Back in February we asked our landholders to participate in a voluntary levy and thanks to you all, we generated around $230,000.
This money was critical in our ongoing crusade to highlight the illegal practice of floodplain harvesting (FPH).
The voluntary levy allowed us to engage the services of Bret Walker, who is considered one of Australia’s most formative minds on water, and his report in the upcoming NSW Upper House inquiry confirms SRI's position — FPH has never been legal: it does not sit within the legal limits in the Water Act 2007 and the Basin Plan 2012 and if NSW increase volumes of take through water sharing plans, it is a direct contravention of federal legislation.
Consultants Slattery and Johnson have been consistently working on the legality of floodplain harvesting, including cap. They have highlighted the distortion and manipulation by departments as they attempt to license above cap and along the way uncovered an increase in storage in the north from 574Gl in 1994 to 1395Gl in 2020.
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (remember the government body supposedly working to improve and support the environment?) is on course to accredit increases to allow enormous volumes of water to be licensed for floodplain harvesting, making them compensable if they are ever cancelled.
SRI members will be paying for FPH licensing twice; first via a reduction in allocation and second via taxes.
SRI have been fighting for a return of water since the FPH review began in 2018. There have been few others keeping NSW honest as northern irrigator lobby groups push this process through at all costs.
The culmination of our work and determination has resulted in the upper house FPH inquiry, which we are comfortable will end the debate and see water flowing to the south again.
Advocacy doesn’t come cheap, especially when your opposition are government departments with deep pockets and no skin in the game, and, as you are all well aware, SRI landholders don’t have time to wait.
This year NSWMGS allocations sit on 30 per cent with full dams while in previous years we would be clapping our hands on 100 per cent.
Without access to water we are licensed and metered to receive, our businesses, our community and our environment are directly threatened.
The class action is gathering momentum and will provide additional success for our region as we see some changing of the rules already — but not all and not quick enough.
There are many other issues affecting reliability of NSWMGS; increasing conveyance, Barmah-Millewa borrow, Lower Lakes, carryover and Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder.
We have a long fight and at times it will be an expensive one but your support is integral for our success and with continued co-operation and focus, we will see water return to NSWMGS.
Sophie Baldwin
Executive officer SRI
21°C