Here is the first question and the responses from candidates who provided their views.

New South Wales residents will go to polling booths on March 28 to cast their vote.

​What is your view on Murray Darling Basin Plan?

The Murray Darling Basin Plan is a federally legislated management plan for our rivers system, designed to restore our rivers’ health, supports regional communities and sustainable food production.

Having said that, I am fully aware that’s not always the case and that issues of socio-economic impacts of implementation of MDBP, must be addressed both federally and on state level.

Non-strategic buy-backs, should not disadvantage farmers who choose to stay in irrigation system and produce food crops.

They need to be compensated and not penalised, when others decide to sell their water allocations.

That’s just not fair for farming communities and has to be dealt with by MDBA and state water agencies.

I have been advocating strongly for additional water storages in Murrumbidgee valley, in order to overcome problem of water security for farmers.

If elected, I will be lobbying both federal and state governments to fund these projects.

I will work with all stakeholders in order to address issues of water allocations, water insecurity and water storages and deliver best possible outcome for farmers and townships in Murray electorate.

The MDBP is not a practical plan for the management of the Murray Darling Basin.

Irrigators account for every drop of water while the MDBA advocates the flushing and wasting of water down our river systems with no defined plan or measurable outcomes.

The plan is contemptuous of our vibrant rural communities and shows a blatant disrespect for the contribution agriculture makes to global food security and farmers’ proud role as custodians of the land.

The non-strategic buybacks are impacting on the social and economic heart of our irrigation areas.

The MDBA lacks meaningful engagement and is presenting models based on false assumptions as fact.

It doesn’t adequately and effectively address the physical and manmade constraints.

There has been no detailed socio economic study and what has been done has been widely criticised.

There is now a concentration of power to the MDBA adding to the duplication of bureaucracy.

On December 15, 2011 at the meeting at the Yoogali Club, Griffith gave no doubts about what they thought of the plan to take  away irrigation water.

Tony Abbott made a flying visit to say that he would not accept a bad plan.

I have  quotes by Michael McCormack saying that he was proud of the people of Griffith and I have the reasons he presented.

I have written in one of my books that all of the Ban The Plan banners and planned convoys to Canberra were followed by a political betrayal.

My contention is that the Coalition decided to give in to almost all of the measures because the Liberals had three South Australian seats to protect.

My story is that they gave Michael the chance to symbolically cross the floor with a concession to keep his voters happy.

It worked – he was returned with an increased majority.

The Murray Darling Basin Plan is a prominent issue that our Murray electorate areas (Griffith, Deniliquin, Leeton, Finlay, Coleambally,Wentworth and others) have been struggling to resolve for several years.

The plan has not been well researched, is inefficient and may leave us with deficits.

In my opinion, environmental goal s should be practical and should not be a hindrance to the active problems of the areas.

A possible solution to previous anomalous decisions could be the opening of barrages at lower lake to return 20 per cent of the water.

We through our strong Agriculture make a significant contribution to the economy and export industry of NSW.

With the current shortcomings, the people of Murray are being betrayed and deserve a better deal.

We refuse to be short-changed and treated like second class citizens.

I may be new to this area but I am determined to work hard on the consensus of the local community and do what is best for the Murray electorate.

Everyone in the electorate agrees that it is a bad plan.

It has hurt farmers and the community badly, and it has rocked the confidence of this region.

I have fought hard against this plan every single day since it was released.

Four years ago we were heading for a disaster with Labor in government in Canberra and in Sydney.

With the election of the Nationals in NSW, we listened to irrigators and pushed back hard against the federal government.

We refused to sign anything to do with the plan until irrigation groups like the Ricegrowers' Association and the NSW Irrigators Council recommended we do so.

We set up a condition of our signature that non-strategic buybacks be capped, and we won that concession from Canberra.

It was only the NSW Nationals working hand in hand with irrigators that achieved any sort of improvement in this terrible plan.

There is still, of course, much more work to be done.