Margaret Simons on water, drought, food and politics - The Murray Darling Basin:Quarterly Essay 77

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The Murray-Darling Basin is the food bowl of Australia, and it's in trouble. What does this mean for the future - for water and food, and for the people and towns that depend on it?
In this Quarterly Essay, acclaimed journalist Margaret Simons takes a trip through the basin, all the way from Queensland to South Australia. She shows that its plight is environmental but also economic, and enmeshed in ideology and identity.
Her essay is both a portrait of the Murray-Darling Basin and an explanation of its woes. It looks at rural Australia and the failure of political processes over the last few generations to meet the needs of communities forced to bear the heaviest burden of change. It considers corruption and resource politics, drought and climate change.The Murray-Darling Basin is the food bowl of Australia, and it's in trouble. What does this mean for the future - for water and food, and for the people and towns that depend on it?
In this Quarterly Essay, acclaimed journalist Margaret Simons takes a trip through the basin, all the way from Queensland to South Australia. She shows that its plight is environmental but also economic, and enmeshed in ideology and identity.
Her essay is both a portrait of the Murray-Darling Basin and an explanation of its woes. It looks at rural Australia and the failure of political processes over the last few generations to meet the needs of communities forced to bear the heaviest burden of change. It considers corruption and resource politics, drought and climate change.
Margaret Simons is an award-winning journalist and the author of thirteen books, including biographies of Malcolm Fraser and Penny Wong. She won the 2015 Walkley Award for Social Equity Journalism and has been honoured with several Quill Awards for journalistic excellence.