Landscape South Australia Bill

Conference

Consideration in committee of the recommendations of the conference.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: I move:

That the recommendations of the conference be agreed to.

I would like to speak briefly in support of accepting the suggestions that the conference has put forward on the 11 outstanding amendments and five suggested amendments that were not agreed to between the House of Assembly and the Legislative Council. The outstanding amendments and suggested amendments considered in conference concern three issues: firstly, the matters the minister needs to consider in recommending landscape regions to the Governor; secondly, the timing of the first election of landscape board members; and thirdly, arrangements for the collection of land levies inside council areas.

Firstly, in relation to boundaries, the bill provides for the Governor to establish landscape management regions on the recommendation of the minister. In formulating a recommendation, the minister must give attention to the nature and form of the natural environment, as well as take into account relevant economic, social, cultural and local government boundaries of areas. The minister may also take into account such other matters as the minister thinks fit.

Amendment No. 14 would reinsert, from the Natural Resources Management Act, specific reference to water catchment areas, such as that the minister must give particular attention to them when recommending landscape management regions. In relation to elections, amendments Nos 47 to 50 would defer the election of landscape board members until 2022. In the interim period, all board members would be appointed by the minister.

In the interests of seeing a resolution, the government in the House of Assembly changed its position on these amendments and recommended the recommendations of the conference of managers. In the context of no elections being held for the first landscape board members, this includes some minor consequential amendments to ensure the smooth transition from current NRM boards to the new landscape SA boards. The remaining issue is the role of councils in collecting land levies within council areas. The related amendments are amendment No. 2, amendments Nos 40 to 44 inclusive and suggested amendments Nos 1 to 5 inclusive.

On behalf the minister in the other place, I report that the conference recommended that land levies continue to be collected by local councils, with a compromise solution having been identified to address some of the issues around the current model. In particular, the conference has recommended a mechanism for councils to be reimbursed for unpaid land levies. Where levy debt has been written off under section 143 of the Local Government Act, councils will be able to apply to be reimbursed for the written off amount. The process for seeking a refund will be prescribed by regulation.

This new measure to address local government concerns will sit alongside the arrangements in clause 68 of the bill for councils to be reimbursed for levy collection costs. The amount that councils can recover will be set by regulation after consultation with the Local Government Association. The minister, on behalf of the government, believes that this provides a practical solution to the concerns raised by the Local Government Association and some councils that, under the current system, they are left out of pocket as a result of collecting the land levy.

To summarise on behalf of the Minister for Environment, I would like to thank all conference members from this chamber, including the Hon. Dennis Hood, the Hon. Frank Pangallo, the Hon. Mark Parnell and the Hon. Kyam Maher, as well as the members of the other house involved in the conference process, who are the member for Port Adelaide, the member for Waite, the member for Giles and the member for Davenport. I commend the motion to the house.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: I rise on behalf of the opposition to indicate that we will be opposing the recommendations and that we will be insisting on the Legislative Council amendments. I do so reluctantly because we entered into this negotiation process between the houses to try to find a way forward to move from our current position of insisting on all the Legislative Council's amendments and to find some areas of agreement.

However, the minister in the other place has forced this on us by insisting that we deal with this tonight, rather than giving the shadow minister in the other place, Dr Susan Close, two sitting days to take these proposals of further amendments to the shadow cabinet and to the Labor caucus for our consideration. The minister did not deign to give the shadow minister that amount of time to consult, not just with her colleagues in parliament but also with the stakeholders whom she has been talking to throughout this process, mainly local government and environmental groups but also some others.

Sadly, as I said, the minister declined to allow her those two extra sitting days for that further consideration. We were particularly keen to work with local government. As the minister said in her brief remarks, they bear the brunt of collecting a landscape levy on behalf of the government. It is fair to think that they should be somehow compensated through the negotiation process.

I understand that the ask from environmental groups for further funding of environmental heritage agreements with landowners to improve and increase to a much greater extent the amount of funding and investment going to heritage agreements was about $8 million a year. The government, as I understand it, found that too hard to be asked to bear, but earlier today had $7 million on the table for negotiations, but that has been significantly decreased as well. We are now in a position where the government has proposed an extra $3 million worth of funding, which has been snatched and agreed to by the Greens when, of course, $7 million was on the table just a few short hours ago.

