New South Australian Liberal leader David Speirs says past criticism of his Murray-Darling Basin dealings will not affect his vote in areas that rely on a healthy Murray River.
Mr Speirs was elected leader on Tuesday, but his conduct while negotiating basin policy came under fire while he was water minister in the former Marshall government.
The 2019 royal commission into the basin's management found Mr Speirs had "capitulated to the Commonwealth, Victorian and New South Wales governments when negotiating the return of environmental water to the basin.
In the aftermath of the commission, he survived the then-Labor opposition's vote of no confidence to retain his position.
Speaking after gaining the leadership, Mr Speirs said the commission's findings were "vindictive" and he stood by his decisions while water minister.
"Riverland voters know that river inside out and I always felt they completely supported every decision I made with regard to the River Murray," he said.
"They [Riverland voters] understood the decisions I made in a much better way than the commentators in Adelaide."
He added the state "needed to be careful that the extremist views of that politically based royal commission never come to pass".
"The Riverland is better off for it. The Riverland has got more environmental flows, the projects that are delivering water towards that 450 gigalitre, that water's coming down the river. It's slower than I'd like but it's getting there.
"Those projects are coming on board for one reason because I was able to keep other states at the table."
Liberal Member for Chaffey Tim Whetstone agreed the royal commision's findings of Mr Speirs were influenced by Labor.
"I don't agree with the commissioner. I think he was way off the mark and he became political in telling people that the then-minister Speirs had capitulated," Mr Whetstone said.
"They were Labor's words, they would not be findings of the basin states and I think we just need to put that into context."
New water minister and deputy premier Susan Close had a different view of the 2019 royal commission, saying there had been no evidence Mr Speirs' deal had delivered more environmental water for SA.
"Although he says 'I know better than everyone, I'll do a deal with them and it'll be fine', in fact we've only seen everything go backwards since that capitulation.
"There is nowhere near enough projects that will give us the 450GL and there's no political appetite from Canberra."
'Heavy lifting' required from upstream
Water policy is set to feature as a key issue to basin voters during the upcoming federal election, with Labor guaranteeing South Australia will receive the environmental water promised to it in the basin plan if it wins government.
Labor has not ruled out using water buybacks to achieve this though, something opposed by the Coalition, particularly Barker MP Tony Pasin.
Last year, the Nationals attempted to move a motion in the Senate which would have drastically lowered the amount of environmental water SA would receive, but it was defeated by both major parties and the Greens.
Mr Speirs backed having water buybacks as a last-resort option for water recovery but said he wanted other initiatives to be used first.
"There's many other efficiency projects and infrastructure projects that can manage the Murray-Darling Basin before you get to buybacks," he said.
"But you shouldn't chuck buybacks out of the toolkit because those buybacks go to action, particularly in Victoria and New South Wales.
"South Australia has contributed most of the water that it can through efficiency measures and the heavy lifting now sits in the other jurisdictions."
