Landscape Boards

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:57): My question is again to the Minister for Environment and Water. How is funding decided under the new landscape boards, and why have some local groups—like the very hardworking Friends of Dry Creek—had their funding under this new scheme reduced to the point that they can no longer cover their costs?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (15:58): I would dispute that that has been the case. There is actually much more grant funding available under the new Green Adelaide and regional landscape board model through grants than was ever the case before. There are both grants: the Grassroots Grants, which for the first time are legislated, and they are $2 million per year; and then there is the Friends of Parks grants which, as I actually mentioned in answer to an earlier question today, have increased from $60,000 to $90,000 to $750,000.

There was some concern that there wasn't transparency around some of the methodologies by which the friends groups were accessing funds for their work, so we've got a very straightforward grants program so that they can access funding but also can acquit that in an accountable way. So I've got confidence there is actually not less funding available but much more funding to a multiple of many times over.

Not only do friends groups have access to more grants funding but they also have access to the advice, expertise and insight from a much expanded National Parks and Wildlife Service which had been—again, returning to the substance of a previous answer—decimated under the previous government.

We have rebuilt the capacity of the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Ranger numbers have gone from 93 to 138 as the volunteer workforce. I would be happy to talk with the Friends of Dry Creek Trail and understand their challenges around funding, but there are more grants available for their good work than ever before and I thank them for that work.