Excess Murray-Darling water up for sale

Want to buy some water, and we're not talking about the bottled stuff from the supermarket.

The government, through the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, is selling 20 gigalitres of water that's excess to environmental needs in the southern Murray-Darling basin.

The government has done this twice before, with the 10 gigalitres sold last year for $3.217 million, which went to the Murray-Darling environment.

The tender opened on Monday and closes at 3pm on Wednesday.

Federal MP Sharman Stone said this water should only be made available to irrigators in the Goulburn Valley.

"Water is the most important resource to our irrigators - without it we would have no Australian-made food," she said in a statement.

Dr Stone said the Murray-Darling Basin Plan had now acquired more than 1956 gigalitres for the environment.

"This is almost four Sydney Harbours. We need to return as much water as we can to our irrigators," she said.