CQUniversity adjunct research fellow Jennifer Marohasy recently delivered an address to the Sydney Institute, calling on estuary restoration to save the Murray River.

Ms Marohasy says the Australian Government's $10 billion plan to save the Murray-Darling by reconfiguring upstream irrigation so that more water is sent to the Lower Lakes, Murray's mouth and Coorong is based on a narrative about the Murray's mouth closing-over and Lake Alexandrina drying-up because of greedy upstream irrigators taking too much water.

LINK HERE to access the Sydney Institute Podcast site or

or LINK HERE for a full text of Jennifer's address

Jennifer Marohasy

"This invented story ignores the impact of 7.6km of sea dyke that have dammed the estuary and stopped the tide," she said.

"Before the sea dykes, the Lower Lakes never dried-up because each autumn, and for longer periods during drought, the Southern Ocean would push in to the lakes. Furthermore, the Murray's mouth would close over naturally irrespective of upstream water diversions because of high-energy coastal processes and how they impact barrier estuaries."

Ms Marohasy says those who know about estuaries could be correcting the misinformation.

"But a majority of Australian scientists with expertise in such issues are dependent on government for their funding," she says.

"It is wrong that politicians, environmental groups and scientists are all silent about the sea dykes. It is wrong that the whole of the Murray-Darling Basin, all one million square kilometres of it, should be held hostage to a fiction, to a specious claim about a freshwater lake.

"What our tribe needs is a story about the Murray grounded in reality. Otherwise we risk a thin future filled with sharp bones."