Court of appeal ruling: MDB loses appeal

Riverina irrigators have won the right to fight their damages claim against the MDBA on a level playing field.

Day in court: Southern Riverina Irrigators chairman Chris Brooks is leading the class action damages claim against the Murray Darling Basin Authority.

The Murray Darling Basin Authority has lost its appeal to choke off a class action brought against it by NSW Riverina irrigators for damages.

Southern Riverina Irrigators claim the MDBA was negligent and breached its duty of care in releasing water from the Upper Murray storages and Menindee Lakes in the spring of 2017 and 2018, which they say led to them receiving low or no general security water allocations.

Before the case had been heard the MDBA tried to claim it was a “public or other authority” under Part 5 of the Civil Liability Act 2002, which would have forced the irrigators’ lawyers to prove that no reasonable river operator would have made the decision to release the water in those years.

The MDBA lost that argument before the Supreme Court in April, but then mounted an appeal that was dismissed today.

The irrigators’ legal counsel Melissa Morgan said the next step was to prove negligence to a “reasonable standard”.

An MDBA spokeswoman said “we will take the time to review the Court of Appeal judgement.

“The MDBA’s position remains that at all times we have acted properly in managing the River Murray in accordance with the rules of the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement. We will continue to move forward with our defence of the claim.”