An Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Four Corners investigation, screened on free-to-air television on 24 July 2017, revealed a series of improper conducts pertaining to the Murray–Darling Basin river system. The journalistic exposé included allegations of water theft, questionable compliance decisions and collusion between water regulators and irrigation lobbyists. This interdisciplinary study explores the revelations and their framing in a sample of state and national media reports about the ‘water theft’ controversy and its fallout. It compares these with the normative frames adopted by critical green criminology, which views the allegations at the heart of the Murray–Darling Basin controversy in terms of state-corporate interests, industry capture of regulators and the notion that water ‘theft’ constitutes a ‘crime’ because of the environmental harm that results from excessive water extraction. This article presents the findings of the study, which elaborate on the impacts of media framing of crimes of the powerful (such as large agricultural companies and state government agencies), including the shaping of public understandings of environmental matters.

澳大利亚广播公司（ABC）的四个角落2017年7月24日在免费电视上放映的一项调查显示，一系列与默里-达令盆地河流系统有关的不当行为。新闻曝光包括对水盗窃的指控，可疑的合规决定以及水管理者与灌溉游说者之间的串通。这项跨学科研究在有关“水窃案”争议及其后果的州和国家媒体报道样本中探索了这些启示及其框架。它将这些与批判性绿色犯罪学采用的规范框架进行了比较，后者从国家企业利益的角度审视了默里-达令盆地争议核心的指控，工业界对监管机构的关注，以及“水被盗”构成“犯罪”的观念，因为过度抽取水对环境造成了危害。本文介绍了该研究的结果，该研究结果详细阐述了媒体对犯罪者（例如大型农业公司和州政府机构）的犯罪定罪的影响，包括对公众对环境问题的理解的形成。