NATIVE VEGETATION (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 22 June 2011.)

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (16:02): Again, I indicate to the house that I am the lead speaker for the opposition on this particular matter. Any amendments to the Native Vegetation Act are always going to arouse much interest from this side of the house. I do not know how many hours of my life have been dedicated to getting an understanding of this act, of arguing the point particularly with bureaucrats but also various members of this place over the years and looking assiduously at the provisions of the act and trying to get my head around how we may improve the Native Vegetation Act.

Can I say that, as a practising farmer for most of my working life, I have a great feel for native vegetation. In fact, at one stage (and I have probably mentioned this to the house previously), when I was much younger and had a bit more time on my hands, one of my hobbies was, indeed, growing native vegetation, particularly eucalypts, and I had a great interest in the eucalyptus species.

There was a time when I probably could identify—and there are over 600 members of the eucalyptus species—maybe 20 or 30 per cent of those, in many cases simply by driving down the road. Eucalyptus are something which I have a great affinity for; and, again, as a practising farmer, I have had the pleasure of raising many seedlings and growing many trees on my farm.

I am from the farming community. I am one of those lucky farmers in respect of the Native Vegetation Act. My forebears and the people who came before me cleared nearly all of the native vegetation. So, native vegetation and interaction with the act as a farmer in my experience was not really an issue. It really has become an issue, though, for a number of other farmers who did not enjoy inheriting a farm that had been by and large denuded of all native vegetation.

I feel very sorry for a number of my constituents who I have worked with over the years, who inherited a farm from their grandfather, father, or, in some cases, their uncle or other family members, where their forebears had a very strong feeling for native vegetation and retained significant amounts of native vegetation on their farms. Some of those farmers have been severely disadvantaged over the years because of that. The very families who had retained large tracts of native vegetation for all manner of reasons, the people now managing those farms, are quite often severely handicapped in the way they go about their business.

Two types of instances arose a few years ago very regularly through my electorate office with my constituents. One was when there was great interest in planting new vineyards in the South-East, where the river red gum Eucalyptus camaldulensis is endemic. That particular species is named in the Native Vegetation Act. Very often we had a case of one or two trees wanting to be removed by the landowner in order to build an uninterrupted vineyard. In most cases they were not allowed to do that.

We have had the same experience, quite often with the same species of eucalypt, but also with some others, where it was desirous to move individual trees to allow for the construction and operation of centre pivot irrigation. We found very often that the farmers were caught in this cleft where they were endeavouring to increase their water use efficiency by moving from a flood irrigation system to a centre pivot irrigation system but they were prevented from doing that because there might have been one or two trees, or a handful of scattered trees—remnant trees—in their paddock. In many cases they were prevented from removing those trees and thus prevented from increasing their water use efficiency. Most times I thought it was a nonsense then, and I still think it is a nonsense.

To the credit of the parliament, I think we have got that a little bit better. We have over the years made some amendments to allow for the odd tree to be removed under those particular circumstances. I was just reading through the act earlier, noting some of the amendments that we have made in recent years. Notwithstanding that, I believe that the act needs much greater amendment than what is being proposed here by the government, and I will talk about that a little bit in a few moments.

First of all, I will come to this particular bill. This bill has been in the house before. I think it was introduced back in 2008, certainly prior to the last state election. I suspect it even got through this house. I am not responsible for the bill—one of my colleagues is—and I am not exactly certain of the history, but I think it might have got through the house. It was a bill, if not identical, very similar to this one. Previously, the Liberal Party supported the bill, and I can indicate that we will be largely supporting it at this stage.

I can also indicate that my colleague, the Hon. Michelle Lensink, in the other place, who does have responsibility for this on behalf of the opposition, indicated to me several days ago that she is still liaising with some interested parties on this. Notwithstanding that the opposition will support its passage through this particular chamber, we will be resuming our right to possibly move some amendments in the other place. I might even flag some of the areas where we are talking about moving amendments. Obviously, the Hon. Michelle Lensink will raise that when the bill gets to the other place.

As with the previous matter that we discussed a little while ago, some of this bill is what I referred to as 'rats and mice' in that earlier bill. It is tidying up the act. It is not making significant changes to what we are desiring the act to do but it is making it easier to administer and easier to understand in some areas, but there are some changes which need to be pointed out. One of the first is to change some parts of the state where the act applies.

By and large the act does not apply in metropolitan or urban areas, but there is, I understand, an endangered species—I think it is called a Grey Box—in the Mitcham hills area and there has been significant negotiation with the City of Mitcham to change the boundary such that the Native Vegetation Act will apply in the suburbs of Belair, Bellevue Heights, Blackwood, Coromandel Valley, Craigburn Farm, Eden Hills, Glenalta and Hawthorndene, specifically so that the powers of the act can be used to further protect that particular species.

The opposition supports that. I understand that the City of Mitcham supports it and those stakeholders who we have been able to identify and have spoken with, including some of our own members whose electorates are impacted by these changes, have supported that particular change.

There are some changes being made to the Native Vegetation Council. I understand that previously the commonwealth government had a nominee on the council but it no longer wishes to be involved in providing a nominee for the council, so there are some changes to be made there.

One thing that I am aware of is that we made significant changes to the Mining Act about 12 months ago and strengthened some of the environmental parts of that act. As the mining industry is becoming more and more important in this state and we are seeing more and more mining activity, the mining industry is, I will not say coming into conflict but certainly coming up against the Native Vegetation Act quite regularly, much more than it did previously.

I am aware that the mining sector would like to be represented on the Native Vegetation Council and I think that is something that the government should consider, that one of those positions on the council might well be filled by somebody with a solid understanding of and some expertise in the mining industry, because I am absolutely certain that there are special needs and special requirements which may well need a special understanding of the needs of the mining industry to guide the Native Vegetation Council in its deliberations.

That is something that the minister may care to comment on. It may be something that my colleague may wish to address in the other place, but it is certainly an issue that has been brought to our attention.

One of the other things is, and I think some of these amendments are particularly because of the mining industry, about having credits for offsets. At the moment we have this notion within the act that a significant environmental benefit is one of the requirements to get consent to remove native vegetation.

For instance, and I will use the mining industry again as an example, if it is necessary to disturb an area of native vegetation to facilitate the construction of a mine then the proponent of that mine would need to provide a significant environmental benefit. To date, my understanding of the act is that that environmental benefit would need to be achieved within the same region where the environmental impact is occurring.

