Lee and Gropler v Commonwealth and Murray-Darling Basin Authority - Reflection on a Conception of Australian Water Access Rights

Abstract

A large group of irrigators from Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales, known as Murray Valley United Inc (MVU), is challenging the validity of the Water Act 2007 (Cth) (the Act) on a number of constitutional grounds. The challenge is designed to bring down the Murray-Darling Basin Plan made under the Act and to prevent the Commonwealth exercising, with the states, powers to limit the historical water access rights claimed by the irrigators. One of the grounds of challenge is based on s 100 of the Commonwealth Constitution. That provision restricts the Commonwealth from making a law or regulation of trade and commerce that abridges the right of a state, or the residents therein, to the reasonable use of the waters of rivers for conservation or irrigation.

Keywords: water access rights