Governments failed to deliver $160m of river improvements including for now-parched NSW wetlands, report finds

NSW and Queensland governments ‘severely underdelivered’ on promised infrastructure to improve water flows, independent review finds

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Two state governments have drastically underdelivered more than $160m in infrastructure measures to improve river health in the northern Murray-Darling basin eight years since they were promised, a major independent review has found.

This includes failure by the New South Wales government to secure any of the private land access needed to improve water flows over floodplains in the state’s Gwydir region where scientists had to scramble to rescue turtles in dried up wetlands last week.