00:01The group of farmers from southern New South Wales and northern Victoria first commenced legal proceedings on this issue about
00:08seven years ago.
00:10They've been seeking up to $1.5 billion in damages relating to overbank flooding that occurred in the Barma Choke,
00:18which is a narrow section of water on the Murray River between Daniloquin and Echuca.
00:24They argued that those decisions by the authority between 2017 and 2019 led to lower water allocations,
00:31higher temporary water prices and profit losses, and that that meant some farmers couldn't meet their supply contracts.
00:38But in the New South Wales Supreme Court today, Justice Tim Faulkner found the authority had no duty of care
00:44to avoid pure economic loss to one group of people above others.
00:49Now, the water ultimately ended up in South Australia, and Justice Faulkner told the court he accepted the defendant's submission
00:56that having a duty to irrigators would distort its independent role in exercising the provision of the agreement
01:03in sharing water between the states.
01:05He also found that as water allocations to individual irrigators were determined by respective states,
01:11there wasn't a sufficient relationship between the MDBA and the plaintiffs for a duty of care to be owed.
01:17The group has been ordered to pay the MDBA's legal costs.
01:22Now, one irrigator has told the ABC that they're very disappointed in the decision today,
01:27saying that it doesn't take into account the economic losses felt by the irrigators
01:32as a result of this decision taken by the authority,
01:35nor has it taken into account the authority's admission that there were inefficiencies
01:41and that water was lost in this process.
01:43The Murray-Darling Basin Authority itself has said it's currently reviewing the judgment in detail.
