Cry Me a River

The Tragedy of the Murray–Darling Basin

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 crops, and for the people and towns that depend on it?

In Cry Me a River, 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 politics over decades to meet the needs of communities forced to bear the heaviest burden of change. Whether it is fish kills or state rivalries, drought or climate change, in the Basin our ability to plan for the future is being put to the test.

“The story of the Murray–Darling Basin … is a story of our nation, the things that join and divide us. It asks whether our current systems – our society and its communities – can possibly meet the needs of the nation and the certainty of change. Is the Plan an honest compact, and is it fair? Can it work? Are our politics up to the task?”—Margaret Simons, Cry Me a River

Correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 77, Cry Me a River:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Margaret Simons is an award-winning journalist and the author of thirteen books, including a biography of Malcolm Fraser that was the 2011 Book of the Year at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. She won the 2015 Walkley Award for Social Equity Journalism and has been honoured with several Quill Awards for journalistic excellence.

READ AN EXTRACT

I’ve come to think of the Murray–Darling Basin as being like a tree, except the sap runs not from root to twigs but in the other direction. The roots and trunk are in South Australia. Here the river runs pea-green between red cliffs through semi-desert country to the vast sheets of water that form the lower lakes, the Coorong and the sea. The main branches of the tree are the Murray itself, forming most of the border between New South Wales and Victoria, fed by the mighty Murrumbidgee and its tributaries and the rivers of Victoria.

Read An Extract