Support for Royal Commission

“The Murray-Darling Basin Plan is not delivering the fair and balanced implementation that we were promised from the beginning, and we have little confidence that the 2026 Basin Plan Review will change anything.

“We have a Federal Government that is only interested in buying water because it’s the easy way out, and appeases environmentalists and South Australian voters. It is the worst way to implement the plan, but the most politically convenient.

“As a result, rural communities suffer, Australia’s food security is compromised and we pay more for food at the supermarket. Perhaps a Royal Commission can uncover these indisputable facts,” Mrs Scoullar said.

Mrs Dalton secured a formal vote In NSW Parliament last week in support of a Federal Royal Commission into water management, after winning a Public Interest Debate.

The vote passed after a 40-minute debate, with Mrs Dalton describing it as “a significant breakthrough for rural communities who have spent years calling for transparency, accountability and truth in water policy”.

“This is a huge moment for rural communities as well as the rest of Australia,” Mrs Dalton said.

“This Parliament has now voted to support a Royal Commission into water. That is not symbolic.

“This means the government must now act to achieve this Royal Commission and I will be putting as much pressure on Premier Chris Minns as I can in order to achieve this,” Mrs Dalton said.

The successful motion calls for immediate support for a Royal Commission, full cooperation with compulsory production of all modelling, data, licences, compliance records and intergovernmental agreements, and formally acknowledges the social, economic and environmental harm caused by the current framework.

“Only a Royal Commission will reveal how and why the management of our river systems has failed Australia for decades,” Mrs Dalton said.

During the debate, Mrs Dalton highlighted the long history of bipartisan support for a Royal Commission.

“This is not a new idea and it is not radical. I’m going to ensure no-one backflips on their stated support,” Mrs Dalton said.

Mrs Dalton reminded the House that a NSW parliamentary committee in 2018, including current senior ministers, recommended a Royal Commission after hearing evidence from experts, irrigators and communities across the state.

“We recognised the problem in 2018. We debated it in 2019. It was raised again in 2020,” she said.

“Six years later, communities are still paying the price because governments have chosen not to act.”

The debate also exposed deep concerns about flawed modelling, contested science, weak compliance, broken trust and the absence of any independent body ever putting the full balance sheet of the Basin Plan on the table.

“This is about truth,” Mrs Dalton said.

“We will never fix this problem, unless governments are honest about the problem."