Question Time

Water Licences

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:21): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Water and the River Murray a question regarding water licences.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: As members probably know, there has been a quite a deal of media coverage about dairy loans and the drought loans, but in particular dairy loans, not being able to use water licences for security. The opposition has been advised that water licences issued pursuant to the Natural Resources Management Act 2004 are not personal property for the purposes of the Personal Property Securities Act 2009.

PIRSA has advised that it does not provide satisfactory acceptable security for PIRSA for those drought and dairy loans, but in Victoria the licences are deemed to be an asset for dairy farmers when applying for dairy concessional loans.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: My question to the minister is: will the minister commit to amending the local legislation to ensure that water licences are recognised as personal property, giving dairy farmers equitable access to concessional loans?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:22): I thank the honourable member for his important but tricky question. I have given him advice in this place before about this. I have advised him, from memory, that it is the way the banks treat these licenses that makes all the difference; it is not, in fact, the licences themselves, if they are issued here. Certainly, if he wants me to, I can go back and talk to my agency about whether that is still the case, but I have had no advice to the contrary. As much as he might like to twist and turn on this, that is the advice I have had in the past and I have had no update, to my knowledge.