One of the amendments that we are addressing today is to change that and open that up a little bit to allow that environmental benefit to be achieved in a different region of the state. Personally, I think that is a very sensible change, because in some cases—and we can talk about the Far North—I do not think anyone could really argue that, if we damage a few acres or even a few hectares of native vegetation in an area where there is tens of thousands of hectares, it is absolutely imperative that we replace or get that environmental benefit in that region.

We may well be better off getting the environmental benefit in a region where we have very little remnant native vegetation left, like the South-East of the state, where my electorate is, where various figures suggest there is only a very small percentage of the native vegetation; certainly intact tracts of native vegetation are very limited in the South-East. Off the top of my head, I think it is only about 4 per cent.

There is a lot of remnant scattered native vegetation across the South-East, but there are very few patches of untouched native vegetation, particularly in the Lower South-East, and particularly with the red gum forests which used to cover vast tracts of the South-East. I fully support that proposal. I think it is a very sensible move to allow the significant environmental benefit to be achieved in a different area.

Another thing is the achievement of credits, and this has long been a bugbear of mine. I mentioned earlier about constituents wanting to remove one or two or a handful of trees, generally of scattered remnant native vegetation. On the odd occasion when they did get consent to remove them, they had to achieve—if my memory serves me right, this was at a time before the significant environmental benefit was part of the act. I may be wrong in that, but I think that is the case.

However, there was an expectation that you would have to plant some more trees, and that generally they would be significantly more trees than the one or two or handful that you were removing. I remember one instance in particular where a landholder in the Padthaway area was doing just what I have described. He was establishing a vineyard and he had one tree that was obviously in ill health and he wanted consent to remove it. He never got consent to remove it, and the tree is probably dead now, as 10 or 12 years have elapsed.

This particular landowner had planted some hundreds and hundreds of trees, and he could not get any recognition for that work and what he had done. He did not plant those trees for any other reason than that he was an environmentalist at heart, but he could get no credit for that good work that he had done and was prevented from removing this one tree. If he had to make an offset, it had to be something in the future. I still think that was a nonsensical application of a principle.

I am absolutely delighted that this bill before us today has a provision for the recognition of credits, because there are a lot of land managers—and that is what I like to call farmers across this state; they are land managers—who want to plant trees back on the landscape, particularly in those areas that I referred to earlier, like my own farm where there is hardly a tree to be seen. Well, there are a lot of trees on my farm now; a lot more than when I started farming 30 or 40 years ago.

There are a lot of farmers who would want to do that but, because of the way that the act was being applied, they knew that they would get no credit for it and they knew that if they wanted to remove one or two trees or a handful of trees in the future, they would have to then plant an offset after that. If they had already planted up the areas of their farm that they thought were ideal places to put in patches of native vegetation, whether it be for windbreaks or just pure amenity value, they felt that they were being disadvantaged. So, they would not do that, just in case they might have needed that piece of ground to plant some trees on in the future. The whole thing was a nonsense.

I am delighted with this particular provision. New section 28A—Credit for environmental benefits, I think, is a very, very sensible move. In fact, I think, in 2001—it was certainly while we were last in government—the Hon. Iain Evans was the minister for environment at the time and he introduced a significant amending bill to the Native Vegetation Act. I remember I was on a subcommittee that spent a lot of time working through those amendments and this is exactly one of the provisions that we were going to provide at that time for a credit.

Can I say to the minister, unfortunately, I think, he has only gone halfway. One of the other things we brought to the parliament—that bill was tabled in parliament, the debate had started but it did not finish its passage through the parliament before the election in March 2002—was that not only were we going to provide for credits, we were going to provide for the trading of credits. I still think this was a great idea.

As a farmer, I could get additional encouragement to replant native vegetation on my farm because, at some stage in the future, I might be able to negotiate a payment for doing that from, say, a mining house that wanted to achieve a significant environmental benefit. We could have made an arrangement so that land managers, to my mind, would then be encouraged to go out and replant native vegetation where it no longer existed, knowing that, at some stage in the future (or they might even do the negotiation at the time) they could get some financial gain for doing so—no greater incentive.

I believed at the time and I believe now that that would drive a great deal of activity in revegetating parts of South Australia that have been denuded of native vegetation. I remember arguing at the time that it would also give an impetus not only to revegetate but, I think, if we managed it properly, we could revegetate, before it is too late, with the provenances of native vegetation species that were endemic to those areas.

I know Trees for Life has been fantastic in encouraging people to plant particularly native vegetation throughout rural South Australia. A lot of farmers plant a significant number of trees every year and have been doing it for years and years, but the trees are propagated quite often by people in metropolitan Adelaide. Too often, in my opinion, they are propagated from seed which is not endemic to the site where the trees are eventually going to be planted. As good as some of these organisations are and with the best of intention, I think that is a failure in some of those programs.

As somebody, as I said earlier, who previously had a very great interest particularly in the eucalypt species, I know how important it is, not only to have the right species but how important it is to maintain the provenance within the species which is particular to various parts of the state. I think we still have a fair way to go to get some of these things in place, Minister. I have to give you some credit for taking the first step, with regard to the credits, but I would like to see us go much further. Again, my colleague in the other place may well bring forward an amendment to try and achieve that, for the parliament's consideration.

I mentioned that the bill has been in the house previously, and there were a couple of amendments which I understand were proposed by my erstwhile former colleague and friend, the Hon. Graham Gunn, referred to with great nostalgia in our party room as the 'Gunn amendments', and I understand that the Hon. Michelle Lensink will be talking about those and most likely putting forward some amendments in the other place to reflect those.

Just for the information of the house, one of those amendments was about the definition of burning as a form of clearing. The act at the moment states that burning of native vegetation is a form of clearing and, if somebody burns native vegetation, they can be prosecuted under the act. I think anybody who knows and understand the Australian bush knows two things; one is that, before white settlement, most of South Australia was burned reasonably regularly, particularly in what is now the settled areas. The Indigenous people of this country used fire sticks and burned the landscape very regularly.

The other thing is that, when you have a piece of degraded scrub—native vegetation—probably the best, most efficient and quickest way to reinvigorate it is to have a fire go through it. Even this government has seen the light and, from time to time does a little bit of controlled burning in some of our parks. I recall some years ago, the government was doing a small controlled burn in the Messent Conservation Park in—

Mr Pederick: That was successful!

Mr WILLIAMS: It was! It was one of the best things the department had ever done in Messent, because the fire got away from them. I think they were intending to burn a couple of hundred hectares and burned about 3,000.

Mr Pederick: They wanted to burn a quarter and they burned three quarters.

