Water reform in this part of the Murray-Darling Basin generally takes the form of public money to increase irrigation efficiency in the basin (through upgrading the irrigator’s pipes, dams and sprinkler systems), rather than water buybacks to increase environmental flows. The irrigators then get 50% of the water saved from the increased efficiency. But how much water was returned to the river and at what cost?
The current Barwon-Darling Water Sharing Plan effectively prioritises upstream water users and also does not provide protection for environmental water from extraction. The consequence is that downstream communities in towns such as Walgett and Wilcannia have been left high and dry despite the fact that NSW law gives priority to town water supplies over other water uses.
NSW has gone rogue around water politics. It’s pro-cotton irrigation culture is pro-development and anti-enviroment, and the state government continues to fail to meet the state’s obligations under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. It also supports the continuation of the floodplain harvesting of the free and unmonitored water from the big rains; turns a blind eye to water theft; continually supports its northern Basin irrigators getting even more water; and regularly threatens to withdraw from the Basin Plan.
Given the culture of development-at-all-costs and the long history of flawed environmental management the Murray-Darling river system is a shadow of its former self.
Nourishing Terrains 
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