The man who will chair a new parliamentary committee that will examine the impact of the
Murray-Darling Basin plan on irrigation communities has called for calm in the debate.
Independent MP Tony Windsor has been announced chair of the regional Australia committee which will conduct the inquiry announced by Labor on Thursday afternoon, AAP reported.
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At a meeting in Griffith earlier in the day, local irrigators - who face cuts of up to 43 per cent to their water entitlement - burned copies of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's guide to the proposed basin plan.
"I think the magnitude of the changes has actually frightened people," Mr Windsor told ABC TV.
"(But) I think we've got to get to a position where we do calm down on this and look at it objectively.
"I think there's a way through this.
"We've got to walk slowly with the people that are affected."
Mr Windsor also had a message for the country's environmentally-minded.
"I think the environmentalists need to get out of their lounge chairs a bit and give people a bit of room to move on this and they'll see a solution develop," he said.
"If they just want the old conflicts that'll be the worst thing that happens for the river and the people that live on it."As for the prime minister, commentators are already speculating on the difficulties the new coalition will have on convincing all sides of the minority government to get a plan through parliament.
