Beattie Government has come under fire for allocating water to the giant Cubbie Station farm in western Queensland which has huge water requirement.
Malcolm Turnbull, Federal Parliamentary Secretary on Water Policy said that Queensland Government has overlooked the water needs of NSW farmers while allocating water to Cubbie, largest producer of cotton.
There is a long standing complaint of northwest NSW farmers using Murray-Darling system about getting reduced water supply downstream due to allocation of 150,000 mega litres of water per year to Cubbie farm.
Beattie Government had made the allocation last year.
Turnbull said that Queensland did not take into consideration the consequences people have to face and the effect on downstream environment while deciding the issue.
Turnbull said NSW and Queensland Government should really be getting together on this and settle.
Turnbull said some federal initiatives can be used to overcome the problem, such as more work through the Murray-Darling Basin Commission and withholding payments to states due under $2 billion National Water Initiative.
But Queensland Water Resources Minister Henry Palaszczuk said Queensland Government had put up a proposal to buy out Cubbie four years ago in order to solve the problem, but federal Government opposed it.
Palaszczuk said that he had met Ian McDonald, two weeks ago on the issue and Government officers were going through the data.
Cubbie Group Chairman Keith De Lacy said that the station had a licence to extract agreed quantity of water from Balonne River and took only floodwater from the flooded plain.
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