Mr WILLIAMS: Yes, they did a great job. I was on a piece of native vegetation at a place called Bonneys Camp in the upper South-East last weekend which, incidentally, is very close to the Messent Conservation Park. Most of the property is native vegetation, and it is called Bonneys Camp because that is where Bonney used to camp when he was overlanding livestock.

Well, you would not take livestock into this area at the moment, because the vegetation would not support them. But as I have said, because the Aborigines were quite regularly burning that area, there would have been vast areas of grass. We were in an area which would probably have been a wetland in those days, and is now covered in rubbish and would barely support a kangaroo or a wombat, let alone a herd of sheep or cattle.

In those days, Charles Bonney, who was responsible for bringing a lot of livestock into South Australia—and a number of places, including Lake Bonney in my electorate, are named after him—picked this as a good place to camp on the various trips he made with livestock. Even the casual observer who went there today would realise that the landscape has changed dramatically from what it would have been when Bonney went through there in the early to mid-1800s.

I think fire and Australian native species go hand in hand, and I totally agree with former member Graham Gunn's belief that fire should be a part of maintaining good, healthy native vegetation.

The other matter he wanted to change and put into the act by way of amendment relates to the fact that in a lot of the pastoral country in the far north of the state pastoralists have been restricted in establishing new watering points on their pastoral properties. This means that they are forced to keep their stock on only a portion of their properties because they do not have watering points all over the properties, and this puts more pressure on those parts of the property where the watering points are, without giving them the opportunity to more evenly spread the pressure.

Again, livestock grazing and native vegetation go hand in hand. Our native vegetation has always been grazed by native animals, and under the Pastoral Act there are severe restrictions on the amount of livestock that pastoralists can run on their properties. Graham Gunn believed, and I certainly agree with him, that pastoralists can better manage their properties if they can more evenly graze them. It is not a matter of putting more livestock on the property: it is a matter of being able to utilise the property more evenly by putting more water points on it. That was one of the issues that he raised and it is an issue that will be brought to the attention of the upper house by way of amendment.

I have covered pretty well all the matters that I have wanted to raise about this bill. The opposition is supportive of the general thrust of the bill. We are certainly supportive of what I described as 'rats and mice', the administrative changes, to make the bill more workable and more easily understood, but we do believe that the government has not quite gone far enough. We will start that debate in the other place and with a bit of luck we will see this bill come back with some amendments from that other place.

Certainly, as the shadow minister for mining, I would say that the idea of having a representative from the mining industry is very worthy of consideration by the government, and I urge the minister to give some attention to that, if not here, then between houses, and that might help us all. I will conclude my remarks there.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (16:32): Whenever the subject of native vegetation comes up in this place—it has been mentioned by the member for MacKillop, who has also indicated that we will be supporting the bill—I hear the ghost from the backbench and I see smoking rising from the former Hon. Graham Gunn, and I hear from the heavens the sound of Ted Chapman!

Mr van Holst Pellekaan: The still Hon. Graham Gunn.

Mr PENGILLY: The still Hon. Graham Gunn, yes. Nothing has been quite as controversial over the last few decades out in rural South Australia as the Native Vegetation Act that was thrust upon us many years ago.

The minister has sought to make a few amendments to this act. I think that, by and large, we will support what the government is trying to do but, as indicated by the member for MacKillop also, we will be seeking to move some amendments in another place, and it will be interesting to see where certain instant experts on everything in the other place come from on this, so we will just have to wait and see.

I have found the last two or three years of dealing with native vegetation issues to have been made far easier by the fact that Mr Dennis Mutton has been on the Native Vegetation Council. He has brought some common sense into it and done a good job. That is certainly an improvement on where it was going.

It is interesting that the member for Bragg is sitting here. I am reminded that her father, the former minister for agriculture and forests and a few other things, had the theory that you burn or be burned. He was a regular user of fire in the maintenance of his native vegetation; he had quite a bit on the property. As Mr Williams said, the reality is that if you do not burn you do not have refreshed growth and everything takes over and you just have a jungle. I have large areas of government reserves in my electorate, not the least being Deep Creek and Mount Billy on the Fleurieu, both of which are waiting for a fire again.

Deep Creek has not been up for a few years now. Whether the minister's department gets in there and burns it, or whether Mother Nature takes over and does it in its entirety, is entirely in the lap of the gods. I know that the government has come in here and the minister has said that they have gone out of their way to try to increase the amount of burning done each year. I say do a lot more of it and do it far more quickly.

The former chief officer of the Country Fire Service, Euan Ferguson, was a great believer in burning, and I think he probably furthered the aims of native vegetation by his work while he was in that position working with the department of environment. Again, I really need to remind the house that in December 2007, due to lightning and other things, we lost 250,000 acres of native vegetation on Kangaroo Island because of the sheer stupidity of government land managers not burning out sections of those parks when they should have. For example, now in September, when you can expect more rains and it will trickle through and burn, or in late autumn, once again before the rains come when you actually have some control over burns.

They would not do it and, as a result of that stupidity, we lost the entire area of Flinders Chase and many other areas across Kangaroo Island. To me it was just total mismanagement that that was ever allowed to happen. It was an act of God through lightning that got it cranked up and did all that damage. Do not let me forget to put on the record that, in December this year, it will be four years since we lost the life of a young man on Kangaroo Island because of those fires. I will never forget that and the people of the island will not forget it either.

It is all very well in this place to amend the Native Vegetation Act but things have to be done practically out in the paddock, and I acknowledge the fact that the minister does have some understanding of that and has been out there to see what is going on. I find it regrettable that, by and large, most of the government officers do not want to talk or discuss these matters with the land managers—the farmers who have large amounts of scrub on their property—and they do not want to take any notice. There are gentlemen like Mr Ralph Hall of Kingscote, who I think is 97 or 98 this year and who has spent a lifetime cutting firewood and knows a lot of the native timbers inside out, yet he is continually ignored despite offering free advice with nearly a century of experience, and I think that is a sad reflection on where we are today.

I know there are some provisions in this bill. I agree with the addition to the Native Vegetation Council of a person with experience and expertise in planning and development. I think that will be helpful, depending on who that person is I guess. I hope the minister uses a certain amount of direction in appointing someone who has a practical point of view. In relation to the increase in expiation for illegal clearance from $500 to $750, my personal view is that I would not increase that at all; however, that will go through. There are various other things such as offset credits for current conversation works.

