Murray Irrigation Limited shareholders invoiced $300 each to fund SRI

A lobby group wants more than 2000 NSW irrigators to hand over $300 each — but it has not lodged a financial return with the state’s fair trading body since 2017-18.

Murray Irrigation Limited chairman Phillip Snowden says his board has agreed to collect more money for Southern Riverina Irrigators.

SOUTHERN Riverina Irrigators has failed to lodge a financial return since 2017-18 detailing how it spends irrigators’ levies.

Yet Murray Irrigation Limited has agreed to send out invoices requesting its 2200 irrigators each hand over another $300 to fund SRI political lobbying.

MIL chairman Phillip Snowden said the corporation had agreed to send out invoices, but would “not fund anything to do with class actions or any legal action”.

SRI deputy chairman Darcy Hare said the lobby group was seeking about $300 per landholder.

“We expect to raise about $400,000, basically for projects to look at floodplain harvesting and feasibility studies of the Lower Lakes and this (Barmah choke) sand slug,” Mr Hare said.

He said past funding had been used to run SRI, pay for legal advice and consultant Maryanne Slattery’s fees.

Up until now SRI has received about $110,000 in landholder levies, plus another $300,000 in project funding from MIL.

Mr Hare said SRI had unsuccessfully sought access to another $8.7 million that MIL holds in Land and Water Management Plan funds, which was collected from landholders in the 1990s and has yet to be returned to them.

“It’s been sitting there accruing interest and sits as a liability on MIL’s books,” Mr Hare said.

When asked for a copy of SRI’s financials Mr Hare said they were only available to members upon request.

However when asked about SRI’s obligations a NSW Fair Trading spokeswoman said as a tier two association it was required to comply with Division 2 Part 5 of the Associations Incorporation Act 2009, which demands its financials are lodged on the NSW Fair Trading register, no matter how much it earns.

The only exemption is if the association is registered and has lodged its financials with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission instead of NSW Fair Trading.

However a search of the ACNC register shows no listing of SRI or any variation of that name.

A NSW Fair Trading policy and regulation spokeswoman told The Weekly Times “the last annual return lodged by the Association(SRI) was for its financial year ended 30 June 2018”.

Asked what action would be taken if SRI failed to lodge a return the spokeswoman said Fair Trading’s options included “action to cancel an association’s registration”.