DRYLAND SALINITY MANAGEMENT

The Hon. C.V. SCHAEFER (15:25): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for the Environment a question—

An honourable member: Save us! Spare us!

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. C.V. SCHAEFER: I apologise for my colleagues—about dry land salinity.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C.V. SCHAEFER: From 31 March to 3 April next year Adelaide will be hosting the second international salinity forum entitled 'Salinity, Water and Society—Global issues, local action'. Does the minister consider, therefore, that it is an inappropriate time to have disbanded the only state committee, which was set up only five years ago, to concentrate on dry land salinity within this state? The minister disbanded that committee in August this year. Does she consider that the Natural Resources Management Council has either the constitutional or legal right to take over those duties? What has been done since the committee was disbanded?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Environment and Conservation, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister Assisting the Minister for Health) (15:26): It is a matter of keeping up with the times, really. We have a new natural resource management structure in place to deal with these issues. The Natural Resources Management Council has recognised the important role of the South Australian Dryland Salinity Committee but has determined that, given changes to natural resources management in South Australia, the committee is no longer required.

The decision was made in response to a recent review of the dryland salinity committee which drew attention to recent changes in South Australia, including the implementation of a regional delivery model for natural resource management, the release of the state NRM plan, and the identification of DWLBC as the lead agency in maintaining the Dryland Salinity Strategy and reporting against dryland salinity targets in the state NRM plan.

DWLBC also obtains information from the NRM CRCs (cooperative research centre) which does important work and is a relatively new research centre. It also gains information from the centre for natural resource management research body which, again, provides information and the latest research developments directly to the NRM council. The regional NRM boards obviously have a key responsibility for implementing these sorts of strategies.

In considering the findings of the review, the NRM council noted that current thinking in relation to natural resource management focuses on integrated management rather than combating problems such as dryland salinity in isolation, which was the way we tended to do it in the past. Dryland salinity is also a regional rather than a state-wide issue, as the majority of the impacts are in the South-East and also the Murray-Darling Basin. The positions that the honourable member referred to expired in August, and the advice of the council is that they are not to be renewed.