Murray report 'unnervingly emotive': NFF

Australia's peak farming body has described the report into the Murray-Darling Basin Plan as "unnervingly emotive".

National Farmers' Federation president Fiona Simson said the inquiry wrongly focused on the legal validity of the plan.

"The presumption that the plan is not legally valid flows through to a number of recommendations, which cannot be progressed until or if the validity is resolved," she said.

She said it would take some time to digest the 746-page report which accuses the Murray-Darling Basin Authority of acting unlawfully and deciding river allocations by politics rather than science.

Federal agriculture minister David Littleproud says he's not afraid of the scathing report, vowing to work with states to calmly respond to the royal commission's findings.

Mr Littleproud said he didn't want to make early assumptions about the report, which found the federal law underpinning the management of the massive river system had been breached.

"I'm not afraid to get feedback and to listen and to learn. That's what we'll do," Mr Littleproud said.

"No-one should be afraid of this. We'll work through it in a calm and decisive and collective way."

Labor's water spokesman Tony Burke, who was water minister when the plan was introduced, says the findings should be referred to the Australian Public Service Commission for a "proper investigation".

The probe could have gone further if the government had cooperated, he added.

"If these findings are right, serious action needs to be taken by the Commonwealth," he told the ABC News channel.

"You don't get, really, a more serious allegation against a government agency than to say it has acted unlawfully and deplorably.

"It's either a right finding or a wrong finding based on the fact they didn't have all the evidence in front of them."

Mr Burke says he waited until last week to write to the royal commission offering to provide evidence as he had expected to be contacted during the inquiry.

Australian Conservation Foundation campaigns director Paul Sinclair said the report showed clear evidence the plan has been mismanaged.

"Despite government rhetoric, Australia is failing to protect its unique nature and wildlife, including our precious inland rivers," Dr Sinclair said.

The ACF backed the commission's call to include the impact of climate change on water resources in the plan.

Murray-Darling Basin Authority chief executive Phillip Glyde said he wanted to understand why the report found the Water Act had been breached.

"We have not broken the law. Everything we've done has been legal and I reject those assertions," he told the ABC.

Left-leaning think tank The Australia Institute seized on the findings, calling for a major overhaul of the plan after a major fish kill on the Darling River in NSW.

"A million dead fish can't be wrong and a million dead fish are saying that we need more water returned to the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin," research director Rod Campbell said.