On Thursday, some of the state and the nation's most high-profile politicians, including the Prime Minister, will converge on Dubbo for the forum.

The New England MP wants the proposed upgrade of Dungowan Dam to be included on the agenda, because he's tired of both levels of government "duck-shoving the responsibility".

"I am sick of the buck-passing, and everyone saying, 'I want to do it, but the hold up is somewhere else'," he said.

"Get these people in a room and say, 'you're all here now, work out your hold ups'. This is ridiculous, we've got to clear these hurdles up.

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"This gives us a great opportunity for all these people to get together and actually walk away with something that is absolutely constructive from this drought forum."

Mr Joyce said he'd be satisfied with an incremental step forward.

"If they walk away and say, 'we are going to start the geo-tech work on Dungowan in the next month', I'll say congratulations," he said.

"If that's the only thing that comes out of this drought meeting, that's great."

Mr Joyce also labelled the massive $484m-price tag on the project "bullshit" and "a load of crap", pointing out much larger dams had been built for far less.

"Even if that's the case, let's start with the $75 million that you've got and when you run out, come back to us for more," he said.

"Let's get the footings done, the geo-tech work finished, the access roads and the quarries started. If it's started, it will be a lot easier to fight for the next lot of money.

"If I see a bulldozer pushing dirt, I'm happy, I know it's going to be built."

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