Riverina farmer and ‘Can the Plan’ rally leader Carly Marriott has expressed dismay at the NSW government’s weakened stance on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan (MDBP).

“They appear to have done a lot of banging on the table, but at the end of the day John, we don’t have any more water,” she tells John Stanley.

Water Ministers from basin states met with the federal Minister for Water Resources on Tuesday to discuss ongoing disputes over the MDBP’s impact on regional NSW.

While NSW Water Minister Melinda Pavey has previously threatened to exit the plan, she instead settled for further investigations.

Around 2000 farmers and their allies from regional Victoria and NSW rallied at Parliament House earlier this month to protest the disastrous water agreement, which forces irrigators in the region to watch freshwater flow past their drought-stricken towns and out to sea.

“That amount of water could service the whole of New South Wales for a year.”

Debate has centred around the ecology of the river system, including the management of European carp.

“As a farmer in southern NSW, what I glean from that is that the government is prioritising introduced fish over my family and over my farming business.”

Click PLAY below to hear the full interview

Image: Getty/David Gray

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