Compulsory flood easement buyouts flagged by NSW Gov

NSW Water Minister Rose Jackson has flagged compulsory buyouts of flood easements over 4000 riverside properties.

NSW Water Miniter Rose Jackson has set a 12-month deadline on voluntary acquisition of flood easements, after which she will use compulsory buyouts.

The NSW Government has flagged it will compulsorily acquire flood easements over 4000 Murray and Murrumbidgee landholders’ properties to ease constraints on environmental flows, if voluntary negotiations fail.

The government’s consultation paper states “if voluntary negotiations are not successful (within 12 months) under the Landholder Negotiation Scheme Regulation, it is intended that negotiations under the Just Terms Act to compulsorily acquire an interest in land by way of an easement may be considered by the minister as a last resort”.

NSW Irrigators chief executive Claire Miller said there was a real risk the government would resort to compulsory acquisition, given it had spent the past four years trying to negotiate voluntary easements and “achieved nothing”.

Riverside landholders risk losing crops, pastures and fodder, as well as having to shift livestock into holding yards and damage to fences, pumps, access tracks and shedding.

The NSW Government has stated “compulsory acquisition could only occur on a case-by-case basis with the approval of the Minister for Water, where acquisition is considered to be essential to enable the release the environmental flows”.

But NSW Water Minister Rose Jackson and her bureaucrats’ have already drafted a Landholder Negotiation Scheme Regulation that sets a 12-month deadline on voluntary easements being negotiated, after which compulsory acquisition comes into play.

Ms Jackson has come under pressure from her former mentor and federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek to facilitate increased environmental flows, by taking up flood easements that currently act as a constraint on pushing increased environmental flows down the southern basin’s rivers.

However, even if Ms Jackson is successful, the Victorian Government has ruled out using its compulsory acquisition powers to take up flood easements on its side of the Murray River, constraining the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holders’ ability to boost flows.

Victorian Water Minister Harriet Shing has ruled out compulsory acquisition of flood easements over riverside properties.

Ms Miller said irrigators and other riverside landholders had questioned why the NSW Government was even discussing compulsory acquisition when it was in the midst of reviewing the Land Acquisition (Just Terms Compensation) Act 1991 (the Just Terms Act).

The review, which received 31 submissions with over 400 individual comments is yet to make its recommendations to government.

Ms Jackson’s office said “her aim was to “reach voluntary agreements with landholders through open and transparent negotiations”.