LOCUST PLAGUE

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (14:53): My question is to the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries. Can he inform the house of the effectiveness of the government's locust control program and the plans for autumn 2011?

The Hon. M.F. O'BRIEN (Napier—Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Energy, Minister for the Northern Suburbs) (14:53): I thank the member for Mawson for his question. I think it would be of particular interest to members of the opposition. The spring 2010 locust outbreak in South Australia was the largest and the most complex in the past 40 years—I think that is generally acknowledged. We undertook a 10-week spraying program, targeting locusts at their most vulnerable stage, which is when they are banding. At the completion of operations, a total of 549 aerial targets were sprayed, covering an area of 460,000 hectares. That is an enormous area of land and I think that, nationally, South Australia did 80 per cent of the aerial spraying, so we were in this program in a very big way. The NRM boards and contractors treated 667 targets with ground spraying. The role of the NRM boards in doing the smaller targets was invaluable.

Now, this is the interesting bit of the proposition. A report was completed in February of this year by the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics and Sciences—ABARES, as we know it—regarding the cost benefit analysis for locust control operations carried out by the Australian Plague Locust Commission, the national body that does most of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland and compared their work with state jurisdictions.

ABARES found that South Australia's result was exceptional and outperformed all other states in terms of a cost benefit analysis. It found that South Australia had invested $10.4 million at this stage with a benefit of $465 million.' Now that was $465 million in crops saved—this is very, very tangible—giving a benefit to cost ratio of 44.6:1.

To put this in context, ABARES undertook an analysis of operations of locust control activities in eastern Australia in the years 1999, 2000, 2004 and 2005, and took into consideration the impact of a second generation of locusts emerging, assuming initial outbreaks were not controlled. The discounted benefit to cost ratio was only 20.2:1. This means that South Australia's effort, its activity program, outperformed the rest of Australia by 2:1.

So, it was a great effort, and an effort that I think has been recognised by the South Australian farming community. It has saved literally hundreds of millions of dollars in lost crop and we did it extremely well. As well—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.F. O'BRIEN: As well, satisfaction was expressed by Riverland farmer, and chairman of the Riverland and Mallee community reference group, Mr Ken Kaye, one of nature's gentlemen. He said on ABC radio, on 6 December:

Overall very successful...without the effort that's been put in, by especially the plane side of it, we would never have been able to spray in some of those places where the planes have sprayed.

While second-generation hoppers have developed in certain areas—the offspring of fly-ins and survivors from the spring offensive—their distribution and numbers were not as extensive as initially feared. We thought we would have a success rate of 80 per cent and that there would be 20 per cent left to deal with.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. M.F. O'BRIEN: Yes. We have dealt with that. In essence, we believe that we have well and truly got the issue under control. The advice that I have received from the national body is that it is highly unlikely that we are going to need an autumn program but I will certainly be liaising with the shadow minister. He raised it with me in the lead-up to autumn and we are not going to get caught on the hop, so to speak, so we will be looking—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. M.F. O'BRIEN: Pretty lame! So, we have got our eye on the issue and we will fund it if required and that is the advice.

The SPEAKER: Your jokes are getting as bad as the Minister for Transport's. What are we going to do about our cricket problem? The Leader of the Opposition.