Helen Dalton and Sussan Ley attack Tanya Plibersek on buybacks plan

NSW Murray MP Helen Dalton made the claims during a speech outside Ms Plibersek's Sydney office as part of a protest on Thursday, September 14, against the Labor Party's Murray-Darling Basin water buybacks plan.

"Tanya Plibersek now wants to take the law into her own hands and remove that safety assurance for us in rural communities, remove that socio-economic test and throw irrigation communities under a bus," Mrs Dalton said.

She warned the buyback of 450 gigalitres would result in higher food prices, more foreign food on supermarket shelves and be the "death knell" of towns as services were reduced and schools downgraded.

Mrs Dalton urged Ms Plibersek's constituents to contact her.

"Say you are doing the wrong thing, you are incredibly un-Australian and you're not allowing us, the food producing areas in our state to do just that and that is to produce food at a reasonable price for you," Mrs Dalton said.

A fellow Independent NSW politician, member for Wagga, Joe McGirr was also among the crowd of 10 to 20 for the protest walk from Central station to the minister's Redfern electorate office.

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He said he was concerned about regional impacts on his electorate and believed infrastructure and distribution measures should be adopted rather than buybacks.

Farrer MP and former environment minister Sussan Ley also criticised Ms Plibersek during a media conference in Canberra on Thursday, September 14, with fellow basin Coalition MPs and farming, irrigation, dairy, forest products and fruit industry representatives.

"We have come together as members of parliament with commodity groups in an emergency setting to call on Tanya Plibersek as the Water Minister, a water minister who never leaves her inner Sydney refuge and comes out into the real world of the basin," Ms Ley said.

She also criticised Prime Minister Anthony Albanese saying his government had committed a "dog act" in pursuing water buybacks.

Ms Plibersek said she was willing to look at measures other than buybacks, adding "after a decade of sabotage from the Liberals and Nationals, I am focused on delivering the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in full".

"I've already delivered more additional environment water than Sussan Ley did in nine years," Ms Plibersek said.

"I've been clear that the government is happy to consider water-saving efficiency projects instead of buybacks.

"The agreement we have struck with South Australia, NSW, Queensland and the ACT provides access to more time and more funding to deliver these projects."

South Australian federal Independent MP Rebekha Sharkie, whose electorate includes the Murray mouth, told Parliament on Thursday, September 14, it was a universal truth the basin was "overallocated".

She pointed to "incredibly thirsty crops" such as cotton, rice and almonds.

"How can it be that the plan in place, with the commitment of all the states, to return water to the system is at the same time that we have seen a mass expansion of the growing of almonds and permanent plantings in places like Tooleybuc and across the Mallee," Ms Sharkie said.

"Almond crops require, according to the Horticulture Industry Network, between 1200 millimetres and 1500 millimetres of water in a season, and yet most of these crops are grown in areas where we have rainfalls of between 300 and 350 millimetres annually.

"What a failed policy space it is when we look to grow high-water-use plants in areas of low rainfall."

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