Mrs Dalton’s comments come after federal Labor shadow water minister Tony Burke said he wanted to lift restrictions on government purchases of water licences.
“Our party is totally against lifting the cap on buybacks,” Mrs Dalton said
“Every drop of water our community loses is like losing a drop of employment, a drop of health care, or a drop of education.
“It won’t just hurt irrigators, the flow on effects are enormous.
“If we lose water, we’ll lose jobs, and even more people will leave towns like Deniliquin, Finley, Moama and Wentworth. Housing prices will crash.’’
Mrs Dalton said buybacks were justified as a way to improve river health but she said there’s little evidence this has happened.
“Let’s look at the most famous buyback of all time,’’ she said.
“In 2017, the National Party signed off on using $78 million of taxpayer money to buy water licences from Tandou Station, near Broken Hill.
“This gave a private company a $37 million profit, from all of us.
“Yet what happened to all that government environmental water? Lower Darling communities have been left high and dry.
“When it comes to buybacks, let’s judge the NSW Government on what they’ve done over the past eight years, not on what they say during an election campaign.’’
Mrs Dalton said only SFF had consistently opposed government water buybacks.
‘‘If we share the balance of power after the election, we’ll insist on no more damaging government buybacks,’’ she said.
“We can’t continue with water recovery targets while so much environmental water is lost and much of the Northern Basin remains unmetered.’’
Mrs Dalton said SFF has a solid 10-point strategy to improve water management, outlined below:
■ Introduce full standardised metering and inspections across the MDB.
■ Audit, measure and evaluate environmental water.
■ Ensure local decision-making by shifting power away from bureaucrats in Sydney and Canberra to local policy boards.
■ Implement a federal royal commission and five-year pause in MDBP.
■ Review water transfer policies.
■ Improve floodplain harvesting regulation.
■ Restore Menindee Lakes.
■ Invest $5 billion in vulnerable communities.
■ Protect irrigator water rights.
■ Prioritise stock and domestic water.
‘‘SFF believe by properly measuring all water use, eliminating corruption and shifting decision making to local communities; we can both restore river health and enhance the vital role irrigation plays in our economy,’’ she said.
