Murray–Darling Basin Authority
Australian government agency in charge of managing the Murray-Darling Basin
The Murray–Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) is the principal government agency in charge of managing the Murray–Darling Basin in an integrated and sustainable manner. The MDBA is an independent statutory agency that manages, in conjunction with the Basin states, the Murray–Darling basin's water resources in the national interest. The MDBA reports to the Minister for the Environment and Water, held since May 2025 by Murray Watt.
The MDBA was established under the Water Act 2007 (Cth), which was introduced by the Howard government as part of "A National Water Plan for Water Security". The Water Act 2007 was a response to the drought and the potential effects of climate change in Australia. The law aimed to fulfill Australia's obligations under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
The 2007 Act was substantially amended in 2008.
The Chief Executive of the MDBA is Andrew McConville who replaced Phillip Glyde and Dr Rhondda Dickson prior. The Chair of the MDBA is Daryl Quinlivan who replaced Sir Angus Houston after his four-year term as Chair expired in 2024.
Whilst the MDBA is a Commonwealth Government agency, an intergovernmental Murray–Darling Basin Ministerial Council (Ministerial Council) acts in an advisory role in preparing and implementing the Basin Plan by the MDBA. The Ministerial Council comprises the Commonwealth Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources (who also chairs the Council) and one minister from each of the Basin states (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia) and the Australian Capital Territory.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Murray–Darling Basin Authority” as australian government agency in charge of managing the Murray-Darling Basin. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as australian government agency in charge of managing the Murray-Darling Basin. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6939084. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2025, 2007, 2008 and 2024.
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This entry incorporates text from “Murray–Darling Basin Authority” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.