Join the Australia Institute for Politics in the Pub to discuss what is going on with the Murray-Darling Basin?

Maryanne Slattery, senior water researcher at the Australia Institute, and Rod Campbell, our research director, have been front and centre of the Australia Institute research uncovering a long history of suboptimal and suspect decisions, and downright dubious policymaking.

Already we have seen: one million dead fish in the Darling/Barka River, fifth-generation dairy farmers walking off their land while corporate cotton and nut plantations expand, irrigators suing the Federal Government's Murray-Darling Basin Authority for $740 million over wasted water, hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars paid to politically-connected businesses for water that largely exists only on paper, and a scathing South Australian Royal Commission quashed by the Commonwealth.

This is not a matter of 'agriculture vs the environment'. This is the public interest vs the entrenched big business, political and bureaucratic interests.

Maryanne Slattery and Rod Campbell will discuss how the Murray-Darling Basin is broken and why we need a Royal Commission to fix it.