About The Irrigator

The Irrigator

The Irrigator is a regional newspaper published in Leeton, New South Wales, serving the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area of the Riverina. First published in 1915 as The Murrumbidgee Irrigator, it has been the voice of Leeton Shire for more than a century. Today it is published by Australian Community Media as a weekly print newspaper with a daily digital presence at irrigator.com.au, covering Leeton, Yanco, Whitton, and the surrounding irrigation districts with local news, sport, agricultural journalism, and community reporting.

Overview

The Irrigator's name tells its story: it is the newspaper of the irrigation country. Leeton was the first town planned under the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area scheme, and the paper was founded just a few years after the town's establishment to serve the new settlers of the irrigation districts. Its circulation has historically covered Barellan, Brobenah, Darlington Point, Leeton, Mirrool, Whitton, Willbriggie, and Yanco — the towns and villages of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. For more than a century, The Irrigator has been the voice of Leeton Shire, covering the stories that matter to its readers while campaigning for the lifestyle the district is known for. The Irrigator online is the only news media outlet solely dedicated to keeping the residents of Leeton, Yanco, and Whitton informed and connected.

History

The Murrumbidgee Irrigator was first published on 23 April 1915, only a few years after the establishment of Leeton. Its predecessor in the district's press was the Irrigation Record, a fortnightly newspaper published from 15 February 1913 to 15 June 1917 by the NSW Water Conservation and Irrigation Commission. The Record's purpose was to educate the new settlers of the fledgling Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area about agricultural methods, irrigation techniques, crops, stock, and machinery — and its pages carried feature articles by Walter Burley Griffin, the planner of Leeton and Griffith, about the planning of the new towns in May and June 1915. The Record closed in 1917, citing the economic constraints of World War I and the belief that it had served its purpose.

The Irrigator outlived its official predecessor and became the district's permanent newspaper. It changed hands a number of times in its early history. John Joseph Sullivan owned the paper early on, and it was later acquired by Rupert Henderson — who was first general manager of John Fairfax & Sons and later managing director — bringing the paper into the orbit of the great metropolitan press families. The paper's offices are at 103 Pine Avenue, Leeton, in the heart of the town.

In November 2001 the paper was renamed The Irrigator, the shorter title under which it continues to publish. The paper celebrated its centenary in 2015, marking 100 years of service to the irrigation districts. In February 2025, Australian Community Media reduced the printed edition to weekly, as part of the industry-wide shift toward digital-first publishing. The paper's early issues have been digitised by the National Library of Australia as part of the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program and are available on Trove.

Content

The Irrigator covers the full range of a regional newspaper's brief, with a distinctive emphasis on agriculture and irrigation. Its newsroom covers the Leeton Shire Council area: council decisions, water policy and irrigation politics, court reporting, state and federal politics, education, health, and the environment. Water is the standing subject — the Murrumbidgee River, the irrigation allocations, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and the politics of water in the Riverina are the issues that define the district's public life, and the paper covers them as both news and advocacy.

The district's character shapes the coverage. Leeton is the home of SunRice, the largest manufacturer of Australian rice and one of the town's largest employers; the rice grown in the paddies around the town is the premier product, exported globally. Rice, citrus, wine grapes, and the other irrigated crops of the MIA are the district's economic lifeblood, and the paper's agricultural journalism covers the seasons, the markets, the water allocations, and the policies that shape them. The Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area's soldier-settler history — the returned servicemen who took up the irrigation blocks after the world wars and built the district's farms, towns, and communities — is the founding story the paper returns to in its heritage coverage. The paper also covers the district's sporting life — Australian rules football, rugby league, cricket, netball, and junior sport — and its community journalism: the school news, the service clubs, the show societies, and the Leeton SunRice Festival, the district's great annual celebration of the rice harvest.

Water politics gives the Irrigator an advocacy dimension unusual in community journalism. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan, the Commonwealth's water buybacks, the state government's allocation decisions, and the health of the Murrumbidgee River are existential issues for the district — they determine whether the rice is planted, whether the towns prosper, whether the next generation stays. The paper covers these issues as both news and campaign, holding governments to account on behalf of its readers. Its editorials and its reporting on water have made it the district's voice in the national water debate — the local paper that speaks for the irrigation communities when the basin's future is decided in Canberra and Sydney.

Coverage & Audience

The Irrigator serves Leeton Shire and the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area — Leeton itself, Yanco, Whitton (one of the oldest towns in the region, founded in 1850), and the villages and farming districts in between. The district's population is a mix of the soldier-settler farming families who built the irrigation area, the newer arrivals drawn by the agricultural industries, and the town's professionals and service workers. Like nearby Griffith, irrigation has changed this small soldier-settler farming region into a diverse and growing agricultural community.

The paper's readership is the classic regional newspaper demographic: engaged, local, and loyal — readers who turn to the paper for the water news, the council decisions, the crop reports, and the community journalism that no one else provides. The paper's digital audience extends the footprint to former residents and the district's diaspora.

Ownership

The Irrigator is owned and published by Australian Community Media (ACM), the regional newspaper publisher formed from the former Fairfax Media regional assets. ACM is one of Australia's largest regional media companies, publishing dozens of newspapers across New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, and other states. The Irrigator sits within ACM's New South Wales Riverina portfolio, alongside titles including The Area News of Griffith, the Daily Advertiser of Wagga Wagga, and the Southern Cross of Junee. The paper's early independent and Fairfax-associated ownership eras — through John Joseph Sullivan and Rupert Henderson — gave way to the consolidated regional press of the twentieth century.

Digital Presence

The paper's digital home is irrigator.com.au — "Leeton news, sport and weather" — where local news is published throughout the day between the weekly print edition. The site carries the standard ACM regional newspaper offering: local news, sport, weather, entertainment and lifestyle, community notices, photo galleries, real estate and automotive listings, jobs, and classifieds. The paper maintains a social media presence, with Facebook as its principal community channel — the page provides sneak peeks of upcoming stories and breaking news, and encourages community contributions. The shift to a weekly print edition in February 2025 was accompanied by an intensified digital publishing rhythm. The paper's 1915–1954 archive, digitised on Trove, remains a vital resource for historians and family researchers tracing the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area's past.

For the irrigation country, The Irrigator remains what it has been since 1915: the district's newspaper — the record of its water and its harvests, its councils and courts, its sports fields and showgrounds — still publishing after more than 110 years, in print weekly and online every day. The only news media outlet solely dedicated to Leeton, Yanco, and Whitton, it carries the district's stories to its readers and the district's voice to the governments that decide its water future.