WELLINGTON WEIR

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (15:06): My question is to the Minister for Water Security. Why has the government only just called for tenders to conduct an environmental impact statement for the Wellington weir proposal? The proposal was first made public by the Premier on 7 November 2006. In December 2006, the Department for Environment and Heritage made application to the commonwealth government for exemption from the requirement to complete a full environmental impact statement.

In July 2007, the federal Department of Environment and Water Resources declared a full EIS was required before construction of a weir could commence. A report in the Victor Harbor Times of 19 July 2007, alluding to this decision, stated:

Minister for the River Murray Karlene Maywald said the EIS will get underway virtually immediately.

According to a radio interview by ABC 639’s Andrew Male with minister Maywald on Tuesday 23 October, the invitation to tender for this EIS was advertised in The Advertiser that day, almost 14 weeks after minister Maywald’s promise that it would get underway immediately.

The Hon. K.A. MAYWALD (Chaffey—Minister for the River Murray, Minister for Water Security, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Small Business, Minister Assisting the Minister for Industry and Trade) (15:07): I thank the member for his question and I recognise his keen interest in the Wellington weir on behalf of his constituents. The process for the environmental impact statement is being undertaken by the Department for Environment and Heritage managed in the portfolio responsibilities of minister Gago.

However, I can advise the house that the tenders were called for the environmental impact statement over the last week or so. The work that has been undertaken by the Department for Environment and Heritage leading up to that is to collate all the information that we already have to hand right across government to ensure that, when we let the tender, we were letting it to fill the gaps in the information that we currently have. So, a significant amount of work was undertaken within the department first and foremost to determine what information we had and what information we needed to get.