Voices from the Murray–Darling Basin

Speaker: Dr Margaret Cook

Australians have many different attitudes to rivers. First Nations people respect water as kin. Many people love rivers as a vital source of life that must be nurtured and respected. Rivers provide sustenance, solace, and recreation for many but they are also a resource that sustain communities and agriculture, and in a country prone to drought and floods with “unreliable” flows, rivers were re-engineered in pursuit of nation-building. These schemes created an illusion that water was limitless and free which led to overallocation and excessive use. Many now fear for the health of the rivers and all that they sustain. I draw on oral histories from the Murray-Darling Basin to explore the ways in which these attitudes have shaped riverine histories.

Dr Margaret Cook is a Research Fellow at the Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University, and holds an honorary research position at La Trobe University. She is an environmental historian who has published on water histories and climate-related disasters, with a particular focus on rivers, floods, culture and climate. Margaret is the author of the celebrated book A River with a City Problem: A History of Brisbane Floods (2022). She has recently completed two research projects for the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.

Photo of the Lachlan River; credit Dr Margaret Cook

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