It played a role in the Menindee fish kills, the drying out of towns on the Darling, and the shrinking and reclassification of the internationally significant Macquarie Marshes.

Floodplain Harvesting is the capture of floodwaters that break out of creek and river banks and flow across the landscape. This free, unmeasured, large-scale water harvesting operates in five key northern rivers - including the Macquarie - that feed the Barwon-Darling.

To date all that is known about the volumes of water involved is that it has been grossly underestimated by the NSW government. There has been no assessment of the impacts on the environment, cultural values or downstream water users, and there are no plans under the current government to do so.

New compensable, trade-able property rights for this water will be issued by the NSW government in the form of new water licences once the volumes of water involved are calculated.

The way these volumes are being calculated is shrouded in secrecy, like so many of the methods used for calculating water take in the Murray Darling Basin. The Murray Darling Basin Authority proposes to increase the legal limit of water diversions by the new NSW licence volumes.

Increasing the amount of water that can be taken based on how much water is being consumed, instead of using science, is likely a breach of the Federal Water Act.

Floodplain harvesting has divided the irrigation community - as the north keeps more, southern irrigators are left to fill supply needs into South Australia.

The 70 gigalitres of water taken from the environment in the Northern Basin Amendments could be replaced with water already being consumed by floodplain harvesting. The needs of our First Nations peoples’ access to cultural flows must be allocated before the hand out of new compensable property rights.

The South Australian Royal Commission summarised, "not only do floodplain harvesting diversions deny economic opportunities across the Northern Basin, left unregulated they are one of the most significant threats to water security in the Northern Murray-Darling Basin”.