Nicole Cabrera, 18, and Frank Bagiante, 12, have a message for jester Water Minister Tony Burke. Pictures: Nic Gibson Source: The Daily Telegraph

Rally in Griffith today against water cuts on the Murray Darling Basin. Picture: Nic Gibson Source: The Daily Telegraph

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Rally in Griffith today against water cuts on the Murray Darling Basin. Picture: Nic Gibson Source: The Daily Telegraph

Carrying signs reading “Don’t sell us down the river” and “No water and food — starvation coming to a town near you”, workers and townsfolk presented a united front against cuts they say will starve one of the nation’s key food producing regions.

Angry Griffith locals shut the town for two hours in opposition to the slashing of 2750 gigalitres from irrigators’ water allotments, to be returned to the environment.

State and federal water ministers will meet in Canberra tomorrow to discuss the new management plan for the four-state river system.

Great-grandmother Thelma Broome, 79, whose family attended the rally dressed in skeleton costumes, said her family was one of the original settlers in Griffith.

“I have three children, nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren and I want a future for them in this town,” Mrs Broome said. “But if there is no water we will starve and have to move, it will be the death of the town.”

Murrumbidgee MP Adrian Piccoli, who was born in the region, said he had a message from Premier Barry O’Farrell: “Tell the federal government to get stuffed”. Mr Piccoli said: “That has come from the Premier who is 100 per cent behind the country.

“We don’t need to convince anyone here today, it’s the people outside this region.”

There was even an effigy of federal Water Minister Tony Burke as a court jester which people could throw food at. Resident Chint Quarisa urged NSW Primary Industries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson to “get down and dirty to start the fight” at tomorrow’s meeting. “I’m telling you we will not let our pioneers’ sacrifice, toil and hard work go in vain,” Mr Quarisa said.

“If they take this water then this city will die a slow death, which is already happening.”

Finley High School principal Bernie Roebuck weighed into the debate, saying numbers had declined across many schools in the region.

“The decision will fall on my children and their children’s heads,” he said. NSW Irrigators Council CEO Andrew Gregson said: “There are tens of thousands of people tied to the basin, their jobs, their communities, their businesses and their way of life depend on it. Some call those voices vested interests, we call them people.”