Speaking at this week’s National Farmers Federation annual congress in Melbourne, Senator Joyce, the Coalition’s regional development, infrastructure and water spokesman, said Labor was committed to accepting the plan, warts and all.

“If it’s a bad plan I won’t accept it,” he said.

A “guide” to the plan is scheduled for release on October 8 and Rob Freeman, chief executive of the Murray Darling Basin Authority, told the NFF congress he hoped a final blueprint would be released early next year.

Under the plan the authority will set sustainable diversion limits (SDLs) for the river valleys and then it will be up to the State Governments to decide how that water is used within their borders.

Senator Joyce said he had no argument with moves to take back water for the environment but the previous Labor Government had made a series of “random” and expensive buybacks, notably purchases of NSW water entitlement from Twynam and Tandou along with the acquisition of Toorale Station near Bourke, which have had harsh impacts on some rural communities including Collarenebri in North West NSW.

“We can’t just leave people destitute,” he said.

He said the Murray Darling Basin fed 20 million people and Australia needed to understand that decisions to remove water for increased environmental flows may cause people to starve elsewhere in the world.

Mr Freeman said the Commonwealth would have the power to access environmental water for food production under the new Murray Darling Basin plan in cases of a crisis in Australia or overseas.

Senator Joyce said there were a number of “witches” in the Murray Darling Basin that people wanted to “burn” including Cubbie Station, the rice and dairy industries and the Lower Lakes in South Australia.

In fact, Cubbie in south-west Queensland took much less than one per cent of the Basin’s water resources for its irrigated cotton and grain fields, while dairying and rice were valuable and important industries.

Independent South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon warned Australia needed to clamp down on the sale of water to foreign buyers.

Foreign investors had already bought “billions of litres” of water in the MD Basin, Australia’s most strategic food bowl.

He said Australia was the driest inhabited continent in the world yet we had the most liberal foreign investment laws for water and land.