NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE: NORTHERN AND YORKE NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT BOARD

Mr RAU (Enfield) (16:13): I move:

That the 31^st report of the committee, entitled Northern and Yorke Natural Resources Management Board Levy Proposal 2009-10, be noted.

This is another of these reports, this time in relation to the Northern and Yorke natural resources management zone. Again, very briefly, I repeat everything I said in relation to Notice of Motion No. 8 about the structure, the format and so on.

The particular aspects of this one that are probably relevant are that, for a number of years, this board has been coming to us as a committee and saying, 'Look, we'd like some money from a division 2 levy' which means a water-based levy and for a number of years the committee has said, 'Yes, but you don't yet have a water allocation plan in your area so that the people that you are supposed to be looking after can know what their position is.' They kept saying, 'Yes, okay, we'll fix that up' and we would say, 'When you've fixed it up, come back and ask for a water-based levy.'

Yet again this year they came back, initially without the plan that we had asked them to produce for the last three or four years, and our initial response was, 'Well, no plan, no levy.' However, I am happy to say that a breakthrough occurred this year and, between the time that we first started considering their proposal and the time that we finally made our decision about it, their water allocation plan was put in place.

So, after several years, the water allocation plan has now been put in place and, in those circumstances and only because of that, the committee formed the view that, well, if their water allocation plan is now in place, it is not unreasonable that they pay a water-based levy. The only thing I would say to the chamber is: had they got their water allocation plans in place a couple of years ago, they might have been collecting a water-based levy, as far as the committee was concerned, a couple of years ago.

But, anyway, that is ancient history now. Everything is now in order. They do have a water allocation plan in place; they do now have a division 2 levy. That was really the only highlight of that particular board's proposals. I say again, both in relation to this report and the others, that all the committee members have been of the same mind about all these reports. The member for Stuart, I am sure, would agree that there has not been any instance when these levy proposals have arisen where there has been a division of opinion on the committee. It has always been pretty clear.

We have set the criteria which we think are relevant. They include: appropriate consultations, a justification of increases above CPI, a general principle of fairness, and an equitable distribution of the burden of levy payments. Any of the boards which have come before the committee and which have met those criteria have been approved. Those which have not, on occasions, have been requested to go away and have a think about it, and in every case, ultimately, that has turned out to be a satisfactory outcome.

Again, I thank all my colleagues who have been members of the committee for the last four years. They have done an excellent job. It has been tremendous working with all of them. I again say, because this is probably the last contribution I will be making in relation to NRM matters, that our staff on the committee have been excellent staff. Knut and Patrick have done a great job of supporting the committee in all that it has done. It has been a pleasure to work with them and the other members of the committee for the last four years. I do hope that, in the next parliament, whoever might be on the committee has a similarly satisfactory experience of the very interesting work that is involved in this area of the parliament's business.

Motion carried.