The NSW department responsible for delivering water to the environment, and setting water allocations, has hit back at Member for Murray Helen Dalton MP’s claims that water is being stolen from irrigators.
The NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) said Ms Dalton’s claims of water theft are incorrect.
“Referring to these agreed arrangements as ‘water theft’ is incorrect and misrepresents the collaborative process through which they were established,” a departmental spokesperson told The Riverine Grazier.
“It is important that the environment, as well as water users, gets its fair share of water.”
The department says arrangements referred to by Ms Dalton as ‘voluntary contributions’ are not a contribution of water from individual water users, but refer to the rules that govern how water is allocated, under various climatic conditions in the relevant water sharing plan.
In wetter years, almost all water access licence holders receive full allocations.
In drier years, lower-priority entitlements may receive reduced allocations, which DCCEEW says is consistent with the original rules agreed by stakeholders.
“More than 20 years ago, as part of developing the first water sharing plans for the Murray and Murrumbidgee, local River Management Committees – made up of farmers, community representatives and other stakeholders – agreed on rules to return water to the environment.”
“These allocation rules were the result of a cooperative decision by water users to support environmental outcomes by adjusting how water is allocated, particularly during dry periods.
“It was not a government initiative.
“These allocation rules are now embedded in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan as ‘Planned Environmental Water,’ and reversing these contributions would risk non-compliance with the Plan and could trigger additional water recovery obligations,” the spokesperson said.
The Basin Plan set new environmental water recovery targets and used existing Planned Environmental Water (PEW) rules (including these existing allocation rules) as a baseline.
DCCEEW says because the Basin Plan superseded earlier state-based reforms, the planned 12-month reviews were no longer required and did not proceed.
Recently, Ms Dalton has accused the NSW Government of “stealing hundreds of millions of dollars” of water from farming families every year since 2002, and has called on NSW Premier Chris Minns to take action.
“I am calling on Premier Chris Minns to accept this theft can no longer be allowed and to declare that the voluntary contributions shakedown is over,” Ms Dalton said.
This article appeared in The Riverine Grazier, 20 August 2025.
