NSW Canegrowers are annoyed and frustrated by government inaction and the failure to utilise the $5 million dollars allocated to the Northern NSW Drainage Reset Program in February this year.
“Governments are very good at coming into disaster areas and promising money for recovery, but are extremely poor on delivery,” Chairman of NSW Canegrowers Association Ross Farlow said.
“Five months after announcing the program and its funding, not one cent has been spent, no guidelines have been announced, there has been no communication with stakeholders, no plans for works have been drawn up, and no contracts have been let.”
The failure of governments to maintain the drains and drain outlets they own on the Northern Rivers is not a new issue. It has been constantly raised by a number of organisations and individuals over the past six years. The lack of maintenance is leading to unnecessarily long water retention times, microbial and thermal deoxygenation, and a decline in the quality of water entering the river from some systems.
“We have seen bureaucratic ‘bungling’, ‘buck-passing’ and incompetence preventing essential work on government owned assets that may have lessened the impact of the 2022 floods on some properties,” Mr Farlow said. “Our Association and its members spent considerable time co-operating and assisting John Culleton who was engaged by the previous government to ‘sort out the bureaucratic mess’. It has now been eight months since he handed his report to the Minister for Agriculture with recommendations for short- and long-term solutions – we have heard nothing and assume the report is on the ‘bottom of the pile’ or in the bin.”
NSW Cane farmers are joining the increasing long list of dissatisfied Northern Rivers Residents who have been ignored by those who promised assistance with the recovery.
Ross Farlow would like to help his members. “Many of our growers and our harvesting Co-operatives missed out on financial assistance for recovery. All we are asking is for governments to fix the drains and drain outlets they own, to stop flooding our properties, and to make public, and then act on the findings of the Culleton Report.” he said.
This article appeared in the Clarence Valley Independent, 26 July 2023.
