Environmental discourses and water law: a case study of the regulation of the Murray-Darling Basin

The Murray-Darling Basin, in south-eastern Australia, comprises 14 per cent of Australia’s geography. This paper examines some of the historical and contemporary discourses that have been deployed in the last 120 years in managing the complex challenges of the Basin. Differently to prior Indigenous practices, prevailing nvironmental discourses in this period have highlighted the disconnect between humans and their environment. Whilst ecologically Sustainable Development underpins the objects of the Water Act 2007 (Cth), it is evident that, in fact, it is an economic rationalism discourse that has been deployed to regulate environmental outcomes through the marketisation of water rights.