New South Wales farmers are reportedly pleased at the simplification of water management laws.

NSW Farmers has welcomed a new bill now before the parliament to change the Water Management Act 2000.

The Act is a key piece of legislation covering the allocation and application of water in NSW.

“There were a number of anomalies in the act which restricted our members’ ability to operate sustainably in the water market,” NSW Farmers water spokesperson Helen Dalton says.

“The changes, if passed through parliament, provide a new framework for the issuing of floodplain harvesting licences as well as creating a new dealing for licence holders so that allocations can be traded on a temporary rather than permanent basis.

“For water sharing plans, the bill also seeks to change what will be considered ‘worst periods of low inflows’ when establishing the amount of water held back for high security users.

“The clock will be set to when the relevant water sharing plan commenced so that during the calculation of appropriate allocations based on historical flow information, the severity of the millennium drought won’t lock up water in drought reserves. This has been an issue for NSW Farmers’ members and we are glad to see this fixed.

“We encourage both houses of parliament to support the sensible changes put forward in this bill,” she concluded.