Floodplain harvesting rules blocked for fourth time

The NSW Upper House has voted to block floodplain harvesting regulators for a fourth time. See what it means for irrigators.

Floodplain harvesting licences for irrigators in the Macquarie, Barwon-Darling and Namoi valleys have been thrown back into doubt after the NSW Upper House voted to block the issuing of new licences on Wednesday.

NSW Water Minister Kevin Anderson at the end of July announced floodplain harvesting licences for the Macquarie, Barwon-Darling and Namoi valleys would be issued by early 2023.

Independent MP Justin Field, who moved the motion to block the new licences, said the government’s rules allowed an unsustainable level of water harvesting in the northern Murray Darling Basin.

“These are rules that will allow for billions of litres of water to be handed out for nothing to a handful of large corporate irrigators in the northern Murray Darling Basin,” Mr Field said.

The decision to block the rules came after strong opposition from irrigators in the Lower Darling, who labelled them “bullshit” and said they would not leave enough water in Menindee Lakes for downstream communities to cope in a future drought.

Irrigators on the Lower Darling say the rules passed by NSW Government to allow floodplain harvesting in July would lead to another fish kill.

Under the rules, irrigators would have been forced to stop harvesting water from floodplains if Menindee Lakes dropped below 195GL of water in storage. Australian Floodplain Association chairman Justin McClure told The Weekly Times in June the drought reserve was not enough, and a minimum of 390GL-400GL was needed to safeguard downstream communities against drought and fish kills.

The NSW Government has already licenced floodplain harvesting in the Border and Gwydir River valleys. Licences that have already been issued will not be affected by Wednesday’s vote in the Upper House.

“We only disallowed the regulation as it relates to issuing new licenses. So we did not seek to remove the ability of the regulator to do their job where those licenses have already been issued,” Mr Field said.

Mr Field’s motion was supported by Labor, the Greens and Independent MP Fred Nile, giving it a narrow victory.

Shooters Fishers and Farmers party MPs, who previously voted against the government’s floodplain harvesting rules, did not support Mr Field’s motion to block them on Wednesday.

The NSW government and opposition MPs have been playing a cat-and-mouse game with floodplain harvesting regulations for two-and-a-half years.

The NSW government has gazetted regulations allowing floodplain harvesting four times.

Because they are regulations and not legislation, the rules have not been required to be debated and voted upon in parliament. However, they can be dismissed by a majority vote in parliament in a ‘disallowance motion’, like the one passed by Mr Field on Wednesday.

NSW Labor, Greens, minor party and independent MPs have voted to block the regulations four times, in some cases months after the rules were passed due to parliament’s sitting dates.

A spokesman for Water Minister Kevin Anderson said the government was committed to licensing floodplain harvesting and was confident the 195GL Menindee Lakes drought reserve was sufficient.

“If floodplain harvesting is not licensed, then the practice will continue to grow unconstrained at the expense of other water users,” the spokesman said.