AQUACULTURE (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL

Final Stages

Consideration in committee of the House of Assembly's message.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I move:

That the House of Assembly's amendment be agreed to.

This is the money component of the bill, which had to be dealt with in the other house and which has come back to this house for consideration after being dealt with in the lower house. It deals with the aquaculture fund. The proposed amendments to section 79 are enabling clauses to clarify that the minister may use the Aquaculture Resources Management Fund to collect and allocate research moneys and to hold and use funds for the purpose of site rehabilitation.

PIRSA has no operating government rehabilitation fund for the aquaculture sector at the present time. As such, no fees are currently being charged for this purpose. The South Australian Oyster Growers Association does have an industry fund; however, the fund does not cover all oyster operations in this state, only those of its members. Should a government-held rehabilitation fund be proposed, it will be in consultation with the relevant industry sector. There will obviously be no double dipping in terms of mandatory contributions to multiple rehabilitation schemes.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: The opposition supports the insertion of this clause. The minister has outlined what is well known to members; that is, such a clause cannot be inserted in this chamber, which was the originating house of the bill, so we do support the insertion of that clause. I am also grateful to the minister for reiterating the point about double dipping because, I suppose, as was put on the record in the lower house, particularly by the member for Flinders and also the shadow minister, the member for Hammond, there are some sectors—and the oyster growers are a very good case in point—that have done this work themselves with their own fund. We would not want that to be duplicated, and I appreciate the fact that the minister has reiterated that. I would hope that that will be the case because let us not get in the way of people who are doing a good job with their own resources. Having said that, the opposition supports the insertion of the clause.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I have a question of the minister in relation to the insertion of the proposed new paragraph (ac) in section 79(4) which, whilst I do not have the original act in front of me, I assume is the list of things that the money can be spent on. My question is: why would you use a common fund to pay for what are, effectively, clean-up operations? For example, it says in new paragraph (ac):

for the purposes of taking action to remove or recover aquaculture equipment or stock, or equipment used to mark off or indicate the boundaries of a marked-off area of a lease...

I would have thought that those are personal expenses relating to the operator. Why would it not be the operator who is obliged to recover or remove their equipment or recover their stock that has escaped? Why should that be a common responsibility—unless I have misunderstood the meaning of that paragraph?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I have been advised that the honourable member is quite right: the condition of the lease requires the lessee to take responsibility for their boundaries, etc., in terms of removing bits of equipment and other matter. I have been advised, though, that there are situations, for instance, where the lessee can no longer be found, where things have become obsolete, and so no-one becomes responsible for their removal. The intention is that the fund be used only in those cases. In the first instance, the obligation of the lessee under their lease requirements would be put in place, and it would only be if we were unable to do that that we would use the fund for those purposes.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I thank the minister for her answer. That makes sense because certainly it should be the obligation of an operator to clean up after themselves. So, if for some reason it is not possible—and you would hope those situations are rare—to sheet home responsibility to that operator, then it makes sense for the industry as a whole to be responsible for those costs rather than taxpayers in general.

Motion carried.