Farmers on the Murrumbidgee River claim they have been kept in the dark about a NSW Government plan to acquire flow easements along the riverfront to accommodate environmental water releases.

Dozens of frustrated landholders chose to boycott a hastily organised online forum on Wednesday October 2 and instead gathered in Wagga to discuss the scheme that they say will impact their properties and livelihoods.

“To call it a ‘Landholder Negotiation Scheme’ is so farcical because none of us knew about it,” said Collingulllie farmer Paul Funnell.

“We only found that there was even going to be a meeting here 10 days ago because one landholder had been handed a piece of paper confidentially.”

According to the NSW Water homepage, the draft Landholder Negotiation Scheme (LNS) regulation will “outline the approach the NSW Government will take when negotiating voluntary agreements with landholders affected by future environmental water deliveries at higher flow levels, or under different regimes, than current operating practice.”

The scheme would allow the government to negotiate with landholders to acquire flow easements and, if no agreement can be reached, the water minister can decide to proceed with compulsory acquisition of the flow corridors “on just terms”.

A consultation period was opened last month to encourage feedback and “ensure stakeholders have access to the information they need to make their submissions” and one of several information sessions was planned for Wednesday October 2 in Wagga.

Landholders allege that few of them were officially notified and, as the word spread and farmers scrambled to learn more about the government’s proposed scheme, the in-person meeting was cancelled and replaced with an online information session due to “logistical reasons”.

Rather than log on to the NSW Water webinar, around 30 local landholders gathered at the originally proposed venue in Wagga to consider their response.

The Landholder Negotiation Scheme (LNS) will set the stage for the NSW Government to negotiate voluntary agreements with landholders to acquire flow easements.

Mr Funnell said the lack of notice and scant information was typical of a “bureaucratic box-ticking exercise” and was “deceitful and misleading”.

“This is a breach of the fundamental property rights of any freehold land,” he said.

“The government is stampeding over the top of landholders and, once again, agriculture is under attack at every possible level.”

Among farmers’ concerns are the risk of disease and rubbish, the requirement of fencing, reduced access, loss of production and the devaluing of properties.

The public exhibition period for the draft Landholder Negotiation Scheme will conclude at 11:59 pm (AEDT) on Sunday 27 October.  

This article appeared in the  Narrandera Argus, 10 October 2024.