It’s not only media requests that get dodged by NSW Water Minister Rose Jackson, but the plight of NSW family farmers is just as inconsequential.
Independent Member for Murray Helen Dalton has called on NSW Water Minister Rose Jackson to stand down unless she can fix the water crisis facing rural NSW.
“The role of Water Minister is one of the few ministerial positions where, if you get it wrong, people’s lives can be ruined immediately,” Helen said.
“I have never experienced such levels of fear and anger amongst my constituents before,” Helen added.
“People have had concerns in the past, but this is different.
“Too many people believe the NSW Government has abandoned them when it comes to water, and I am deeply worried about where this is going to lead.
“Rose Jackson needs to start standing up for the people of rural NSW, or stand down as Minister. It’s that simple.”
The NSW Labor Government was quick to fall in line with their federal masters in supporting ripping an additional 450 gigalitres from our farms, community and environment to dilute the Southern Ocean.
“People believe it’s a case of Labor looking after Labor, and Tanya (Plibersek) and Rose (Jackson) being just too close to each other,” Helen said.
“The NSW Government should have blocked these buybacks just like the Victorian Government has. Instead, the NSW Government has put its own party’s interests before the interests of the NSW people.”
In addition to the buyback betrayal, the NSW and Commonwealth governments have announced that they will flood out private farms. The natural constraints of the system have always prevented the Murray-Darling Basin Authority from achieving their ludicrous target of 80,000 megalitres a day at the South Australian border. Flows required to mask the sins of South Australia, such as Australia’s only ‘freshwater’ estuary (resulting from 7.6km of barrages killing the tidal flows and fish migration), the dying Coorong from the interception of precious groundwater robbing the Ramsar-listed site, and attempting to hold the lakes higher than the sea for the yachts of the rich to navigate, while growing the size of the lakes and increasing evaporation.
To flood out farms the Landholder Negotiation Scheme (LNS) will amend the Water Act to allow the state government to attempt to purchase or compulsorily acquire land and flood farmers over and above the natural floods under the guise of the Reconnecting River Country Program, aka relaxing constraints.
Affected landholders can apply for a once-off compensation package despite these floods wiping hundreds of millions of dollars off the value of private rural properties. Not all landholders will be affected equally, those in the know or ‘at the table’ have already secured millions of dollars in upgrades while throwing their neighbours to the wolves.
Little is also known about risk mitigation; for example, if a rainfall event occurs during the government’s push of 40,000+ megalitres a day down the systems, the government’s planned 5,000 megalitres buffer on new infrastructure may be as useless as the crops flooded out.
The [Koondrook and Barham] Bridge did reach out to Minister Jackson for comment, but our enquiry was forwarded to a spokesperson from the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water instead.
“The NSW Government has no plans to compulsorily acquire thousands of flow easements along the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers,” stated the spokesperson, although a source has supplied The [Koondrook and Barham] Bridge with a presentation listing ‘Commence Just Terms Act compulsory acquisition process’ as one of the steps if landholder negotiations break down.
A source also revealed that the department views LNS as generous to farmers; while traditional compulsory acquisition provides a six-month time frame for the government to force their will, the proposed LNS provides twelve.
According to NSW, there will be around 4,000 landholdings across the Murrumbidgee and Murray region that will be impacted by this regulation, with 2,700 landholdings situated in the Murray.
When we asked if NSW had investigated the estuarine nature of the Lower Lakes, which underlines so many of the Basin Plan targets pursued by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, the Department spokesperson stated, “This is not related to the Reconnecting River Country Program and is a question for the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.”
The department spokesperson stated, “Farmers would continue to own and operate their properties as they always have.” I’m not sure a landholder in flood would agree that operations are, as usual, under flow targets up to 45,000 ML per day downstream of Yarrawonga.
If the threat of buybacks and flooding weren’t enough, the NSW Government has shocked farmers with a planned increase in water charges by a cumulative 184 per cent over a five-year period, effectively a tripling in government fees irrigators will have to pay. Pass-through charges are set to skyrocket from $7.71 to $21.89, and water usage fees from $6.89 to $19.56. A total of $41.45, plus your Murray Irrigation fees if you are in the footprint.
The trainwreck continues…
This article appeared in The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 21 November 2024.
