Dog Fence

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (14:57): My question is to the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development. Can the minister update the house on progress of the commonwealth, state and industry funded dog fence rebuild?

The Hon. T.J. WHETSTONE (Chaffey—Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development) (14:57): Thank you, sir, and thank you to the member for Flinders for his very important question. Yes, I was recently up in his electorate and travelled into some of the pasture country north of Ceduna to have a look at the very aged dog fence. A lot of that fence is over 100 years old, and it is a piece of infrastructure that has long been neglected.

What I can say is that the tender process is progressing nicely. What we have seen is that a Morrison Coalition, a Marshall Liberal government and industry have come together. They have collaborated and put $25 million on the table for a rebuild of 1,600 kilometres of that fence. The fence in its totality is 2,150 kilometres. We embarked on a BDO report to highlight the inefficiencies and the weaknesses in that fence. Along the way we have made a commitment to the livestock industry as a priority to rebuild the majority of that fence to give certainty and security to the red meat sector and to the pastoralists here in South Australia.

What I can say is that on 1 March 2020 that dog fence will commence being built, and that is a landmark decision for the livestock industry. The Premier himself in the very near future is heading up to the pastoral country to have a look at the fence because we know the importance of that piece of infrastructure. It is a generational piece of infrastructure that has been overlooked by previous governments again and again, but no more. The tender process is out and expressions of interest will close on 10 December, and that is next week.

We have empowered a dog fence rebuild committee, ably led by Geoff Power, a well-known pastoralist here in South Australia, as well as Joe Keynes, the chair of Livestock SA. We've also got private owners of a section of the dog fence and dog fence committee members as part of that panel who have travelled to Queensland to understand the best ways, methods and materials that should be used to build a significant piece of infrastructure that we hope will last another 100 years. Those applications will be evaluated by PIRSA.

Once those tenders have been given for both materials and for the crews that will do the rebuild, it gives an opportunity for our pastoralists and our drought-affected farmers to be part of the rebuild. We know that, for some of those managers of the land, for some of those managers in our pastoral areas and also for some of the Aboriginal communities this presents an opportunity for them to be part of the rebuild.

Again, it can offset some of the job losses that have happened through that part of the country. Particularly, we have seen a lot of destocking, and we have seen a lot of impact, because a lot of those areas have not received rainfall for three years. For those of you who can only imagine what it means to those businesses, it means that their cash reserves are being drained, they have destocked and they are now looking for supplementary income. That supplementary income is an absolute certainty if they have the qualities and the skills to be part of those rebuild teams. It's going to take potentially four years to finish rebuilding that fence. In that time, we hope that it will rain again.

Once that dog fence is rebuilt, those pasture lands will restock. They will have a fence that will give them security. It will give them certainty about protecting their animals because we know that wild dogs are heading south. In my recent trip up to some Far North pastoral country, I passed through some of the station country and saw firsthand the pressure of wild dogs. Not only were there wild dogs in abundance up there but they had litters of dogs. That shows that they are breeding, they are moving south and they are putting more pressure on the viability of the sheep industry and the cattle industry.

More importantly, it's the health and wellbeing of our pastoralists that should be an absolute concern. While they lie awake in bed at night wondering how many sheep will be taken by those wild dogs, this piece of infrastructure that a Marshall Liberal government, a Morrison Coalition and industry have come together on as a collaboration is providing certainty for our red meat sector and it's providing certainty for South Australian exports.