Shack Sites

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY (15:08): Thank you, Mr President. I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation questions regarding crown shack sites.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY: From the late 1990s, lessees of crown shacks were given the opportunity of purchasing the land freehold if certain conditions for the site were met. These conditions included addressing drainage and flooding issues and installing sewerage systems, etc. My questions are:

1. Can the minister advise the number of shack sites that currently meet conditions but have not been freeholded and the location of these shacks?

2. Can the minister advise the total unimproved value of these shack sites?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (15:09): I thank the honourable member for his questions and his ongoing interest in this matter. I have mentioned this issue in this place many times in the past. As I understand it, there are fewer than 300 life-tenure shack leases on crown land and about 100 in national park reserves extant.

As many of you already understand, because many of these decisions were made by a former Liberal government, of course, the crown land subject to shack leases has been assessed a number of times, most significantly in 1994, under the then Liberal government's shack site freeholding policy. I do not recall who the minister was at the time, but I can find out if the honourable member has an interest.

The intention of this policy was to permit freeholding, that is, the purchase of land, wherever possible. Following on from this policy, most shacks on crown land were sold to the occupants under this process, I am advised; several thousand of them. Six criteria had to be met for a shack to be eligible for freeholding. All shacks sites were assessed to identify those suitable for freeholding, taking into account criteria including public health requirements, continued public access to waterfront, flood and erosion issues and planning requirements.

As I have already said many times, the sites that met the criteria were sold to the occupants. Those that did not meet the criteria were issued with non-transferable life tenure leases, which means that the lease expires when the last lessee passes away. From the Liberal government's own policy on shacks, wherever possible they were offered to the occupants for freeholding.

I note the Crown Land Management (Life Lease Sites) Amendment Bill that was introduced in the Legislative Council by the Hon. Michelle Lensink some time ago. The Hon. Michelle Lensink also introduced the National Parks and Wildlife (Life Lease Sites) Amendment Bill to provide for longer term tenure over shack sites. We all know what happened to that bill. As I can say, there are periodic evaluations of the shacks and periodic evaluation of the requirements, but we've—

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: The Hon. Mr Brokenshire, of course, has no consideration for local issues in terms of the shacks, in terms of the public health requirements. I wonder; maybe it was the Hon. Mr Brokenshire who was responsible for the policy in the first place. I can't remember.

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire: I strongly supported the freeholding of the shacks.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: He might have done in the first place, and then perhaps he strongly supported at the same time the not freeholding of these few shacks. Perhaps that was the case, Mr Brokenshire. Perhaps we can go back and research Hansard when he strongly supported the freeholding of shacks and see if he strongly supported the exemptions that were granted to these remaining shacks. Let's go back and see what he said about that, and we may find the Hon. Mr Brokenshire ends up supporting this current government's policy.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Darley has a supplementary question.