#Barnaby scrawled on dead fish at Menindee as rage erupts over Darling River disaster

Up to a million dead fish are now rotting in the Darling River, prompting outrage across the country while a macabre scrawled message reveals who an angry community holds responsible.

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UP to a million dead fish are now rotting in the Darling River, prompting outrage and blame-shifting across the country.

While the authorities blame the drought for a blue-green algal bloom that has wiped out hundreds of thousands of native fish, others are blaming state and federal mismanagement of water.

South Australian Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young visited Menindee in NSW today to witness the mass fish death event first hand — and her party came across a dead fish with “#Barnaby” scrawled on its side.

Former Water Minister Barnaby Joyce worked on the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and was seen to be more supportive of cotton growers and irrigators than of the environment.

“This whole environmental disaster has Barnaby Joyce’s name all over it,” Senator Hanson-Young said.

A dead fish at the Menindee with Barnaby written on it. Picture: Kate McBride

“The sooner the Liberal and National parties get their heads out of the sand, and stop saying it’s just the drought … the sooner we can get on with fixing the problem.”

While the NSW water department has confirmed hundreds of thousands of fish are dead, a NSW ecologist says the number could reach a million.

The SA Department for Environment and Water has said that there will be no flow-on effect to SA, mostly because no water is flowing on. Water is being delivered to the River Murray through a managed environmental flow program.

The NSW Government says the event was “devastating” but blames it on the drought, as does Cotton Australia and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. The Authority says a lack of water let the algae thrive, and then the high temperatures dropped quickly, killing the algae which in turn made the water toxic.

The National Irrigators Council said no one wanted to see fish kills but that “ill-informed scapegoating of irrigators will do nothing to help avoid it in future”.

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young holding a dead fish at Menindee. Picture: Supplied

Critics point out that many of the dead fish are 100 years old, meaning they have survived previous droughts. A range of experts have pointed the finger at the way the water is being managed in the Menindee area and by irrigators, some of whom have been under scrutiny for water theft and rorting.

The University of Adelaide’s Professor Mike Young, a Research Chair in Water and Environmental Policy, called for a “hands off” policy where no one is allowed to take water when the river system falls below a certain level.

He also wants to see irrigators forced to use meters to monitor their use. “No meter means no water,” he said.

The University of Queensland’s Professor John Quiggin, an economist, declared the disaster “unsurprising”, blaming political decisions “driven by ignorance and expediency”.

The $13 billion Murray-Darling Basin Plan has been the subject of several inquiries, with the state Royal Commission set to hand down its findings within weeks.