2026 Murray–Darling Basin Plan Review Discussion Paper

The submission represents the collective position of the 14 regional NRM organisations across the Murray–Darling Basin, submitted by NRM Regions Australia. It reflects detailed regional input and decades of on-ground experience delivering environmental, cultural and community outcomes across the Basin.

Regional NRM organisations are the Basin’s place-based delivery system. We translate national and state policy into practical action through long program memory, trusted community relationships, deep regional knowledge and long-standing partnerships with Traditional Owners.

The submission put forward that the Basin Plan must focus on what we know works (and will work) to achieve the Plan’s outcomes. These include:

• relaxing constraints and delivering complementary measures at landscape scale
• delivering adequate environmental water that reaches the right places at the right times
• building strong, self-determined First Nations partnerships
• applying a climate adaptation framework that is proactive rather than reactive

with the above underpinned by long term funding certainty.