Federal Water Minister Tony Burke has hinted at a potential split with the Australian Greens over the party's pledge to vote down the Murray-Darling Basin water reform plan in the Senate next year.
In the NSW Riverina town of Griffith yesterday, Mr Burke and Murray-Darling Basin Authority chairman Craig Knowles were heckled and booed by a hostile crowd of about 12,000 farmers, residents and local business operators, many wearing black armbands and T-shirts with the slogan ''RIP Griffith''.
Protesters staged a mock funeral, carrying a coffin covered with wreaths made from rice, grapes, oranges and other local produce into the Yoogali Club where the meeting was held.
Griffith Business Chamber president Paul Pierotti said, ''It was a huge response. So many people turned up that the lines of cars just went for eternity.''
In a pointed reference to Greens water spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young's threat to reject the plan in the Senate, Mr Burke thanked the Coalition for ''remaining at the table'' to negotiate changes to the draft water-sharing plan.
'' They want to work this through,'' he said.
''Next year we will have a nationwide plan for the Basin. It will be before the Parliament. The only political party at the moment to have said they will flatly vote against it are the Greens.''
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott told the crowd he would ''not support a bad plan''.
''Farmers are the best environmentalists, the best conservationists we have,'' he said.
Mr Knowles, a former NSW Labor water minister, was jeered when he told the crowd ''simply rejecting the plan won't make the problem go away''.
''I get the great privilege of travelling around to all the states and all the communities in the basin.''
''I've been doing that pretty well non-stop now for the best part of the year. There are very many different views throughout the basin, many of them diametrically opposed to each other, and diametrically opposed to yours,'' he said.
Most businesses in Griffith shut down for the morning so staff could attend the meeting. The draft plan outlines reforms that would cut water allocations in the basin's southern catchments by up to 40 per cent to secure water to return to river and wetlands to improve environmental health.
National Farmers Federation chief executive Matt Linnegar said the meeting was ''passionate, intense and a bit rugged at times for the minister and [Mr] Knowles, but not aggressive''.
''I think a clear policy message from this meeting is that communities want to see a real move on water efficiency and infrastructure programs,'' he said.
Mr Pierotti said locals were angry the ACT - ''the biggest city in the Murrumbidgee catchment'' - had been allowed to build an enlarged dam and a pipeline to divert water from the Murrumbidgee River, while being exempt from water cuts under the proposed plan.
''That's just so typically bloody Canberra, isn't it?'' he said.
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