At the moment, there are two peak indigenous collections of nations in the Murray-Darling Basin: the northern basin group and the Murray Lower Darling indigenous nations. They're the nations along the river, and they're advocating for improved policies, in relation to indigenous rights to the rivers, at the federal level. They're supported by the Murray Basin Authority. There are a couple of nations along the whole of the system that have won native title rights fairly recently. The Ngarrindjeri have native title rights that were confirmed only just recently.
Native title is only a very partial and weak right, in a lot of ways, in Australia. There's also a nation in New South Wales that's won rights on the river. It's very early days in relation to that negotiation, but there's certainly an opportunity for Ngarrindjeri, as a nation on the river with rights to water, and also cultural heritage rights to water, to start to negotiate, in relation to flows that come down the river.
What happens upriver affects downriver, most certainly, but that hasn't been taken into account in policy yet in Australia. It's early days in that conversation, from an indigenous perspective. The Ngarrindjeri “speaking as country” agreement that I named is an agreement in which the Ngarrindjeri have agreed to work with the state of South Australia to secure water. In a sense, it's a collaboration between the indigenous nations' understandings of the river, and South Australians' need for water coming down the river, to negotiate with upstream states.