Maryanne Slattery is the senior water researcher at the Australia Institute, an independent think-tank based in Canberra. Prior to working at the Australia Institute, Maryanne was a Director at the Murray-Darling Basin Authority for over a decade.

Maryanne has published many reports on the mismanagement of the Murray-Darling Basin and was a key witness to the South Australian Murray-Darling Royal Commission in 2018. Her research exposing the maladministration of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, including the Watergate scandal, large scale water theft and the demise of the Darling River in particular, called into question the mismanagement of the Murray-Darling Basin well before the unprecedented Menindee fish kill of January 2019 brought this issue to nationwide attention.