It is interesting that there are still some foolish things happening. Last autumn, I had someone from the Yankalilla area ring up to say that they went past a back road—I think it was Pages Flat Road which runs through from Myponga to near Mount Compass—and they saw a group of young people on the side of the road and they got out to see what they were doing. They were working for the NRM board and they had secateurs, and they were crawling through the scrub clipping blackberries. I have never heard anything so stupid in all my born days. This fellow is a longstanding landholder and farmer and he said, 'Why are you doing that? Why don't you just come through here and selectively spray them?' They said, 'No, we are told that if we do that we might kill something else.'

It is absolutely ludicrous. How much money is spent on that sort of thing I do not know. It is entirely impractical and a waste of taxpayers' money. It employs these people crawling around on their hands and knees with secateurs when you can go through and selectively spray it. It is just foolish stuff. This gentleman happens to be a highly respected member of the Yankalilla community and has been involved there for many years.

I know we need to wind up and other members want to speak. I support the bill as the member for MacKillop has indicated, and I will look with interest to see what happens after it comes back from another place, in whatever shape or form it should arrive.

Mr PEGLER (Mount Gambier) (16:41): I certainly support this amendment bill. The Native Vegetation Act came into being quite some time ago, and it certainly achieved a lot in ensuring that our native vegetation in this state was protected, but I am afraid that commonsense also went out the window in interpreting that act by the people responsible for making decisions. To give some simple examples, where people had offered to plant 100 trees for every tree that they removed where a centre pivot was going, they were often knocked back; and those trees that have remained are probably dead now and we never had the advantages of having those extra trees being planted.

I saw a classic example once when we were realigning a road and we had one tree to remove. The direction to us was that we had to plant another 100 trees within a certain distance of where this tree was going. The scrub in that area is probably 1,000 acres or more and you couldn't even walk through the scrub to plant the 100 trees. We did manage to get in there, but nothing was achieved at all.

Another example is the cemetery at Port MacDonnell. That land is designated as a cemetery and is where the cemetery is for the township of Port MacDonnell and it had to be expanded slightly, probably by half an acre. It is amongst thousands of acres of native vegetation yet it took us years to get a bit of commonsense to prevail so that we could expand that cemetery.

I certainly support the changes of membership on the council. I believe that somebody who has expertise in planning and development would be much better to serve on that council than somebody from the federal government.

I think the greatest thing with this amendment is the fact that you will be able to have offset credits. It is something that I have called for for a long time, where land managers can come up with long-term management plans for their native vegetation and then work out how much their offset would be and start the offset before they even start to remove the vegetation.

To give an example, I know there is a road not far from where my property is that is to be realigned, and it will probably take about 10 years to do that, The council will now be able to set aside land to put the vegetation on now and, instead of having to go every year for the next 10 years to get a permit, they will be able to come up with a long-term plan and have those offsets and there will be a win-win for everybody concerned.

The one thing I would say is that I do believe that we should have much better timelines for when people put in applications for the removal of native vegetation and even for these management plans and credits, and I think it is imperative that we make sure that the department is resourced well enough so that when people do put in applications they can be timely. With that contribution, I will be supporting the bill.

[Sitting extended beyond 17:00 on motion of Hon. P. Caica]

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (16:45): Our spokesperson on this bill, the member for MacKillop, has essentially covered our perspective quite well so, no need for me to go over that, but I will make a few quick comments on behalf of the electorate of Stuart and just comment on a few—not all—of the proposed changes in this bill. With respect to the addition to the council of a person with expertise in planning or development, I have certainly got a view that too much planning can sometimes slow things down and get in the way but, given that native vegetation is such a very important issue with regard to planning and development in rural areas, I think that having someone on the council with planning and development experience will certainly help the operation of the Native Vegetation Council. I certainly support that.

In relation to the increase in expiation for illegal clearance from $500 to $700, I am certainly not one who generally supports increases in fees. I do not know that the change from $500 to $700 will have a big impact on whether someone is going to deliberately or accidentally contravene the legislation. In the other place we will seek a bit of information as to how long that $500 has been there. It might be that it is perfectly justified or it might be that it is inappropriate, but I just raise some concerns. I am not sure that it will change anyone's behaviour, but it may cost people who inadvertently do this sort of thing a bit more money.

There are some changes which I will just talk about together, and I will mention them and then explain why I lumped them together: transferability of funding between regions from the Native Vegetation Fund; greater flexibility in the treatment of significant environmental benefits offsets; and the provision of future offset credits for current conservation work. I think that they are terrific suggestions. I think that they are very good suggestions, and certainly in the other place we are expecting to add one to that, which will be to include third party offsets.

I think that bundling those together is important, because what that does is that it just gives more flexibility. It does not water down the intent of the Native Vegetation Act. It does not take away the fact that people want to have the right to do their developments for their own personal reasons—their business reasons, community reasons, or whatever it might be—to have some flexibility. I think that by making those changes it actually gives greater flexibility, whether it be that you want to clear some vegetation in one area and replace it in another area (surely that is going to be just as good for the planet), or whether you would like to do some conservation work now and claim the benefit in an offset sense sometime down the track.

Again, I am sure that is going to be just as useful for the planet. I think that sort of flexibility is going to be very positive. The last thing I will talk about very quickly are the Gunn amendments, which the member for MacKillop referred to. The previous member for Stuart, the Hon. Graham Gunn, certainly achieved a great deal in this place, but it is nice to know that we will be trying to achieve a few of the things that he was not quite able to get over the line in his 40 years here.

I do think that they are very good suggestions, very practical and workable suggestions, and important things to put forward from a rural perspective, particularly. I am not so much talking about the Adelaide Hills context but in farming land, grazing land and pastoral lands the ability to burn, because in actual fact historically for tens of thousands of years burning has actually been used as a way of regenerating and reviving native vegetation.

I think that removing that as a definition of clearance that requires permission is very important. Also, the ability to put in watering points without native vegetation clearance permission is very important, too. I stress that people do not just put watering points in willy-nilly. Doing that is usually a fairly expensive, fairly time-consuming endeavour to undertake on an agricultural pastoral property. People do not do it for no reason: they do it for very good reason. I think that it is such a good reason that the native vegetation clearance required to do that should certainly be put aside. With those few comments on behalf of Stuart, thank you very much.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (16:50): I would like to talk briefly to this bill because it is something that is quite close to my heart. My reading of this bill is that it is an attempt by this government to try to tidy up the bill as it was, and, certainly, the intention is a good one. In a broad sense, we support the bill, with the idea of making some amendments in the other place.

