11th November, 2025.
As the member for Wollondilly, I speak about the critical importance of ensuring that the Warragamba Dam wall is never raised. I promised to fight the plan and have done so since my election in March 2023. Wollondilly is home to that iconic structure, nestled in the heart of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage area, a place of profound environmental, cultural and spiritual significance. The raising was never about collecting more drinking water. Raising the wall would devastate this treasure, flooding up to 6,000 hectares of national park land, inundating over 300 Indigenous cultural sites and threatening species like the regent honeyeater and Camden white gum. As Gundungurra Elder Kazan Brown said in 2023, scrapping the plan was "the best news in eight years". Traditional owners celebrated it as a vital win, protecting sacred sites and seeking further safeguards like including Lake Burragorang in the World Heritage listing. We need to back it up with legislation to match.
The reasons against raising the wall are compelling and multifaceted. Costs have ballooned from an initial estimated $600 million under former Premier Mike Baird to over $2 billion today, plus $1.34 billion in environmental offsets—funds better spent on genuine flood mitigation. Those funds would have led to little benefit to properties downstream. Management is the answer. As Premier Chris Minns stated in this place on 30 May 2023, "The Government will not be progressing with raising the Warragamba Dam wall by 14 metres." He rightly noted that 45 per cent of floodwaters in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley come from tributaries and rivers, not over the dam, making the project ineffective for full protection. Worse, it risks enabling unchecked development on flood plains.
Former emergency services Minister David Elliott admitted the real plan in 2021, confirming that raising the wall could "release more land in the north‑west for construction and development". That contradicted the then member for Penrith, Stuart Ayres, who insisted his Government would not allow building in restricted areas. What did they all really think? The 2023 cancellation by the Government withdrawing critical State infrastructure status was a smart move, but we must lock it into legislation. That is why amending the Water NSW Act 2014 to remove part 5A is essential. Introduced in 2018, part 5A mandates environmental management plans for "temporary inundation of national park land" from raising the wall, effectively paving the way for this destructive project.
In April 2024 I urged a repeal of sections like 64C and 64E, which tie flood mitigation to wall raising and ministerial directions that could override protections. Without repeal, future governments could revive this "developer-driven proposal", as the GIVE A DAM campaign calls it, flooding World Heritage areas and ignoring UNESCO obligations. In 2022 the International Union for Conservation of Nature warned that it could lead to an "in-danger" listing for the Blue Mountains. Repealing part 5A backs the Premier's 7 August 2024 commitment to me in this House when he agreed to work on changes to the Act, reporting back on my request. It ensures that no future water Minister can pursue this terrible plan, honouring community votes against the previous Government.
However, repeal must be balanced. We cannot remove the usage of the dam for mitigation downstream as it is done today. We need a new section in the Act to explicitly state, "WaterNSW may operate the Warragamba Dam to facilitate flood mitigation downstream of the dam." That addresses the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal's licence restrictions, which limit flood mitigation statewide except in Sydney, ensuring continued safe operation without wall raising. I am currently working with the Government to retain this operational allowance, while scrapping the rest of part 5A, clarifying that flood mitigation does not require inundating the national park. I look forward to bringing the bill to this place.