Save the River Murray Levy

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (14:24): I seek leave to make an explanation before directing a question to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation about the water planning and management rip-off.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: The Natural Resources Committee of the parliament wrote a fairly, I think we would call it in Sir Humphrey's language, 'brave letter' to the minister on 16 June in relation to its concerns with the NRM licensing levies for 2016-17, and one of its items being point 4 'The removal of the Save the River Murray Levy and how the subsequent appropriation is to be used towards WPM costs'. The minister's response says, and I quote:

The State Government has always intended that a certain proportion of activities that were previously funded by the Save the River Murray Levy, and now funded by State Government, would be cost-recovered from water users in the future.

Given that the minister did not outline this in the previous year's estimates, can he outline—and he may need to take this on notice to go and check his records in some detail—exactly when the government started to communicate that that would be the case?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:25): I thank the honourable member for her sensible question. The state government is committed to ensuring that the removal of the Save the River Murray Levy does not impact on the state's commitment to maintaining and improving the health of the River Murray. That is the first point and very important. We have long intended and communicated (to the point of her question) that a certain proportion of activities, previously funded by the Save the River Murray Levy and now funded by the state government, would be cost recovered from water users into the future. This cost recovery of water planning and management costs was presented in the 2010-11 state budget—so she can do her own homework—

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: I know that; I have said that on the record. I am well aware of that.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: —and go back and look at the budget papers and you will find it right there—

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: —but you didn't say that.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: —in 2010 and 2011.

The PRESIDENT: No debating.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: In the 2015-16 state budget, some activities that are water planning and management related, which may have been funded by the Save the River Murray Levy but are now funded by the state, do fall within the pool of activities that are to be cost recovered. But the Department of Water, Environment and Natural Resources has long protected irrigators since, of course, the 2010-11 budget in relation to this cost recovery.

The point came about five years' later when we decided we could not do that, and even then we protected the system by only taking half of the savings that we were projecting into the future. So we have done our bit and we believe it is important there is a signal about the value of water. It is also very important—and I understand the Liberals actually signed up to this policy as well, at least in other parts of the country—that you must move to a system where there are transparent costs and they are passed on to the benefactor or the impactor. That is not controversial, as far as I understand it at least, and that is exactly what we are doing.