Save the River Murray Fund

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (14:19): Goodness me! It looks like a ping-pong match. Could the minister then outline how those particular programs are to be funded into the future, if not through appropriation as he told estimates last year?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:20): Again, I thank the honourable member for her most important question, but she would be aware, as would most of us, that programs don't last forever. They are usually time limited. They are to address specific functions or projects. They sometimes entail extra funding from other spheres of government—local government and federal government—and sometimes non-government organisations as well, and that comes to an end as well, because the federal government doesn't give funding for ever and a day either.

At the time when those programs were underway, they were still being funded, but as programs mature and make way for other programs that changes. That is the nature of government funding. That is the nature of programs that have been run out under government funding at a federal and state level for time immemorial. Why would the honourable member think something would change now?

The PRESIDENT: Supplementary, Ms Lensink.