A plan to restore the health of the Murray-Darling is expected to be signed into law on Thursday. Source: AAP
FEDERAL Environment Minister Tony Burke is expected to sign into law a plan to restore the health of the Murray-Darling Basin river system on Thursday.
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority handed Mr Burke a copy of the plan on Wednesday.
He will either sign it into law or direct further changes.
When adopted, the plan will become Australia's first national approach to the vital river system since federation more than 110 years ago.
After receiving the document, Mr Burke told ABC radio that much of it appeared to take his ideas into account.
But he conceded that some state governments might not be "100 per cent happy" with every aspect of the plan.
If they did refuse to co-operate, the federal government had the legal power to override them and implement the plan anyway, he added.
Mr Burke is due to speak at the National Press Club in Canberra later on Thursday.
South Australian Liberal senator Simon Birmingham said the coalition hoped to be in a position to support the plan to get an outcome, after 120 years of arguing over the system.
"There's definitely not a magic number, there are magic outcomes," he told reporters in Canberra.
"And the magic outcomes are a healthy river and socially and economically sustainable communities."
The government had failed spectacularly with multiple delays in releasing the plan, failures to meet infrastructure targets and overspending on water buybacks, Senator Birmingham said.
"That has decimated a lot of the communities in the Murray-Darling Basin and has really hurt confidence.".
The opposition would look at the detail of the government's plan before deciding its position.
"If it stacks up we'll be happy to support it and see some progress on this matter."
Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said it was more likely than not that the government and the coalition would work together to pass a plan that would not save the river system.
"All this means is that $11 billion of taxpayers money will be spent not restoring the river to the health it needs to be for those communities to flourish into the future," Senator Sarah Hanson-Young told reporters.
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