Questions over companies chosen for $200m of Murray-Darling water buybacks

Water buyback criticised over the lack of open tender and the low reliability of water licence purchased

Despite questions in the Senate, calls for papers and freedom of information requests, mystery still surrounds the reason the former agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce chose the companies he did for almost $200m of water buybacks in 2017.

The buybacks of water using funds allocated for purchasing environmental water under the Murray-Darling Basin plan have been controversial because they proceeded without open tender and, once announced, were criticised because of the reliability of the water purchased.