The Australian Senate select committee hearings aimed to find out about the social, economic and environmental impacts of the plan on regional communities.

Submissions had been made by several district residents including Darren De Bortoli, Ron Pike and Paul Pierotti (on behalf of Griffith Business Chamber).

Mr Pike said Senator John Madigan had promised he would be allowed to speak at the hearing and said he would reiterate his view the plan was based on “false claims made during the millennium drought”.

“The plan is costing governments both revenue and credibility as regional communities across the whole basin are regressing,” Mr Pike wrote in his submission.

“The businesses which grow, process and transport our food and fibre are being destroyed by lack of water and increasing prices for what is available.”

The problem of the Coorong system in South Australia was highlighted by Mr Pike, Mr De Bortoli and Mr Pierotti.

“The fixation by the Murray Darling Basin Authority and ministers on trying to flow water through a closed barrage system of unnatural fresh water lakes which should in fact be estuarine will continue to have devastating negative environmental outcomes on the Coorong and the Lower Lakes,” Mr Pierotti wrote.

“Not to mention the permanent destruction of economic activity to all the basin communities.”

Mr Pierotti labelled the NSW Government’s Regional Diversification Fund “one of the greatest jokes of all time” and called it a “petty amount… compared to the ongoing permanent damage done by stripped productivity and its flow on effects”.

At the time of writing no venue had been chosen for the public hearing which will be held in Griffith on Tuesday, October 27.