I have long understood the importance of native vegetation, particularly in the context of broadscale and broadacre agriculture. In fact, one of the things that I am quite proud of my life is my involvement with Landcare, the Landcare movement, the local NRM board, stream care activities, and revegetation activities that I have undertaken in my own time on my own property.

Essentially all landowners—land managers—are environmentalists. Farm managers generally understand that their business relies on a productive landscape, and native vegetation is part of a productive landscape. Interestingly—and often not many people know this particular figure—in my part of the state on Eyre Peninsula 30 per cent of the area is still under native vegetation. That is a significant proportion. It is almost a third of the area in a developed agricultural region that is under native vegetation.

It is sometimes difficult for land managers in that part of the world to really put some of these laws and regulations into context, particularly those that deal with single trees, which often are the bane of modern farming techniques. Everybody understands the value of vegetation and trees in blocks, along watercourses and creek lines and on unproductive country. I think there is a case that can be made, even environmentally and for biodiversity, about not being quite so precious about single trees.

The member for Mount Gambier spoke about common sense, and I think we are starting to see more of that in the management of native vegetation. After probably lurching too far one way, we are starting to come back, with some more common sense being displayed by the government and the department around this.

Some of the members here have spoken about fire and the value and importance of fire and probably the ubiquity of fire in the Australian landscape. Some 6½ years ago we had a significant fire event on Lower Eyre Peninsula. I think 80,000 hectares of crop land and native vegetation was entirely burnt to a crisp in that particular event. What we have seen in the time since then is an extraordinary rejuvenation of the remnant vegetation. It is really quite impressive to see what has come back.

It was a tragic event in itself. It upset many families and many businesses very deeply, but to look at that countryside now is quite remarkable, particularly, as I said, to see the rejuvenation through the blocks of native remnant vegetation and along roadside verges. A lot of the roads on Eyre Peninsula are three chain roads. There is significant native vegetation along the roadsides.

We have spoken already about significant environmental benefits and offset credits and such. I think it is generally working in the right direction. I would hate to see the Native Vegetation Act preclude, prevent or delay in any way development that might take place otherwise. I think offsets need to be available all the time and, more often than not, farmers and developers are more than happy to go along with those offsets, particularly if they are able to make reasonable compensation.

I spoke earlier today in this chamber about the development of mining exploration and mining on the Eyre Peninsula; no doubt this particular bill will come into play. I can understand why the South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy (SACOME) would like to be involved in this. They are going to be involved whether they like it or not, and for them to have a seat at the table on the NRM council, I think, is a good thing.

With those few words, I would like to conclude my remarks. I generally support the intent of the bill and look forward to the rest of the debate.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (16:55): I rise to speak on the Native Vegetation (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2011. The member for MacKillop, our lead speaker, has outlined the opposition's position on this bill. We will be supporting the general thrust of the bill but seeking to introduce amendments in another place.

Other members have made a contribution in respect of the history and significance and sometimes perhaps misguided direction in which native vegetation legislation has been either introduced or implemented since it was initiated. I do not propose to go over those matters, but I will say this: it is important that when consideration is given to the review of an act and its updating, and obviously there are important matters to contemporise legislation, including increasing penalties and the like to be commensurate with general CPI increases and the like, they are all quite normal, but it is important also to understand where an act has gone wrong.

Currently, the Native Vegetation Act makes provision for certain obligations, and restrictions, to submit and seek approval for clearance of native vegetation. For the purposes of exercising those obligations one must consider what the clearance of that native vegetation is. Under the present legislation:

clearance, in relation to native vegetation, means—

(a) the killing or destruction of native vegetation;

(b) the removal of native vegetation;

(c) the severing of branches, limbs, stems or trunks of native vegetation;

(d) the burning of native vegetation;

(e) any other substantial damage to native vegetation, and includes the draining or flooding of land, or any other act or activity, that causes the killing or destruction of native vegetation, the severing of branches, limbs, stems or trunks of native vegetation or any other substantial damage to native vegetation;

The reason I highlight that definition currently within the legislation is that the Hon. Graham Gunn, former member for Stuart and longstanding member of this house, had previously, back in 2008, introduced amendments to this legislation when a bill of a similar composition was being considered.

What he sought to do was to persuade the members of the assembly to change the definition to facilitate and accommodate two important things. One was an understanding that the burning of native vegetation and, indeed, non-native vegetation had a very significant pastoral and agricultural benefit.

I do not need to look any further than the Department of Environment's own website, or its own literature as presented, of the acknowledgement of our Indigenous Australian's use of burning of native vegetation for the purpose of improving the flora and/or production for food purposes.

Secondly, in that published material, the acknowledgement by the department which has formed the basis of a number of bushfire management plans in this state of the significance of the use of fire as an effective tool, with regular burning managing carnage to native flora and fauna in circumstances where there is a wildfire.

Careful, planned burning is a very productive and important element in the toolbox of all of the elements to protect our environment. He outlined a case to the assembly that it was important, in recognising this, that we change the definition in the act to accommodate the fact that this was not only common practice—there were certain processes that needed to be undertaken to implement cold burning or managed burning but, nevertheless, this should not be utilised in a way to conflict or override the important agricultural and environmental benefits in using this as a tool.

On the one hand, a process is set up with a certain level of legislative restriction to protect the native vegetation, but that has to be balanced with the important, effective, useful and necessary undertaking of burning of native vegetation for its own preservation. Regrettably, I note that this assembly, with the government's numbers, rejected that amendment. This parliament, at least in another place, will have an opportunity to revisit that, and I hope that they will more wisely consider it in the other place and that it has support, to present back to this part of the parliament where the government sits a recognition of the significance of that amendment and the reason it was introduced. As the lead speaker has indicated, we will be supporting that development.

The other aspect of this definition goes to the purpose of facilitating another important aspect in the rural community, and that is the opportunity to secure, capture, dam (as we often say) or tank (they use in different states) water for the purposes of making it available for stock and other development. What he did in his second amendment was to present to the parliament an opportunity to recognise that again we were setting up a situation of conflict: firstly, the need to secure water and to be able to capture it sufficiently to enable there to be a management of water, often for the benefit of being able to be available to keep creeks healthy and the like, apart from any commercial purposes, but also for environmental purposes; that there was a conflict in setting too much restriction on the removal of native vegetation within the clearance definition under the Native Vegetation Act, with the necessity to undertake that practice, which was actually for the benefit equally of the environment.

