Bills

Statutes Amendment and Repeal (Simplify) Bill

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

The Hon. A.L. McLACHLAN: Just to set out the Liberal Party position, I indicated in my second reading that the Liberal Party may have more amendments other than those filed by the Hon. David Ridgway. In regard to summing up the second reading and further consideration of the bill, those amendments filed by the Hon. David Ridgway at clause 57 will be the only amendments moved by the Liberal opposition.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: I rise to indicate that the government supports these amendments. These amendments aim to ensure that the fishery licence or permit—that is, the authority—is only cancelled after the minister has made a reasonable attempt to give notice of any intention of cancellation to those who are registered and have an interest in that authority. I have been advised that before cancelling an authority, acting on behalf of the minister, Primary Industries and Regions SA staff make significant attempts to contact the authority holder to remedy the default.

Over the four or five months leading to suspension, the holder would have received two invoice reminders, two SMS alerts if they have registered for the free service, and two notices of default that contain suspension warnings. Normally, the licensing team also makes courtesy calls, and I understand that the current practice of locating absent authority holders includes contacting persons with an interest in the authority. We are happy to support these amendments that have been moved by the Hon. David Ridgway to achieve a positive outcome for the community. They will provide stronger protection for authority holders as well as third parties who have an interest in the authority, and I thank the Hon. David Ridgway for moving those amendments.

The CHAIR: No-one has moved anything at the moment. We are still on clause 1.

Clause passed.

Clauses 2 to 20 passed.

Clause 21.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: Clauses 21 through to 35 constitute part 6 of the bill, and that involves amendments to the Crown Land Management Act 2009. I would like to put on the record my thanks to the government officials who took the trouble to brief me, not once but twice. I also have some written material that I want to put on the record.

In relation to the Crown Land Management Act, my original concern was that despite the name of the bill, and the object of the bill being to simplify red tape, it struck me that it might be beyond a mere coincidence that the Crown Land Management Act was being amended at the same time that the commonwealth government was seeking to impose an intermediate and low-level nuclear waste dump on crown land in South Australia, and so I sought assurances from the department that there was nothing in this legislation that impacted on that decision.

Members might recall that I have twice asked minister Hunter, as the minister responsible for crown lands, what conversations he or his department have had with the federal government over the potential use of crown land for this facility. The answer has come back twice that, at the time I asked them, there had been no conversations and no discussions. I just want to very quickly put on the record a written response that I received from the department in response to my question about whether the changes in this bill had any impact on this question of a nuclear waste dump on crown land. The government's response was:

We concur with Mr Parnell's observation of the practical implications of the Commonwealth National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012 which allows a lessee of crown land to nominate the land for the purposes of a low-level medical radioactive waste management site. The difficulty in applying the Commonwealth Act comes about when a perpetual pastoral lease holder wishes to nominate crown land as a potential site; under the Crown Land Management Act 2009, a perpetual lease holder must seek the permission of the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation to excise any part of the land for such a purpose or to use any part of the land. The commonwealth legislation has only specified land granted by or on behalf of the Crown and does not acknowledge in law the obligations upon lessees for the use of crown land, current or future, nor does it discern between differing arrangements for land granted by or on behalf of the Crown. In this regard there is no mention in the commonwealth legislation of the role of the state and territory ministers responsible for crown land and appears to allow leaseholders to nominate directly to the commonwealth without any regard to the ministers of crown land in the appropriateness of the land as a radioactive waste storage site. As such there appears to be untested uncertainty about how the respective legislation, commonwealth or state, applies, when it applies and in what way.

So, I have added more mud to the water with that response. Basically, what the government is saying is that they do not really know what it means for the effective owner of the land, being the minister, not having been consulted about whether the land is going to potentially be used for a purpose that the act does not allow and for which permission has not been given.

I just want to put that answer on the record. I think that is important. I will not read the rest of it, but it went on to say that the bulk of the provisions in the Crown Land Management Act are in fact routine, they are red tape reduction. As a consequence, I will be supporting those provisions in the bill as they stand. I did want to put on the record the material I was provided.

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: I thank the member for his contribution. I know the issues he has agitated here are important to him, but they do not impact on or relate to the amendments at hand.

Clause passed.

Clauses 22 to 56 passed.

Clause 57.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I move:

Amendment No 1 [Ridgway–1]—

Page 23, line 4 [clause 57, inserted subsection (7a)]—Delete 'If' and substitute:

Subject to subsection (7b), if

Amendment No 2 [Ridgway–1]—

Page 23, after line 11—After inserted subsection (7a) insert:

(7b) The Minister must, before cancelling an authority under subsection (7a), make a reasonable attempt to give notice of the Minister's intention to cancel the authority to any person noted on the register of authorities as having an interest in the authority.

These amendments came from the consultation the opposition did when we received a copy of the simplify bill. I think all the various shadow ministers took responsibility to circulate the areas that related to them, and I sent it out quite broadly and got quite a deal of feedback.

This particular issue was raised by one of the banks around fishing licences and third-party interests in those licences. Before the minister cancels a fishing licence I think he or she is required to take all reasonable steps to find the owner of that licence or the licensee. The view was that if someone was a genuine, registered third-party interest in that—whether that be a bank or even another family member, or someone who has lent them money, a friend, or whoever that third-party interest might be—the minister should make every effort, take reasonable steps to find anyone who has a third-party interest in the licence.

The government dropped the bill in, and often the opposition, through the consultation process, does find things that have been overlooked or were not seen in the first place, so we are very happy that the government is prepared to support the amendments. I think the bill is better for it, and I commend the amendments to the chamber.

Amendments carried; clause as amended passed.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr McLachlan mentioned more amendments.

