Answers to Questions

National Water Initiative

In reply to Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (2 December 2015).

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy): The Minister for Water and the River Murray has provided the following advice:

To ensure sustainable, good quality water is available for all South Australians, the South Australian government contributes around $43 million a year for water planning and management. The state government, through the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources and SA Water, provides 84 per cent of the total costs for water planning and management.

The South Australian government first indicated that it would seek partial water planning and management cost recovery in its 2010-11 State Budget, and the government's intention to recover water planning and management costs from natural resources management (NRM) levies is set out in the 2015-16 State Budget.

NRM levies are a primary source of funding for the management of natural resources in the State's regions, and a way of equitably sharing the cost of managing our natural resources.

The government's partial cost recovery for water planning and management is consistent with the 2004 Intergovernmental Agreement on a National Water Initiative—an agreement between the Australian, state and territory governments to bring into effect consistent approaches to pricing and water planning and management costs.

When all water-related charges are taken into account, the NRM levies paid by water users in our major food and wine producing areas, like the South East and South Australian Murray-Darling Basin, are low when compared to interstate water users.

As the government has chosen only to implement partial cost recovery and will continue to subsidise costs to provide some protection to water users, an independent cost effectiveness study will not be undertaken.