What he said was, if there is going to be native vegetation put at risk by the process of introducing a dam, which is usually done by bulldozers being introduced and a dam bank being established in some area of high rainfall or watercourse catchment, and slowly the water will build up against the bank and flood an area, which will ultimately cause the death of trees and vegetation within its pool. What he said was that we have a definition under the current legislation—which essentially identifies that the draining or flooding of land, which is one of the direct effects of creating interruption to a watercourse or a legitimate area under a dam process—that will obviously have that effect.

It is important to understand that we do not put legislation up in conflict, but that we recognise the significance of having regular watercourses that can be accessed not only for commercial purposes but also, for example, to enable the piping or introduction of water into an area that is desperate for water, like a wetland area that in a drought is suffering some problem. In that case, you need to be able to get water into that arena.

I thought that the former member for Stuart's amendments went a long way to making sure that we set up a much more practical approach in recognition of these two important practices. One is the burning of native vegetation for good and proper purposes and, secondly, the capture of water for the actual benefit of the environment.

So, on both of those aspects, I would like this house, when it gets hopefully an amended bill back from another place, to give that some careful consideration. I am not sure if the minister was the minister at that time, but if he was not, then it gives him a fresh opportunity as the new minister to look carefully at those matters which, we would hope, he will revisit more positively than did his predecessor.

There are only a couple of other things I wish to comment on. One is the increase in the expiation—this is the fines—for illegal clearance from $500 to $750. That does seem a lot. If, in fact, it is an amount commensurate with the timeframe since there has been an increase, then I will take that into account. I am about to debate a bill in a moment where it has been 20 years since there has been an increase or some review of a particular section and that can happen where, in fact, there needs to be some taking into account. On the face of it that does seem to be a lot, and I think the government does need to answer some questions about that.

I think there are some excellent aspects in relation to future offset credits for current conservation works which are being provided for, apparently, in this bill. I have not read those aspects. What I have looked at are the court proceeding changes. There are some changes to the timeframe from when proceedings may be commenced. I have no objection to that.

The provision for satellite imagery to be a legitimate mode of evidence is entirely appropriate for contemporary legislation, taking into account current technology and the importance of it. Obviously, it is near impossible to call a witness to identify the transfer of information from a site that is being photographed, the transmission to the satellite and back to earth, etc. It is not as easy as simply putting someone in the witness and saying, 'Did you take this photograph?' So, we do need to be able to get up to speed with modern technology and allow that to be a form of evidence that can be accepted, with the usual safeguards.

There is however a proposal to change the jurisdiction for criminal hearings from the Magistrates Court to the Environment, Resources and Development Court. Can I say, in the nine years that I have been here, there have been a number of applications via legislation—bills, that is—where the government has asked us to support either the transfer of a jurisdiction to the Environment, Resources and Development Court and/or an increase in the jurisdictional limit of the value of cases or the power to provide penalties.

On some of those, I have been happy to agree—not many, but some I have. It is reasonable that we pick jurisdictions that have the expertise attached to them and court services that fit a particular area for resolution dispute. In the civil area, there is a case—and I think the government previously made it out—for expanding that jurisdiction and for more cases to come before the Environment, Resources and Development Court that had previously been in the District Court.

It is a specialty court after all and, if it is going to be properly used, then it is important that it has a workload transferred to it. I would be concerned in this instance, given that we know that the District Court is currently under some pressure with trial times, for criminal matters in that court to be transferred to the ERD Court because of those pressures. I would be very concerned if that, in fact, was a real consideration for the transfer of these cases, because I do not consider that it is appropriate that the Environment, Resources and Development Court should be dealing with criminal matters under this legislation. It has its area of expertise, and I think it is important that it has the management of matters in respect of native vegetation—in fact, a lot environmentals but we are dealing with native vegetation—and it is a proper arena for civil disputes to be resolved.

I opposed at the time, and I remain opposed, to the very significant increase in jurisdictional value and the capacity of penalties to be administered by the ERD Court for exactly the same reason I oppose this part of this legislation today. That is, it is not a criminal court; it was not set up as a criminal court. I do not think it has the experience and expertise of those in the District Court, with very strict rules of evidence that apply to the jurisdiction and the application of criminal law in those jurisdictions.

I am talking particularly of the District Court, because rarely do we have cases in the Supreme Court unless they are major cases, as I think I said this morning, of murder, treason and the like. I think that it is folly for the government to proceed with a transfer of this jurisdiction—criminal prosecutions—in the ERD Court.

I think it is also important to remember that there needs to be some separation of responsibility. Sometimes courts run out of business. I use the example of the Industrial Court; the government's decision—in the end, followed in the parliament—to effectively transfer state industrial law to the federal area (with the exception of public servants) has meant the Industrial Court has not much to do. Since that time, things such as asbestos-based cases and compensation cases, as I understand it, have all been transferred to the Industrial Court for determination.

So we are giving good judges, who would otherwise be sitting around with nothing to do, some things to do. There are also some other jurisdictions that have been transferred to them. You have a good structure set up and you may as well utilise the services that are there, but I have not heard any suggestion that the ERD Court is sitting around with nothing to do. However, I do know and I am aware of the concerns at the District Court level in the criminal arena of the delay in court trials. If there is any objective here in simply transferring part of the criminal jurisdiction from the District Court to the ERD Court to try to relieve them of that, then I do not support that as a satisfactory reason to do it, and I do not think that the ERD Court is as well equipped to deal with the prosecution of these cases.

I will say finally in this part of the legislation, as I have always disclosed in these matters, I have previously dealt with the department of environment over native vegetation matters personally since I have been in the parliament. Once the department threatened to prosecute me for native vegetation clearance by fire. I have said it before in this house, but I am yet to receive an apology from the department over that matter, and it does concern me.

There are 1.6 million people in South Australia, and a lot of people do not have the same capacity to articulate and defend themselves as I or others in this parliament might. I can tell you that, when I received the notice of the intent, I took it very seriously, and I took up this issue not just for me and potentially other members of my family at the time but for other people in South Australia. I was not going to be intimidated by that and I will not be in the future, but I will certainly always act to make sure that others are not.

The department eventually gave up on this after considerable expense—probably from both parties involved—and of course did not present me with any offer of paying of costs, which I am a bit stinking about.

Mr Pederick: You wouldn't be surprised.

