May 8, 2026
For the first time since 2012, the Murray-Darling Basin community was given the opportunity to have its say through the recent Murray-Darling Basin Plan Review public consultation.
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan Review
To manage the Murray-Darling Basin, the Australian Government works with five state and territory governments including: Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Australian Capital Territory. The Basin state governments manage the water in their own area, in line with nationally agreed principles and plans.
The purpose of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, made in law in 2012, was to improve the health of the Basin’s rivers and groundwater systems. The Plan according to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) is “a collective response to a national crisis in water management revealed by the Millennium drought.”
Since 2012, it’s clear the operating environment of the Basin Plan has changed immensely and the review will aim to address this. It provides an opportunity to improve how the Basin is managed, and determine what changes can be made to ensure the Plan works as effectively as possible to achieve its intended outcomes.
VRFish Submission
As the peak body representing Victoria’s recreational fishers, VRFish provided a submission which outlined the opportunities provided by the review to improve outcomes for recreational fishers, while complementing the overall health of the Murray-Darling basin.
We highlighted that native fish populations across the Basin are in poor condition due to a range of threats such as invasive species, habitat degradation, poor flow regimes and barriers to fish movement. Improving river health is paramount to the migration, aggregation and breeding of native species including Murray cod, Trout Cod, Golden perch, Silver perch, Macquarie perch, freshwater crayfish and a variety of small body native fish, several of which are listed as rare or critically endangered.
A concern for Victorian recreational fishers is the lack of resources allocated towards the management of invasive European Carp and we join a chorus of state and federal agencies seeking to undertake measures to control carp numbers across the basin, through a funded National Threat Abatement Plan.
Additionally, water is a shared resource which provides community benefit in terms of wellbeing. Recreational fishers, and more broadly outdoor users, are becoming negative towards environmental flows due to water releases being scheduled to occur during holidays, long weekends and key fishing calendar dates – like Murray cod opening – which can disrupt camping, fishing and river access. The frequent releases have a negative impact on camping and fishing locations and river access tracks. Ultimately, resulting in poor economic and social wellbeing for regional communities
In our submission, VRFish presented several measures that would prioritise native fish recovery in the Murray-Darling basin.
- Support carp control measures through the establishment of a National Threat Abatement Plan.
- Review flow regimes in consultation with Catchment Management Authority’s, VRFish and the Victorian Fisheries Authority, to:
– Support and prioritise native fish breeding cycles, and decreasing the prevalence of carp breeding aggregations. This also includes investigating the long-term impacts of cold-water pollution caused by water releases from lower outlets of storage reservoirs during native fish recruitment periods.
– Manage high, pulse and environmental flow timing to minimise impacts on recreational fishers and their families, but shifting releases outside of holiday periods and long weekends. - Address the impacts from increased high-water diversions, inter-valley transfers and environmental flows that are clearly creating degradation to the Goulburn River;
- Promote waterway flow regimes that address the recovery and establishment of fringing aquatic vegetation to increase micro and macro invertebrates. Healthy waterways are dependent on fringing vegetation and its associated fauna food chain;
- Deliver high security of supply recreational water as promised to recreational lakes that receive recreational water deliveries via both the Wimmera and Mallee Pipeline Projects. It is imperative that this recreational water promise must be adhered to or to maintain positive community sentiment with fishers and regional communities, regarding their support of environmental flows (Wimmera River);
- Support the establishment and delivery of regional native fish recovery plans in favour of a basin wide native fish recovery plan. Where appropriate the MDBA to assist in the expansion, establishment of native fish restocking programs nationally and most importantly, the scientific monitoring of the outcomes.
Additionally, we recommended complementary measures including:
- Investigate and remove barriers to fish passage and/or construct fishways;
- Introduce instream habitat restoration (example: woody habitat, rocks);
- Install self-cleaning irrigation pump and channel offtake screens to prevent the loss of native fish;
- Continue to fence riparian zones to prevent livestock access and pollution;
- Establish a federal government administered annual complementary measures funding program that is available to local agencies, clubs, organisations and OZFish Unlimited with demonstrated expertise in project delivery.
The MDBA have since shared that more than 2,400 submissions were received during the 12-week consultation period and will be used to shape the next stage of the Review. The MDBA will publish the submissions and a ‘What We Heard’ report in late June.
More information
- Find out more about the Murray-Darling Basin Plan
- Find out more about the 2026 Basin Plan Review
