First Nations Water Rights in the spotlight

An exhibition opening and launch of a book promoting First Nations water rights took place in Melbourne on Friday 10 April, attended by First Nations contributors and supporters, including Dr Virginia Marshall from the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet) at the Australian National University.

The event launched the 222-page book, First Nations Water Rights in Australia which features contributions from 20 First Nations leaders, elders, academics, artists and storytellers from around Australia around the theme of Aboriginal water. Their contributions spanned Aboriginal ontologies, historical narratives, First Nations water management, water injustice, and the critical role Aboriginal water rights must come to play in healing damaged landscapes, advancing social justice and underpinning the future of Aboriginal economic development.

Whadjuk Nyungar artist, designer and researcher Jack Mitchell states in the book’s foreword: “Like everything, story is inextricably linked to water, and Australia’s bloody genocidal history can be understood not only through the history of terra nullius but aqua nullius as well”. He continues in his introduction to the fourth section: “Like the great myth of terra nullius, aqua nullius must be exposed and overturned, along with all the unsustainable cultural and philosophical scaffolding that uphold it.”

Section four features an interview with Dr Marshall about her seminal book Overturning Aqua Nullius: Securing Aboriginal water Rights (Aboriginal Studies Press 2017) which helped propel the repugnant doctrine of aqua nullius into mainstream discourse, providing a legal lens to challenge it and recommendations for overturning it. In this chapter, Virginia unpacks the history and impact of aqua nullius and touches on her efforts, as part of the national Committee on Aboriginal Water Rights, to undo the injustice written into the 2004 National Water Initiative though the new 2025 National Water Agreement. She says: “It is really important that we have a National Water Agreement that will be fit for purpose … For the first time, the objectives in the current draft of the agreement include Aboriginal people’s cultural values, knowledges and sciences.”

First Nations Water Rights in Australia stemmed from the National Gallery of Victoria’s Reimagining Birrarung 2024 exhibition. It was published by the not-for-profit multidisciplinary design and research practice OFFICE with support from Creative Australia, Creative Victoria and the City of Yarra.