Barnaby Joyce and the National Party have unleashed an assault on the Murray River, the environment and South Australia, the Greens say.
Senator for SA and Greens Spokesperson for Water Sarah Hanson-Young said it would be a terrible step to tear up the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and cut water to the environment throughout the Basin.
“The National Party has stuffed the River, and now they want to blame SA and cut water to the environment. This is an assault on the River, an assault on SA and lets the greedy corporate irrigators off the hook,” Senator Hanson-Young said.
“Barnaby Joyce and the National Party want to cut water to the environment, cut off South Australia and let the upstream states and their corporate irrigator mates continue on business as usual.
“South Australians will be furious and the SA Liberal Government needs to stand up to their Coalition mates upstream and say this is not on.
“This summer is going to be really tough. There is going to be less water in the system and it should be the big corporate irrigators, the political donors to the National Party, who feel the heat.
“If you want to put water back in the system then you stop those big corporate irrigators irrigating cotton and irrigating almonds, and you stop letting foreign companies come in and buy up our water rights.
“More than 1.2million people in SA rely on the Murray. This is our drinking water and this is our environment and I am not going to sit by and let Barnaby Joyce and the National Party sacrifice us for their big corporate mates upstream.”
