Parliamentary Committees

Natural Resources Committee: Regional Report, March 2014-April 2016

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS (16:09): I move:

That the 108^th report of the committee, entitled Regional Report, March 2014-April 2016, be noted.

This is the Natural Resources Committee's first regional report. This report has been written in response to the Premier's letter of 27 May 2014 outlining his charter for a stronger regional policy. As part of the charter, the Premier made a request for the Natural Resources Committee to convene a meeting in a regional location to provide a forum for regional South Australians to put their view in relation to the committee's work.

As outlined by the committee's Chair, the Hon. Steph Key, in a written response to the Premier dated 25 March 2015, the committee members enthusiastically supported the proposal for the committee to convene a meeting in a regional area. The NRC makes regular visits to regions to meet and consult with regional South Australians as part of its statutory responsibility to consider NRM levies and to visit NRM regions to observe the work done under the guidance of regional NRM boards and the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources (DEWNR).

The committee takes these responsibilities very seriously. Over the course of a four-year parliamentary term, the committee endeavours to visit all eight NRM regions in order to meet with natural resource managers and community members. The eight South Australian NRM regions are the Adelaide and Mount Lofty; Alinytjara Wilurara; Eyre Peninsula; Kangaroo Island; South Australian Arid Lands; South Australian Murray-Darling Basin; the South-East; and Northern and Yorke.

With the larger NRM regions—Alinytjara Wilurara, which extends from the APY lands to the Great Australian Bight, and the South Australia Arid Lands region, which extends from Port Augusta to the New South Wales border and north to the Queensland and Northern Territory borders, for example, are especially large and remote—the committee prefers, when time and funds allow, to make multiple visits to different parts of the respective NRM regions to gain a more thorough appreciation of NRM issues.

The reporting period chosen is the 53^rd Parliament, extending from March 2014 to the end of April 2016. This period has been an especially busy one for the Natural Resources Committee, in part due to the committee's undertaking the inquiry into fracking/unconventional gas extraction, and also its oversight role with regard to the state's eight NRM boards. Over the reporting period, the committee undertook eight regional fact-finding visits and tabled nine reports relating to its regional NRM responsibilities.

During this reporting period, the committee has managed to visit six NRM regions at least once, and members have committed to visit the two remaining NRM regions before the end of the parliamentary term. Much of the information contained in this report is available in other committee reports, which can be accessed on the committee's website. Since this regional report was completed in late April 2016, the NRM committee has devoted a number of meetings to deliberations on the NRM board business plans and NRM levies for 2016-17. These deliberations occurred outside the reporting period for the regional report and will be detailed in subsequent reports.

I commend the members of the committee: the Presiding Member, Hon. Steph Key MP; Mr John Gee MP; Ms Annabel Digance MP; Mr Peter Treloar MP; the Hon. Robert Brokenshire MLC; and the Hon. John Dawkins MLC for their contribution. All members have worked cooperatively during the reporting period. Finally, I thank the parliamentary staff for their assistance: Patrick Dupont, the secretary, and Barbara Coddington, our research officer. I commend this report to the council.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS (16:15): I rise to support the comments made by the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars about this first regional report. As the Hon. Mr Kandelaars indicated, the report was developed in a manner to encapsulate much of the work that has been otherwise reported in greater detail. In relation to the NRM board levies, it will be detailed in a greater manner in the next sitting week. The report was developed to outline the work of the committee as a response to the Premier's letter, which I understand went to all parliamentary standing committees on 27 May 2014, outlining his charter for stronger regional policy.

As a member of a committee that has always travelled—and it is part of our remit to travel, but certainly members of the committee have always made themselves available to travel at some length right around this state—to me, that letter could well have been written to some committees that never travel beyond the end of Hindley Street, and there are a number of them.

The Hon. G.A. Kandelaars interjecting:

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: They can remain nameless today, Hon. Mr Kandelaars, but they are the ones that get the same travel budget from the House of Assembly as the Natural Resources Committee. The Premier should have written that letter to those committees. To me, it was an absolute joke that the Premier wrote that letter to the Natural Resources Committee. Indeed, I would say that the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee would also have found it a bit of a joke to get a letter like that, asking us to go and convene in the regions and to actually visit the regions and have meetings in the regions, because that is something that is just bread and butter.

I do commend the report but I just think that that letter from the Premier, which was all part of his deal with the Hon. Geoff Brock, was all window-dressing. For that letter to be sent to a committee such as the Natural Resources Committee, which travels to just about every corner of this state as often as it can, is a joke. This report is far from a joke. It has some very good information in it. I commend my colleagues on the committee, including the Chair, the Hon. Steph Key, who chairs a very good committee. I think the committee's work is advanced by the way she operates. I also echo the words of the Hon. Mr Kandelaars in thanking the staff, Patrick DuPont and Barbara Coddington, for their great efforts.

Motion carried.