A group representing hundreds of irrigators in South Australia and Victoria have lodged a challenge against the Murray-Darling Basin plan, attempting to have it ruled as unconstitutional.

 

The Murray Valley United group says the Water Act, through which the plan derives its legal legitimacy, breaches the rights of irrigators under Section 100 of the Constitution.

 

The group’s president, Greg Milner, says it the act, which was codified in 2007,  was ill conceived and hastily put together.

 

Mr Milner says that the act, and the delivery of the plan, jeopardizes the long term viability of farming in the area, and that the Federal Government is moving to protect the environment at the cost of livelihoods and food production.

 

"We believe that farmers and food producers are more important than frogs and a few gum trees. It's about human beings, it's about the social fabric of society and when this is taken out of your towns up and down the Murray, especially the smaller towns, it really has a big impact."