Monday, 13 January 2025
Member for Cootamundra Steph Cooke has condemned the Minns Labor Government’s Lachlan Regional Water Strategy, describing it as a wasted opportunity marked by delays and diminished vision that leaves communities vulnerable to future droughts and floods.
The recently released strategy, delayed since the Minns Government took office in early 2023, falls far short of what is needed to secure water resilience for the Lachlan Valley. It follows extensive consultation undertaken by the previous Coalition Government from 2020 to 2022, culminating in a comprehensive draft strategy centred on raising the Wyangala Dam wall—a project critical for drought resilience and flood mitigation.
However, the Minns Labor Government scrapped this ambitious plan, instead rereleasing a pared-down “shortlist of actions”.
“After undermining the business case for raising the Wyangala Dam wall, the Minns Labor Government has taken our region backwards,” Ms Cooke said.
“This ideologically driven decision to abandon the Wyangala Dam wall-raising project reveals a gross misunderstanding of the realities facing regional communities. Contrary to misconceptions in inner-city Sydney, raising the dam wall would not have resulted in new water licences for irrigators. Instead, it would have increased water reliability for everyone—securing supply for towns, industry, agriculture, and environmental flows while mitigating the devastating flood risks we know all too well in the Lachlan Valley.”
Ms Cooke described the Minns Labor Government’s new strategy as woefully inadequate, offering no tangible solutions.
“Two years on, we’ve been handed a report that commits to little more than ‘investigating’ water reliability measures. There is no commitment to building infrastructure, no strategy for carp control, and no plan to replenish the Lachlan system while diverting water to the Macquarie Valley,” she said.
“This so-called strategy is nothing more than a report about writing more reports. The Minns Labor Government has had years to deliver meaningful solutions, yet they’ve handed down a document that offers vague priorities without a single funded project to directly improve water security for the Lachlan region.”
Ms Cooke said the absence of significant infrastructure projects, particularly the decision to scrap the Wyangala Dam wall raising, highlights a glaring lack of leadership.
“Since scrapping the Wyangala Dam wall-raising project, the NSW Government is yet to propose any alternative that provides even a fraction of the water security, flood mitigation, and drought resilience that this region desperately needs,” she said.
“The Minns Government has effectively told Lachlan Valley communities to wait five, ten, or even twenty years for outcomes that are currently unfunded. This is an insult to the people of our communities who rely on secure water for their livelihoods, towns, and industries.”