Ms CHAPMAN: It does not surprise me. I am disappointed, but I am here to tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that anyone else who is presented with that kind of threat in the future will have my entire support. On the other hand, I want to make it absolutely clear that I support the initiatives of the government (even on legislative reform) which incorporate a sensible, appropriate and understandable regime of regulation that protects our natural environment. Consistent with that has been the opportunity to support the native flora on the property which has been the subject of this claim and which I will continue to do. I think we are the only part of Kangaroo Island left that has actually got black cockatoos in any decent number, and that is probably because we burn out the gully in question.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (17:15): I rise to speak to the Native Vegetation (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2011. I note that provisions in this bill will clarify that the act applies to the Mitcham Hills; that the addition to the council of a person with expertise in planning or development will proceed; that there will be transferability of funding between regions with the criteria of increased biodiversity value from the native vegetation fund; and, as has been mentioned by other members from this side, there will be an increase in expiation for illegal clearance from $500 to $750.

We are told that if this bill gets through and becomes an act there will be greater flexibility in the treatment of significant environmental benefits (SEB offsets) and the provision of future offset credits for current conservation works. There will be a lesser regime for minor enforcement notices—a new section 31EA of the Native Vegetation Act. There will be changes to court proceedings which will include amendments to the time frame for when proceedings may be commenced, and a change in jurisdiction for criminal hearings from the Magistrates Court to the ERD Court. It also expressly stipulates that satellite imagery is a legitimate mode of evidence.

I noted with interest the closing comments of the member for Bragg. I want to bring to the parliament's attention a constituent from Mantung, Mr Kevin Parker, who had a long ongoing relationship with the Native Vegetation Council (not a fruitful relationship). I will read the letter that I wrote to the Minister for Environment back on 16 February 2011:

Dear Minister,

I have been asked by Mr Kevin Parker of Mantung to bring to your attention two matters that concern him in reference to his application for a permit to clear native vegetation on his land.

Mr Parker states he was required to sign a Heritage Agreement over the entire 1,700 acres of his property in order to get a permit to clear 600 acres of it. Mr Parker states he is still awaiting receipt of that permit—a matter that has been outstanding for a considerable time—and he is understandably anxious to get on with the task. The initial agreement was struck in 1988.

So the Parkers have certainly had a long relationship with the environment department:

Mr Parker also points out that in the original agreement, the department agreed to erect fencing around the designated heritage area. According to Mr Parker, although some was done some years ago—

Some 12 kilometres still needs to be erected. It continues:

Mr Parker further advises that his attempts through his solicitor to discuss these matters with the minister or department have not been successful. I would be grateful if you can discuss these matters with the department with a view to having them resolved promptly.

We got a fairly prompt response from the minister in March 2011. The minister writes:

Dear Adrian,

Thank you for your letter dated 16 February 2011, on behalf of Mr Kevin Parker, concerning his application to clear native vegetation on his land.

I have been advised by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) that Mr Parker is currently the subject of an investigation into alleged unlawful clearance of native vegetation on his property. I am informed that DENR is dealing with the matter as a priority and is working in conjunction with the Crown Solicitor's Office.

As this is an open investigation, I am unable to comment at this stage. However I am informed that the Crown Solicitor's Office has recently been in contact with Mr Parker's lawyer and that the Crown Solicitor's Office will continue to communicate with Mr Parker's lawyer.

It goes on:

For further information on this matter, contact Ms Rosemary Steen, Senior Solicitor, Crown Solicitor's Office.

We recently had a response from the Crown Solicitor's Office which goes back to July 2011, and it talks about enforcement notices under 31E of the Native Vegetation Act in regard to the Parkers. I will read the letter to quote it in:

I note your recent telephone messages.

As previously discussed, I act on behalf of the Native Vegetation Council on this matter.

I am in discussion and correspondence with Mr David Wilson, legal representative of the Parkers. You can approach either Mr Wilson (if Mr Parker consents) or my client to obtain an update on the matter but it is not appropriate for me to discuss the matter with you.

I am confident that you understand the importance of these constraints.

So that is a series of correspondence, and I know that my office and myself have had many discussions with Kevin Parker, and he is in dire straits. He has a work order; he has a Native Vegetation Order over his property. It has restricted his ability to borrow money on his land because, essentially, we have either an inept department, an inept Native Vegetation Council or an inept minister. I would like to know what the heck is going and why this has taken so long. I refer to section 31E of the Native Vegetation Act which provides:

31E—Enforcement notices

(1) If an authorised officer who has been expressly authorised by the Minister to issue directions under this section has reasonable grounds on which to believe that a person has breached this Act, or is likely to breach this Act, the authorised officer may do such of the following as the officer considers necessary or appropriate in the circumstances:

(a) direct the person to refrain, either for a specified period or until further notice, from the act, or course of action, that constitutes, or would constitute, the breach;

(b) if, in the opinion of the authorised officer, a breach has occurred and the breach is a minor breach—direct the person to make good the breach in a manner, and within a period, specified by the authorised officer;

(c) take such urgent action as is required or is, in the opinion of the authorised officer, desirable because of any situation arising from the breach or likely breach (as the case may be).

So, under 31E 'Enforcement notices' it is all up to urgent action placed onto the landholder. What is urgent action for the department of environment? Is it decades? Because this case has been going on for years and years and years and the Parker family needs some direction. Either take them to the cleaners through the court procedure or tell them they are scot-free; it is as simple as that. The Crown Solicitor's Department needs to get on the with the job.

This is holding up public money, and it is costing the Parkers significant amounts of money. They are basically going broke steadily, and it is just appalling. If there is something to pin on these people for alleged unlawful clearance, just get on with it and put them out of their misery. But, if not, tell them they can get on with the job, take the work order away, and let them get on with life.

I urge the minister to at least look into the matter. I note the correspondence from the minister indicates it is currently under investigation; well, that is fine. Someone needs to be stirred up to get on with the job. It is alright to put these grand laws in place and it is alright for the Native Vegetation Council to say they are looking after assets in the country, but if they think that they have a conviction, well get on with the job, and if they have not, get away from it, and let this man and his family get on with their life.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (17:25): I rise just briefly, because the hour is late, to make a few comments because, in the many years that I have been in this place, the subject of native vegetation has always raised a lot of interest, especially on this side of the house. Way back in the 1980s the Native Vegetation Act was controversial and its goals were certainly widely criticised across the spectrum, particularly in the rural areas, and we saw conflicts regularly in the rural media.

Well, things have certainly changed and today, mainly because of a new attitude, or maybe it is a new generation of farmers, many of the conflicts—not all of them—do not happen. I think farmers now realise the value of native vegetation—all of us, including myself. In the old days I was a wrecker and I used to pull out a lot of trees, but I reckon now I have planted probably 25 to 30 trees for every one I may have pulled out over my long generation on the land. I am happy to show the minister, because we are very proud of it, along our rivers. We do not graze along our rivers any more at all, and we have all this native vegetation growing there.

