National Water Initiative

The Hon. J.S. LEE (14:36): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Water and the River Murray a question about the National Water Initiative.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: On Tuesday, the minister provided a response to my question regarding the government's allocation of water planning and management changes via the NRM boards. His response—no surprise—attracted a great deal of interest from a number of my colleagues in the other place, particularly the member for MacKillop, Mitch Williams.

The minister, he noted, didn't acknowledge that the National Water Initiative principle also stipulates that water planning and management processes are to be made public. For the honourable member's reference, the National Water Initiative principle on page 14, section 68, states:

The States and Territories agree to report publicly on cost recovery for water planning and management as part of annual reporting requirements…

My questions are:

1. When will the minister make the total cost of water planning and management information available to the public, as according to the National Water Initiative principle?

2. When will the minister make the findings of the independent cost-effectiveness review publicly available?

3. Can the minister confirm that the water access entitlement holders are delivered and costed on their proportion of water based on their total activities to ensure all fairness has been taken into consideration?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:38): I thank the honourable member for her most important question, although I would caution her on relying on any information that's given to her by the pillock from MacKillop—the member in the other place. I don't know how much more public the honourable member thinks the NRM boards can be in terms of water management policies and their costs. They are in their NRM plans. The plans are consulted on with the local communities, those plans are informed by community desires and, in fact, they are reported on in those documents that the NRM produces.

In the same way, water planning and management costs from my department are reported on in our annual reports. It is entirely up to any member who wants to go into those in more depth to do so, particularly in terms of our estimates process. So the member for MacKillop can at any time in the estimates process come in and sub in and ask those questions for himself. The honourable member has to understand—clearly she doesn't—that the water management costs to the public are rather large. They are over $40 million a year. I have outlined what some of those—

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire: Table them.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: The honourable member says, 'Table them.' For goodness sake! They are in the budget papers, Hon. Mr Brokenshire. Do a bit of work yourself with all those staff you have supporting you. Go out and do some work, go through the budget papers and work it out for yourself. You're not that incompetent—or maybe you are.

I have said before in the public, I have said it in the media, and I have said it to the principals involved, to the key stakeholders, particularly primary producers, that if you have an issue, go and sit down with either the presiding members, or the NRM boards, or indeed my chief executives, and go through those costs line by line. We have absolutely nothing to hide. We are prepared to sit down with you and take the time to take you through all of those so you feel confident by that. I don't know what more we can do except to waste public money to chase down blind alleys for these calls for so-called independent reviews when the information is all out in the public already.