Murray-Darling water theft allegations: NSW to prosecute irrigators

Regulator WaterNSW to begin court action against members of Harris and Barlow families, months after issue hit headlines

WaterNSW has moved to prosecute a number of landowners on the Murray-Darling river system for water theft, eight months after the ABC brought the matter into the national spotlight.

Today's announcement came on the day the state ombudsman, Michael Barnes, released a scathing report on the regulator, criticising it for giving him grossly inflated figures on the number of enforcement actions and prosecutions it had initiated to enforce water laws in the past 15 months.