NRAR order: NSW ban on using stock and domestic water to spray crops

The NSW water regulator has banned farmers from using their basic landholder water rights to fill spray tanks.

NSW farmers have been warned against using stock and domestic water to spray their crops, weeds and pastures.

NSW Natural Resources Access Regulator has ordered a Gunnedah farmer to stop using his bore water to fill his spray tank, setting a precedent that has implications for all the state’s rural landholders.

Section 52 of the NSW Water Management Act 2000 grants all landholders the basic right to source stock or domestic water from any creek, river or bore, without the need for a licence.

But NRAR has ruled the Gunnedah farmer breached his basic landholder right by using the bore water to mix chemicals to spray his crop.

NRAR issued a Facebook post earlier this month warning “if you don’t follow the rules for basic landholder rights, here’s what can happen”, alleging the landholder had “taken water without an access licence”.

“They (the landholder) were using a basic rights (stock & domestic) bore to mix chemicals for crop spraying. Using the bore in this way did not comply with the requirements of a basic rights water supply work, because water from this source cannot be used on any crops produced for commercial purposes.”

NRAR issued a stop work order and gave the farmer “educational material on basic rights water supply works”.

NSW Natural Resources Access Regulator July 7 facebook post warning landholders not to use their stock and domestic water right to spray crops.

An NRAR spokeswoman said the water used to spray the crop “must come through an approved licence and compliant metering equipment so it can be measured and accounted for”.

Former NSW Irrigators Council chairman Jim Cush said it was absurd that NRAR was blindly following “the letter of the law” to stop farmers using 50 or 60 litres a hectare of stock and domestic water to spray a crop.

NSW Farmers Association water taskforce chair Richard Bootle said: “Farmers would be surprised to hear that what they did every day was not lawful.”

He said the NSW government had launched a review on farmers’ basic landholder rights in August 2023, to which NSWFA lodged a submission calling for an expansion of BLR uses, to include crop spraying, firefighting and machinery washdown.

But while more than 2000 people completed the review’s online survey, the Labor state government is yet to release a summary of “what we heard”, let alone consider changes to the law.

In the meantime NSW Water Minister Rose Jackson introduced the Water Management Legislation Amendment (Stronger Enforcement and Penalties) Bill 2025 to parliament last month that grants NRAR even greater powers.

Up until now NRAR could only issue fines or initiate criminal proceedings that required it to prove beyond reasonable doubt that water was taken unlawfully.

But Ms Jackson said the bill would allow NRAR to initiate “civil procedures to prove on the balance of probabilities that water was taken unlawfully”.

“This bill gives NRAR an alternative, to initiate civil penalty proceedings that could result in a maximum penalty of almost $10 million for a corporation,” she said.