“Government ministers keep saying only rain will fix our problem,” Mrs Dalton said.
“Well, with the rain this month we’ve seen a secret regulation change that allowed rainwater to be diverted for private use.
“If this continues to happen, downstream towns with no drinking water won’t get a drop, even if we have a wet 2020.”
Mrs Dalton criticised NSW Water Minister Melinda Pavey’s recent decision to allow a select few irrigators in north-west NSW to harvest rainwater into their on-farm storages, preventing the water from reaching the Darling River.
“The minister temporarily lifted an embargo on the practice known as floodplain harvesting in certain cotton growing valleys,” she said.
“A leaked email from a NSW Government bureaucrat to lobbyists, reported in Guardian Australia, revealed the NSW Government desperately tried to justify this decision after they’d already given the green light for irrigators to divert the rainwater.
“It would appear the dodgy dealings exposed on Four Corners two-and-a-half years ago are continuing.”
Mrs Dalton said the Independent Commission Against Corruption supposedly started investigating this in July 2017.
“But we’ve heard nothing since, not even an update confirming the inquiry is actually happening,” she said.
“If we’re not serious about stamping out malpractice, of course it’s going to continue.
“I’m an irrigator myself. I’ve always defended the right of irrigators to access water.
“But there needs to be proper rules, monitoring and transparency.”
