Natural Resources Management

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (14:25): My question is to the Minister for Environment and Water. Can the minister update the house on the recent completed consultation period for the natural resources management reform?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (14:25): I thank the member for Finniss for that question. I know he has a great interest in the back-to-basics reform that the state Liberal government is pursuing in relation to natural resources management in South Australia. He is correct to highlight that our consultation period closed last week, on 15 October, following a period of a couple of months where we had statewide consultation sessions starting off in Port Lincoln on 7 August and concluding in Marion on 4 October.

In between times, there were sessions all around the state. A very significant portion of those were held within regional South Australia because we know how important natural resources management is and getting the balance between sustaining our natural environment and being able to gain economic productivity out of our natural environment through particularly our agricultural landscape.

Getting that balance is so important, particularly in regional South Australia—getting out and about, talking to regional South Australians about their interests and gaining their knowledge and understanding of the natural environment. We know that with their experience—day in, day out, making a living from our natural environment—they are so well placed to tell us what they want out of the government's policy settings and support mechanisms around natural resources management. That is what these consultations were about. It was good to be joined by many people from the government benches.

When I was attending those consultations, I was joined by the member for Hammond and the member for Finniss, of course. I know that the member for MacKillop and the members for Kavel, Heysen and Narungga were involved, and the member for Flinders joined me in Port Lincoln. What we found from those sessions was a consistent feeling from people in regional South Australia that they wanted a natural resources management system that was back to basics, that looked at sustainable agriculture and supported sustainable agriculture programs, that had effective water management programs and pest, plant and animal control programs to get those basics right, and then on top of that build a climate-resilient landscape and a landscape that is thriving with biodiversity. That was clearly from regional South Australia what people told us.

The conservation sector were also heavily involved in our consultations. A similar feeling came from the conservation sector, but they put forward very clearly that they wanted to ensure that in the high-level aspects of the bill there was appropriate adherence to the principles of biodiversity. We will certainly be taking that feedback on board and embedding it into the new landscape South Australia act.

We made great efforts to connect with traditional owners and ask what they wanted from natural resources management and how we can ensure that their culture is respected and embedded into this act as well. We will be taking that feedback and we will be using it to shape the new landscape South Australia act, and of course the aim is to bring that into the parliament for debate early in the new year.