Barnaby Joyce sending Murray River to 'certain slow death', says South Australia
The federal government is consigning the Murray River to a "certain slow death" and killing the Murray-Darling Basin Plan by reneging on a promise to increase environmental water flows, South Australian Environment Minister Ian Hunter has said.
Before what was described as a heated meeting of the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council in Adelaide on Friday morning, Mr Hunter called on the Prime Minister to sack his deputy, Barnaby Joyce.
"We saw what happened in the millenium drought. It's beyond shameful that upstream politicians would even consider consigning the South Australians to the same fate in the future," said Mr Hunter.
Without extra water, the mouth of the Murray would dry up, he said.
Mr Joyce, the acting Prime Minister, told Mr Hunter by letter on Thursday that the government couldn't fulfil his promise in October 2015 to deliver more water "in full and on time".
The dispute became public before an announcement by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority on Tuesday. The authority is expected to propose changes to the 2750 gigalitres of water recovered from irrigators for environmental flows – including reductions to the northern basin in NSW
In the leaked letter, Mr Joyce admitted the government could not honour its promise under the plan to deliver additional water to South Australia to keep the Murray flowing.
Emotions were already high at a dinner meeting on Thursday night between state ministers and Mr Joyce before Friday's meeting.
The Weekly Times claims that Mr Hunter swore at Ministers, including Victoria's Water Minister Lisa Neville.
Ms Neville said in a statement that it was a robust discussion, and she didn't "shy away from standing up for Victorians and what's best for our state."
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