The NSW Opposition has accused the NSW Nationals of adding to farmers‘ anxieties in the middle of a drought – to try and distract from their own failure to build a new dam in a decade.

Shadow Minister for Primary Industries Jenny Aitchison said today: “The Nationals are rattled because they’ve left farmers high and dry in the middle of a drought.“

“For the past decade the Nationals have promised dams and not delivered them.”

“As Alan Jones has pointed out this week, the water situation is so bad farmers are having to sell their breeding livestock for slaughter without any help from the Berejiklian-Barilaro Government.”

“Labor supports the right of farmers to be free from trespass on their own properties even more than the Government does.”

“Our farmers deserve strong, watertight legislation that won’t be challenged in the courts.”

“Adam Marshall has not negotiated with Labor in good faith. He had to amend his own legislation because it was so poorly drafted.”

“The Nationals have drafted a bad Bill, they haven’t fixed it and then they brayed around Parliament like loose sheep trying to bully Labor into supporting sloppy work.”

“The last thing we want is our farmers mired in legal uncertainty because the Bill creates a lawyers’ picnic.”

“Nationals – fix this bad Bill, then get back to fixing your failures on the drought.”