Barnaby Joyce has told a pub in a Victorian irrigation district that the Four Corners program which raised allegations of water theft was about taking more water from irrigators and shutting down towns.

The deputy prime minister, agriculture and water minister told a gathering at a Hotel Australia in Shepparton that he had given water back to agriculture through the Murray Darling Basin plan so the “greenies were not running the show”.



“We have taken water, put it back into agriculture, so we could look after you and make sure we don’t have the greenies running the show basically sending you out the back door, and that was a hard ask,” he said in comments reported by the ABC.

“A couple of nights ago on Four Corners, you know what that’s all about? It’s about them trying to take more water off you, trying to create a calamity. A calamity for which the solution is to take more water off you, shut more of your towns down.”



His comments are at odds with his press conference on Wednesday when he likened water thieves to cattle and sheep thieves, saying people who broke the law would be dealt with by the proper processes. At that time he said he would wait for the findings of a NSW inquiry and then take the matter to the Council of Australian Governments.

But on Thursday, Joyce told a session of Politics in the Pub that it was part of an environmental campaign and the Nationals would not fold.



A spokesman for Joyce doubled down on the minister’s comments, saying the program was part of a radical green movement which wanted to throw out the Murray-Darling Basin plan in favour of the failed water buybacks conducted under the Labor government.

“Four Corners did not approach Barnaby Joyce, the federal water minister, they were only interested in radical greens organisations like the Environmental Defender’s Office,” he said.

The fallout over water management continues after ABC’s Four Corners program reported that billions of litres of water bought by taxpayers to return to the environment under the Murray-Darling Basin plan were being allegedly pumped out by some irrigators for cotton growing in northern NSW.

Four Corners also revealed recordings of the deputy director general of the NSW Department of Primary Industries, Gavin Hanlon, allegedly offering to share internal “debranded” government information with a group of irrigators via a Dropbox account. Hanlon has referred the matter to the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption. Guardian Australia has contacted Hanlon for comment.

The NSW minister for regional water, Niall Blair has appointed a former commonwealth public servant Ken Matthews to conduct an independent investigation into the issues raised by the program.

The terms of reference for the review will cover all allegations raised that involve the responsibilities of the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Water and any of its employees. It will report by 30 November with an interim report on 31 August.

But South Australian water minister Ian Hunter said the NSW terms of reference were inadequate and again called for a full judicial inquiry commissioned by the Council of Australian governments to cover the length of the river system.

“Regional water minister Niall Blair has asked the investigator to inquire into allegations of water theft occurring over a four-day period in 2015 ... when there are claims of systemic and long-term gaming of the water rules and compliance in New South Wales, predating that four-day period,” Hunter said.

“Was this deliberately drafted to not get unwanted answers to the important questions?”



Australian Conservation Foundation campaign director Paul Sinclair said the comments were borderline conspiratorial and showed the fox is in charge of the hen house.

“Compromises were made under the historic basin plan by all involved in order to end decades of squabbling and return water to the river to ensure the long-term viability of the wildlife, communities and farmers that rely on it,” Sinclair said.



“How can the Australian public have confidence that the plan is being fully and fairly implemented when the minister in charge is making these kind of borderline conspiratorial claims.”