It is amazing what will come when you take out the cattle. It is just amazing. We go down there because it is a beautiful place for me to get my mojo back—to get on the bike and go for a ride down there. But, talk about therapy: it is wonderful therapy to go down there and dive in amongst these beautiful trees. Of course, not only do we have the trees but we also have the birds and everything to go with it. It is a wonderful thing. I look back to my past and, yes, maybe people like me needed to be reminded and educated as to what was required.

But, as the member for Hammond has just said, we still do have these disputes, which are regrettable. We all have them. I have had a couple that I have had to deal with, particularly in the Adelaide Hills or the northern Barossa Ranges. A farmer has a nice little piece of river and he was told he had to fence it, which he could not do because of the rocks. They then bulldozed the natural spring that was in the river.

There are these disputes where officers come onto the property. All these people are older people and I just do not understand why they should be interfered with. I went and inspected his property and it was in very good condition. He did value the land. The stock were not causing degradation on the side of the river. I do not know what happened but he got very cross, and I could not help him and he got cross with me, too. But I have not given up on that.

Today we all value native vegetation and, as the member for Hammond said, we have areas of conflict where we have these over-zealous authorised officers. Over the years much has been said about the power of authorised officers in this place, and I suppose it will still be so. Nobody minds an authorised officer if they are reasonable and constructive and they make the phone call first and there are no surprises and people realise what is going to happen—particularly now when you are talking about this bill with the eye in the sky where they can see from above what is happening. I do recognise that is an area in which we can still do some work.

Even though the Hon. Graham Gunn is not here any more, I can hear right now what he would say about this particular bill. He was a great support to me and I supported him on these matters. The two amendments he always attempted to pass the last time we discussed this issue were about particularly the definition of burning. I can be accused because in the old days I had a chain saw in one hand and a packet of matches in the other, and I believed that was good land management and that, to keep things in order and control fires, the only way you could do that was to light a fire and keep it under control—particularly on roadsides.

We have a lot of problems with fires and when you drive along the road that is the only decent firebreak you are going to get. You have the width of the road and then right alongside the road you have this massive amount of vegetation growing there.

A truck goes past, hits a stone and the fire starts in that vegetation, so you must have the ability to clear or at least remove some of that risk. The Hon. Graham Gunn certainly said that the definition of burning as a form of clearing is the way to go. I do not think that we are going to encourage the raping and pillaging of all our roadsides, no. I regularly slash all our roadsides. That is my job on our farm. I do the slashing and make it like a lawn. Yes, I go around the wattle trees and a few things like that, but a lot of them have gone out and slashed it over the years because I found that it was too hard to control the rest of the weeds if I did not remove that.

In the meantime I would have planted 200 or 300 wattle trees on the property where they were not going to be in the road. I certainly hope that we are able later in this legislation to include this amendment because I think that it is correct. The Hon. Graham Gunn had a huge amount of experience in this matter. The other matter which is commonsense is to allow farms and particularly graziers the ability to put in more water points. It is a nonsense to think that they would not allow you to put in more points because the land would carry more stock which would therefore denigrate the land. Nothing could be further from the truth.

What actually happens, and I have seen it often, is that it causes very intense grazing around your water points. You end up with dust bowls around your water points; and out about four or five kilometres there is nothing because the stock will not go that far to come back to water. They overgraze the water point and out the back there is nothing. You are better to have water points and graze the whole area evenly so that there is not this degradation. It is better protection because when the sheep get hungry they eat everything. They prune the trees and everything else. Also, a lot of this country has got wild goats; well, there is nothing worse than a wild goat for denigration of native vegetation. You really keep them out there, too. You spread them out so that they are not intensely hanging around the water points. So, I certainly agree with that.

Over the years this has been quite a contentious issue. I do note the increase in expiation fines for illegal clearance. I have no problem with that. I know that there have been a few people, not so much in my electorate but certainly in the member for MacKillop's (he has few cowboys down there), who have done a few things that really should not have been done. I think that $750 is still not exorbitant.

We are supporting the bill. I think that it is certainly a sign of the times, and I commend the minister and certainly the shadow minister for presenting the case here today, as well as my colleagues' contributions. Certainly this area, I think, is quite a memorial to the Hon. Graham Gunn. His memory lives on. We are doing it for him. I support the bill.

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton—Minister for Environment and Conservation, Minister for the River Murray, Minister for Water) (17:32): I will be very brief. I thank the members for their—

Mr Williams interjecting:

The Hon. P. CAICA: —that's right—contributions and, in fact, in the main their thoughtful contributions to the debate on this particular bill. What I will say is that, with respect to the amendments that are being flagged for introduction in the upper house, of course I will have a look at those and consider those. One thing just as a point is that, in visiting Kangaroo Island and looking at the work that has been done over there jointly between the council, the CFS, the NRM board and DENR with some roadside burning and burning at different temperatures, the benefits that accrued with respect to that vegetation was quite astounding.

Seed banks that had not had any action or seen any action for up to 70 years was a sight to behold. With respect to pastoral properties, again, I will have a look at the amendments that are made up there. We all know that pastoral land in South Australia is managed better than any other place in Australia. That quite simply is a fact. We do have inspections that are done, and I am sure that if not within this act then certain matters should be able to be done to address what could be done to improve the environmental way by which the pastoralists continue to operate in the context of ensuring that we continue to be the standout in regard to how we manage our pastoral lands and rangelands here in Australia.

What I can flag for the benefit of the opposition is that I am contemplating—and some work has been done—on what essentially would be third party offsets. It is not ready to be introduced now. There is still some more work to be done, and I have explained that to the deputy leader. In particular, we will ask how we will operate within a regulatory framework for that to occur in the most efficient, transparent and fair way. There is still some work being done in that regard. I will continue to talk with the deputy leader and shadow spokesperson in another place about that particular matter.

I must admit that I was a little bit concerned when I heard about the Gunn amendments, but I will still have a good look at those, as you would expect me to do, and get a bit more information about what the member for Bragg spoke about in relation to dams and water and what the former member for Stuart had previously put up in regards to that. I am not familiar with that aspect of what he had proposed previously.

In closing, I again thank members of the opposition for the contributions that were made. I thank them for their indication of support for this bill in its current format and thank them for the advice that they will be seeking some amendments in the upper house which I will, of course, closely look at.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

Bill taken through committee without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton—Minister for Environment and Conservation, Minister for the River Murray, Minister for Water) (17:36): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.