A clear candidate for assessment for a critically endangered listing, the “wetland and inner floodplain of the Macquarie Marshes” was one of two ecological communities not put forward for a listing as environment minister, Sussan Ley, was “unlikely to support” their inclusion on the 2019 list of species and habitats under consideration for protection.
Listed as critically endangered by then environment minister Mark Butler in the final days of the Labor government in 2013, after the Coalition won government, both listings were disallowed under the new environment minister, Greg Hunt.
“Science, not politics, should be the only basis for listings but it’s clear that as it stands this isn’t always the case,”
Even with good inflows in early 2020, so much water from the first flows was extracted and diverted by floodplain harvesting that the environmental demands for water in the Macquarie Marshes is currently classified as HIGH.
In this light, plans for a re regulating weir at Gin Gin which will allow even more water to be extracted upstream of the Marshes border on immoral.
Healthy Rivers Dubbo 