Save the River Murray Levy

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (14:27): Can the minister outline when the linkage from the expenses that were previously funded by the Save the River Murray Levy were to be linked to the water planning and management costs, because they certainly were not in last year's estimates when the minister was specifically asked about how those expenses would be funded. He said it was from appropriations and not from irrigators.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:28): I can only reiterate what I said earlier. These messages have been sent out since the 2010-11 budget and those messages have been sent out very plainly to the community that there would be water planning measurement cost recovery. It did take longer than we perceived at the time to implement that and that was to the benefit the community of course because they were protected from those increases, but they have been foreshadowed for a very long time, and even in the implementation phase we only in the first year recovered half of what we will be recovering into the future. So we provided that protection for a long time. It was in the budget papers, you can work it for yourself, go and look at them, do some work, have your staff look them up, 2010-11, you will find them right there.

The PRESIDENT: Supplementary, Hon. Ms Lensink.