feedback on how governments may make decisions that will affect communities.
“So you need to get involved, you might not understand it all but even just sending in a message about how having a strong, vibrant economy is important to you that is critical for the MDBA to understand,” she said.
Menindee Basin Community committee member, Kate McBride, said there’s been a long history with a seemingly lack of transparency.
“I think we’re certainly moving in the right direction,” she said.
“From a community perspective, there’s goodwill at the moment, but we need to make sure that we’re seeing action, not just more pages of reports or anything like that.”
Michael Murray said, for the cotton industry, access to water and irrigation is absolutely critical.
“Our cotton growers are members of Basin communities; this is just about our lifeblood and the communities that we live in,” he said.
“These events are always very broad ranging, and you hear a lot of things that you agree with and you hear a lot of things that you disagree with and there’s plenty of things that you probably violently disagree with.
“But it’s always good to hear, and it does remind me that when you get down to things, there’s probably more things that we can agree on than we can disagree on.”
The Review is seeking community input on the future of the Basin Plan including better use of water for the environment, stronger participation of First Nations peoples, river connectivity and adapting to climate change.
For further information on the review, go to MDBA Get Involved.
