Fury over water allocations has led irrigators in south-eastern Australia to file a class action in the New South Wales supreme court, seeking $750m in damages from the federal government’s Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA).
The chairman of the Southern Riverina Irrigators Council (SRI), Chris Brooks, alleges the MDBA’s negligence has led to severe financial losses for “thousands” of landholders in the country’s south-eastern food bowl.
“We lost $750m last year because we got zero water allocations,” Brooks said. “We allege it was the MDBA’s mismanagement of the river system that caused our losses. There’s plenty of water in the dams down here but, because there’s no water coming down the Darling River, our allocations are being sent to South Australia.”
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