Water Minister Melinda Pavey has vowed she will not stand by and watch NSW producers punished for the sake of winning political seats in South Australia.
"I've not been comfortable with comments being made by Tony Burke in South Australia," Ms Pavey said. "We are not going to stand by and see our producers, our productive sector punished to win seats in South Australia."
Ms Pavey has hit the ground running in her new ministerial position after the NSW state election travelling to Broken Hill, Menindee, Pooncarrie and Wentworth.
"I'm so grateful I've done this trip...I will be a much better minister for it," she said.
At Menindee she said the government had delivered the pipeline between Wentworth and Broken Hill to secure the town's water supply at Broken Hill.
"We need to use our energy to build those relationships," she said.
"We need to work on this, keep water in the system and avoid evaporation as much as possible for flows to continue down the rest of the Darling.
"The people of Menindee are understandably frustrated by the time it's taken to sort out this situation and I'm committed to move energy to that."
It was followed by a trip to Narrabri to meet with Namoi water users and Gwydir water users in Moree. Ms Pavey also met with cotton and graziers from Bourke and Brewarrina before finishing up the trip with a community forum in Walgett.
"One of the ladies at Walgett said '90 per cent of us are just physically and emotionally spent', the drought has worn them down, you can see the look in their faces," she said.
"It's not just about he farmers who are doing it incredibly tough with the uncertainty of negotiations with the Murray Darling Basin Plan, it's communities. I could understand completely the anger generated in the south when I went across the Murray River in Wentworth to see a very full river heading towards South Australia."
She said there were enormous challenges ahead with the lowest inflows we've ever had in "our existence" and a drought worst than the millennial drought.
To help win back the seats of Barwon and Murray, lost in the state election to the Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party, Ms Pavey said they would work through the recommendations with the Federal Government outlined in the Vertessy report. "We need to be open and transparent...no interest is more important than another interest."
- Northern rivers environmental flush not without risk to fish, p15.