The Hon. A.L. McLACHLAN: Whilst I indicated in my second reading that there might be more amendments, there are not.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: Whilst other members might have contributions before mine, for example the pressing issue of the Mount Gambier Hospital Hydrotherapy Pool Fund Act, my next contribution is at clause 93.

Clauses 58 to 92 passed.

Clause 93.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: Clause 93 is an amendment to the National Parks and Wildlife Act. This amendment effectively does away with the 10-yearly reviews of regional reserves. Again, I thank the government for providing me with a briefing and also a written response to some questions that I asked. I want to put three very short paragraphs on the record, and I have a number of questions to ask as well. The reason the government has given for removing this 10-yearly review provision includes the following:

The preparation of the 10 yearly report does not require any public consultation and there is no requirement to implement the recommendations of a report. On the other hand, park management plans required under section 38 of the Act are statutory documents that are developed in partnership with communities and include recommendations that direct and guide the management of parks, including resource use on regional reserves.

The Department has advised that the preparation of a 10 yearly report has not been found to be an effective tool in evaluating and mitigating impacts associated with resource use in protected areas. The reports are not subject to public consultation and do not compel government agencies to act, and given their infrequency are not considered a responsive mechanism for dealing with any land use issues as they emerge.

It is considered that removal of this section of the Act will simplify the planning and management of regional reserves by ensuring that government resources can be directed towards working with community in preparing management plans for the reserves, and also managing impacts through existing mechanisms.

There are a lot of words there, but effectively the government is saying that they did not like doing them, they did not like the resources that they took, and they did not find them to be very useful anyway because no-one was obliged to have regard to the responses.

My response to that sort of approach is to say that you have effectively chosen to devalue those reports. They could have been an important tool for the proper management of these parks, yet the department has chosen for them not to be. My first question is: what resources have been devoted to preparing these 10-yearly reviews?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: I thank the honourable member for his question. This bill covers a very wide range of areas and a lot of acts that are being simplified. We do not have the exact answer to that question here. If the honourable member has a suite of questions, I can undertake to bring those answers back, if he is happy to do it that way.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: I appreciate the position the minister is in. There are 38 acts of parliament being amended in this bill, so I appreciate that it is a difficult position to be on top of all of them. I am happy to take the minister's assurance to come back with an answer. I guess the frustration that I find with this is that so many of our National Parks and Wildlife Act reserves do not have management plans.

The act states that there shall be a management plan for all of these parks. I do not have the exact figure—and the minister might take this one on notice as well—but a large number of them actually do not have a management plan at all. That might not cause a lot of grief on the ground in terms of some remote parks that have very low levels of visitation and areas that might pretty much be left to their own devices and do not have a great deal of intervention, but there are other parks where it would have been incredibly useful to have had a management plan.

For example, Granite Island has been the subject of a number of controversial proposals about what is to be done there. They are going to reopen the cafe, I think. The Swim with the Tuna people got permission through the court to develop off the island. Those of us looking at what planning rules should have been around that proposal know that the National Parks and Wildlife Act management plans are incorporated by reference into the Development Act. So, it would have been a really useful guide to know what types of development were appropriate or inappropriate in that location.

I guess all I am really doing is calling out the government's claim that they think they are wasting time doing these 10-yearly reports. I do not think they have spent much time on them at all; that is my gut feeling. The government says they want to put those resources into providing proper management plans for the remainder of our national parks. I do not reckon they are doing that either because if you go online you can see that so many of our national parks do not have management plans.

I will give the minister these questions to take on notice. The first one I have just asked was: what resources have been put into these 10-yearly reviews? Secondly, what resources does the minister expect will be freed up to put into preparing management plans for other National Parks and Wildlife Act reserves? Thirdly, how many National Parks and Wildlife Act reserves still do not have management plans? Fourthly, which of those parks have management plans in progress or underway or anticipated? Finally, at what point does the government expect that all of our National Parks and Wildlife Act reserves will have management plans in place?

I am happy to wait for those answers at a later date—not too long, I hope—but I do not need it to prevent the passage of this bill. What I will say, though, is that having consulted with conservation groups, the Conservation Council, the Wilderness Society, the Environmental Defenders Office, they are not convinced that removing these 10-yearly reviews of regional reserves is a valid red tape reduction measure. They would like to see the ability for the government to, at least every 10 years, go back and review what is happening in these important parks. They have asked me if I can oppose this clause, which I will. I am not going to divide on it.

The other thing that I would say, and I was tempted during question time to ask a supplementary question when minister Hunter was explaining the importance of our national parks, but having gone 13 minutes already, I think it was, I did not want to incur the wrath of the honourable John Dawkins in prolonging the minister's explanation of parks. The question I would have asked, and the question I will ask the minister now, is that these regional reserves—they used to be called Clayton's parks, you know, the park you have when you are not having a park, because they are open to mining; they are mining and grazing parks, they are not just parks for conservation.

My question of the minister was going to be: is it still the case that 75 per cent of terrestrial National Parks and Wildlife Act reserves are open for mining? That was the case many years ago. Is that still the case? Three-quarters of our National Parks and Wildlife Act reserves are open for mining and, as a consequence, is it still the case that less than 5 per cent of the area of South Australia is off limits to mining? I will leave the minister with those final two questions.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: I will put on the record that I appreciate the questions, and for the benefit of the record and all those who are here and in the department, I will seek those answers and bring them back as quickly as I possibly can for the honourable member.

Clause passed.

Remaining clauses (94 to 146) and title passed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Employment, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation, Minister for Automotive Transformation, Minister for Science and Information Economy) (15:49): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.