A sustainable, productive, and resilient Murray–Darling Basin is central to thriving Basin communities. The competing interests to access its resources, be they for conservation, cultural, or agricultural reasons, inevitably lead to a degree of conflict when shaping water policy. In this paper, Sam Hames and Rod Marsh (2025) analyse 1,800 submissions submitted through seven public inquiries, alongside federal parliament speeches and X (formerly Twitter) data, to probe how various interest groups use the concepts of fairness, equity, and justice to impact policy debates. Hames and Marsh (2025) argue that these are complex ideas open to interpretation, and thus a level of manipulation, but policymakers can play an important role in helping bridge differences to build mutual understanding across partisan divides. Find the full report here.