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A meeting of the Murray–Darling Basin Authority was held on 2-3 September 2020 by video teleconference. All members were present. The meeting was chaired by Sir Angus Houston.

As the Murray–Darling Basin Authority met for the last time this financial year, we took stock of the extraordinary battering communities in the Basin have endured over the past twelve months, with prolonged drought, bushfires over summer and now a major pandemic. Like farmers, communities and First Nations people, we are hopeful the Bureau's outlook for a wetter winter and spring is realised and conditions will improve.

The six-monthly 'health check' released by the MDBA today shows progress to implement the Murray–Darling Basin Plan has kept pace, with more action needed in the future to deliver important on–ground projects.

This report provides an update on how governments and communities have been working together to implement the Basin Plan.

The Basin-wide environmental watering strategy, first published in 2014 and updated in 2019, builds on the environmental objectives in the Basin Plan.

The Murray–Darling Basin Authority held its first meeting for 2020 in Canberra on 11-12 February. In the wake of devastating fires, drought and flooding the Authority acknowledged the hardship many communities have experienced this summer and the difficult road to recovery ahead.

Prerequisite policy measures are legislative and operational rule changes that will improve the use, management and accounting of water for the environment in the southern-connected Murray–Darling Basin. The Basin Plan outlines these measures and required them to be implemented by 1 July 2019.

Each year, as part of the Basin Plan's monitoring and evaluation program, Basin governments report on how they are implementing different elements of the Basin Plan. These reports inform the Basin Plan Annual Report.

This report brings together progress made by Basin jurisdictions to implement the Basin Plan in 2017–18, and the outcomes from this work.

We continue to develop and use hydrologic models to inform policy, Basin Plan compliance activities, management and operations of rivers in the Murray–Darling Basin.