Minister for Primary Industries Katrina Hodgkinson recently confirmed the $765,000 grant would not be renewed on the basis the State Management Council - the governing body of the LHPA - should be able to manage its finances without receiving government handouts.

“In 1997, the State Council received a five-year grant to establish a central administration fund, and in its ‘wisdom’ Labor extended this for a further 10 years,” Ms Hodgkinson said. 

“The State Council, and its successor, the State Management Council, has had 15 years to get their financial house in order and I cannot justify another extension being provided.”

Ms Hodgkinson said the recent Auditor-General’s audit of the State Council of Rural Lands Protection Boards revealed unacceptable financial statements for an organisation which collects large amounts of money.

She said each year LHPAs requested increases in rates but she was yet to see a corresponding increase in the value or service they provided, or cost savings as a result of greater efficiencies. 

She said LHPA ratepayers deserved better.

However, the Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Steve Whan, said the move was mere cost cutting and it would be ratepayers who would bear the brunt.

“The $765,000 that should have come out of State Government coffers is now being directly passed on to every rural landowner with more than 10 hectares in NSW,” he said. 

“The rates of rural landowners will go up to cover this cost shift,” Mr Whan said.

He said the Government had walked away from its commitment to programs such as locust prevention and livestock disease control.

In light of these claims, The Young Witness sought clarification from Ms Hodgkinson as to whether services in Young would be affected by the cut.

 To which she said: “I will be insisting that frontline services in Young are not impacted by not renewing this grant – the grant was provided to the State Management Council to support their administrative services only and any impact on frontline services is indefensible.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Ms Hodgkinson said whether the Young LHPA would seek to raise rates in relation to the cessation of the grant was a matter for them.

Although a spokesperson for the LHPA also affirmed services in Young wouldn’t be affected, she couldn’t say whether rates in Young would rise or not. 

“Each Authority establishes its own budget, based on local priorities, and makes an annual rating application through the State Management Council to the Minister for approval,” she said.

But according to Mr Whan, a source from one LHPA office told him they would need to put up rates in order to cover costs. 

He said it concerned him the government had pre-empted its response of the Ryan Review – a review of the LHPA released in March - in cutting the grant.

Asked whether the decision to cut the grant was premature given the outcome of the Ryan Review hadn’t been announced yet, the LHPA spokesperson declined to comment, saying this was a ministerial decision.

Mr Whan also told The Young Witness he’d heard rumors the government planned to merge the LHPA with the Catchment Management Authority, weed authorities and Department of Primary Industries frontline functions to form a new stand alone body.

This was one of the recommendations of the Ryan Review in which NSW Farmers rejected on the basis the LHPA would no longer be a ratepayer governed organisation.

Mr Whan said he’d heard the new body would be private rather than government funded.  

The NSW Government is still preparing its response to the review.