Federal Government finally contracts photographer for Murray Darling Basin plan

After repeatedly being caught out last year using images from afar afield as Turkey to promote the Basin recovery plan, the federal government has contracted their own photographer.

A 1989 image of Queensland's Elliott River used by Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek in her facebook post promoting the passage of her Murray Darling Basin reforms in December 2023.

Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek and her bureaucrats have finally employed their own photographer, after repeatedly being caught out last year using images from afar afield as Turkey to promote the Albanese Government’s Murray Darling Basin recovery plan.

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water has contracted Indigenous artist Wayne Quilliam as its Murray Darling Basin photographer for three months, until the end of January, at a cost of $108,900.

The move follows Ms Plibersek posting a 1989 photograph of tropical Queensland’s Elliott River across which she had “Our Bill to save the Murray Darling Basin Plan has passed the Parliament”.

Reverse image searches also showed Ms Plibersek’s DCCEEW bureaucrats even used an image of a Turkish orange grove and Gippsland sheep property on the landing page last year for their Murray Darling Basin campaign.

DCCEEW bureaucrats even used an image of Cronulla Bay inlet, on the NSW coast south of Sydney, to promote the Government’s Basin recovery plan.

At the time former Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder David Papps posted that he “didn’t think the federal department would be silly enough to feature a river outside the MDB – I was wrong”.

DCCEEW also launched a multimillion-dollar television advertising campaign last year showing bleak images of dead fish and trees, which irrigators and digital experts argued appeared to be fake.