Toorale National Park water flows halted to address reporting concerns

Australia Broadcast Center

a day ago

The NSW natural water regulator has issued a stop-work order at Toorale National Park to halt environmental water flows, citing a lack of reporting.
Natural Resources Access Regulator (NRAR) chief regulatory officer Greg Barnes said it had been investigating the 91,000 hectare park, 80 kilometres south-west of Bourke, for the past 12 months over concerns it was not following water licence rules.
"We've done an exhaustive evaluation of Toorale — been out on site on a number of occasions, sought evidence by a number of parties, and have evaluated that evidence — to now be confident in our position that water must be accounted for against the water access licence in order to ensure that it meets the public's expectations," he said.
Mr Barnes said it appeared the water flows were not recorded because it was not stipulated as necessary in an operational maintenance plan.
For that to be rectified, the park's operator, the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), must comply with the NRAR's stop-work order.
Toorale National Park, which is located at the junction of the Darling and Warrego rivers, was purchased by the Australian and NSW governments in 2008 for $24 million.
Prior to that, it had been a sheep and cropping station.
According to landholders downstream of Toorale National Park, its conversion to a national park was intended to help return water to the Murray-Darling river system.
But in 2020 the NSW government built a three-gate Boera Dam regulator to release water into the Western flood plain from the Warrego River.
A spokesperson for DCCEEW said it was fully co-operating with the NRAR's investigation and welcomed any recommendation to further improve the transparency and effectiveness of its operations.
Despite issuing the stop-work order, the regulator said it did not believe Toorale National Park had exceeded its water entitlement of 17 gigalitres per year.
Mr Barnes said hydraulic models had been used to determine that about 3,000 megalitres of water had been diverted to the Western flood plain over the past two and a half years.
The models show the park has been doing the right thing, and the stop-work order relates solely to its reporting obligations.
"The stop-work order places additional obligations on how the water that is recorded is then reported publicly in a timely manner," Mr Barnes said.
The report follows calls for an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) inquiry into the management of Toorale National Park from state MP for Barwon Roy Butler.
However, Mr Barnes said the stop-work order at Toorale had nothing to do with Mr Butler's referral to ICAC.
"While acknowledging it's (the referral) been done, [it] has had no bearing on our investigations, nor the decision that I took yesterday [to issue stop-work order]," he said.
Australian Floodplain Association president Justin McClure from Kallara Station, downstream of Toorale National Park, said the stop-work order was a "step in the right direction".
"For those communities that live on the river, we need to go back to the intent of the purchase [of Toorale] and that was to return the water to the river, and that river being the Darling," he said.
"And to stop prioritising man-made environmental assets upstream."
An independent water researcher said the NRAR was holding the government to a higher standard than irrigators.
Maryanne Slattery said by the regulator's own reporting, only 43 per cent of licensed water holders in the Barwon, Darling and West area were meeting metering rules.
"NRAR should be explaining, in detail, how the treatment of environmental watering is consistent with the treatment of irrigators that have failed to comply with the non-urban metering requirements," she said.
A bill introduced by NSW Water Minister Rose Jackson is currently before state parliament to give the NRAR stronger powers.
The Water Management Legislation Amendment (Stronger Enforcement and Penalties) Bill 2025 is intended to introduce civil breaches and increase penalties for water theft and other breaches.
But Greens MP and water spokesperson Cate Faehrmann is urging the government not to reduce criminal penalties.
"The Greens don't support the reduction of any criminal offence to a civil penalty. We do support introducing measures to improve the likelihood of successful prosecutions, but not where this will remove the disincentive of criminal prosecution," she said.
"If this bill was a genuine attempt to disincentivise breaches of the law, why hasn't it addressed the unworkable regulatory framework for water in Northern NSW?"