"How that could be properly asserted before all the various statutory steps and safeguards have been taken and observed beggars the imagination," Mr Walker said in his report. "It threatens a travesty of lawful administrative decision-making, along the lines of ‘the fix is in’."

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Mr Blair, though, defended his government's position on Friday, and said he had the support of Lisa Neville, his Victorian counterpart in the Andrews Labor government for the arrangements, including re-engineering the Menindee Lakes to reduce the amount stored to limit evaporation.

"It's just bizarre," he told the Herald. Mr Walker "has misrepresented my comments by suggesting we would advance this project without any of the appropriate checks and balances".

These would include an environment impact statement, Infrastructure NSW support, community consultation and approval from Canberra. "If it stacks up, it stacks up. If it doesn't, it doesn't," he said.

Mr Blair also noted that in August 2010, Labor Premier Kristina Keneally had proposed a plan to save as much as 200 billion litres a year from the Menindee Lakes, or twice the 106 billion litres currently awaiting approval.

"Labor would have gone even harder," he said.

Chris Minns, Labor's water spokesman, said such a project had been proposed a decade ago "before any of the inquiries into the project were released".

Just because the venture had been proposed in the past didn't make the current plan any more viable.

"It's been found to be a dud and it would be irresponsible to pursue it," Mr Minns said.

The lack of action by the Berejiklian government to deal with flows in the Darling meant that southern parts of the state "had to do the heavy lifting" to meet the water sharing agreements with South Australia, he said.

Rather the long-run average of 39 per cent of NSW and Victoria's flows into SA coming from the Darling, the river had delivered nothing in three of the past four years, Mr Minns said.

NSW Labor will cancel the Menindee Lakes plan if elected next month.