The grants, which are funded by the Federal Government and allocated by the NSW Government, were meant to provide relief to communities that have been devastated by the Federal Government’s water buyback programs.
But the worst affected communities in the seat of Murray, which she says include Griffith and Deniliquin, have only received a tiny fraction of the initial $50.1 million in grants.
Griffith received only $1.51 million, which is just three per cent of the total grants, while Deniliquin received less than $8 million.
“This is an absolute betrayal of the communities that have lost the most because the Federal Government insists on continuing to rip water away from farming families,” Helen said.
“As far as I'm concerned, these so-called Sustainable Communities Grants were like a bribe, or hush money, to try and stop people complaining about the pain the government is putting them through.
“But now we see, this money isn’t even going to the communities who desperately need it the most.
“This just shows how disgracefully out of touch NSW Ag Minister Tara Moriarty is.”
Other areas received significant amounts, with Leeton getting $10.6 million in Sustainable Communities Grants.
This is on top of a separate $14.5 million that was paid directly to SunRice by the Federal Government.
“Either Minister Moriarty has no idea about which areas are suffering the most because of buybacks, or her government has deliberately chosen to ignore Deniliquin and Griffith, despite the fact that they are suffering more than most other communities in the Murray-Darling Basin,” Ms Dalton said.
“The fact is that rural communities just need the Federal Government buybacks to end immediately.
“Our communities don’t need paltry compensation. We just need the government-created pain to end, right now.
“We also need a Royal Commission into water, so we can end the government’s ongoing destruction of the Murray-Darling Basin through incompetence and poor policies.”
