NSW MP quits over party no-show

NSW lower house MP Helen Dalton.
NSW lower house MP Helen Dalton has quit the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party. -AAP Image

NSW member for the seat of Murray Helen Dalton has resigned from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party after her upper house party colleagues did not show up for a crucial vote.

"I've always said I'd put my electorate ahead of my party," Ms Dalton said, announcing her resignation on Thursday night and her intention to remain on the lower house crossbench as an independent.

"Last week, upper house SFF Party MPs did not show up for a crucial vote on floodplain harvesting," she said in a statement.

She says that meant "dodgy National Party law changes that allowed for excessive water take in the northern basin" passed parliament.

The laws will disadvantage communities and irrigators in the lower Darling and Murray river system, Ms Dalton said.

She said she plans to stay in parliament as an independent and won't be aligning with other parties or MPs.

One of her first tasks as an independent will be creating new social media pages to communicate with her constituents.

"Just before I resigned the Shooters removed me as an administrator of my own Facebook page, then deleted it," Ms Dalton said.

Murray had previously been held by the Nationals since 1980 before Ms Dalton and the SFF won the seat in 2019, securing 38.7 per cent of the primary vote and a bruising swing of more than 20 per cent away from the Nationals.