So we have nothing—nothing at all—in this agreement we are being asked to deal with today to compensate local government for collecting the levy. We have nothing on stormwater management, which is one of the expenses that local government has to be involved in. We have nothing for coastal protection, another area that local government has played a fundamental part on and is not being helped by this government in any way. I cannot for the life of me see how accepting a $3 million handout for just two years—$3 million over two years—is a wonderful agreement to be reached when, as I say, $7 million was on the table earlier today and the ask for just part of the program was $8 million a year. For those reasons, Labor will be insisting on the Legislative Council's amendments.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: The Greens will be supporting the minister's motion. We do not do so with a great deal of joy, but we do so with the blessing of every conservation group in the state and every major farming group in the state. They have asked us to accept this deal. As for the Hon. Ian Hunter suggesting to us that just a few hours ago $7 million was on the table, if that was in fact the case then I am sure the farming groups and the conservation groups would have said, 'Hold out for $7 million,' but they have contacted me and told me that they think this is the best they can get. In the argy-bargy of politics—

The Hon. I.K. Hunter interjecting:

The CHAIR: Order!

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: In the argy-bargy of politics, there will always be—

Members interjecting:

The CHAIR: The Hon. Mr Parnell, sit down. Can the Hon. Mr Hunter and the Hon. Ms Lensink just cease and desist. The Chair wishes to listen to the Hon. Mr Parnell.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: In the argy-bargy of politics there will always be those with 20/20 vision and complete hindsight who will say, 'You could have held out; you could have got more.' That is a conversation the Hon. Ian Hunter might want to have with—and I will go through the list—the South Australian Nature Alliance, Trees for Life, the Conservation Council of SA, Landcare Association of SA, the National Trust of SA, the Australian Land Conservation Alliance, Livestock SA, Nature Foundation SA, the Nature Glenelg Trust, the South-East Bush Heritage and the Pew Charitable Trusts. They are all groups that have written to us saying that they believe that the reintroduction of a fund of money to help landholders voluntarily protect private bushland is a worthwhile investment—it is a worthwhile investment.

The Hon. I.K. Hunter interjecting:

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: The Hon. Ian Hunter can rail against it. It is a conversation he should be having with all of those groups. If he wants to tell them that they are stupid, that they have sold out, then he can have that conversation with them.

Having said that, my philosophical position is still that I believe state governments should collect their own taxes. I do not think the current situation is optimal but, at the end of the day, it is the status quo. The Local Government Association, I guess for a short period of time, had some hope that they might not have to collect this tax anymore and that the state government would do it. However, at the end of the day, conservation groups and farm groups have asked us to support the passage of this bill in light of not just legislative amendments but also some extra commitments that the minister has made that are outside the technical scope of the bill.

In terms of the actual scope of the bill, the minister has agreed that it is unfair for local councils not to be fully compensated for the cost of collecting the levy. He has written to me, saying that he will be drafting a regulation in consultation with local government to create an efficient, cost-effective and simplified process for seeking reimbursement for the full costs associated with levy collection or debt recovery. That was the first problem that local government had, aside from the whole philosophical problem that they would rather not be doing it at all. They wanted to make sure they were fully compensated; the minister has made that commitment.

The second problem that local government had was that if a person does not pay their landscape levy then local councils were left holding the debt. The amendment that is before us provides a mechanism for local councils to effectively be compensated for that non-payment of the levy. At present, the buck stops with local councils. If someone does not pay, local councils end up wearing that cost. I did ask for the minister to have an adviser present, because I will ask a question on that shortly.

The other thing that local council was keen to secure was to make sure that the solid waste levy was not going to increase beyond CPI. The minister, again, outside the strict terms of this bill, has made that commitment, saying that the government does not intend to implement rises to the solid waste levy beyond CPI and refers to the budget papers, which show that intention. I do not know whether we can get much more assurance than that.

In terms of the fund for assisting landholders with, for example, fencing costs, the government has committed to $1 million in the next financial year and $2 million thereafter. The conservation groups had put a comprehensive bid forward that was calling for $8.7 million. They have not managed to get that.

The ball was in their court, in a way. If they felt there was more funding to be had and that the leverage of this bill was a useful tactic to get it, then they would have advised me and others to oppose the bill. They have not done that; they have asked us to pass the bill. I can accept a little bit of what the Hon. Ian Hunter is saying: that more money, of course, would be better. Of course it would be better to have received more money, but we have what we have and the conservation groups are happy with that.

The Greens' position is that, whilst we supported all of the Legislative Council amendments that have now come back to us, we will be supporting the government not insisting on amendments Nos 2, 14 and 40 to 44. The government has moved, as well, in relation to Legislative Council amendments Nos 47 to 50. They were my amendments, which postponed the election.

The elections were universally unpopular out there. I know minister Speirs promised it and he thought it was a good idea. When they consulted, it was discovered that no-one really liked the idea of election. You can understand why: if you are going to have an expert-based body, it makes sense to appoint them on the basis of their expertise, not just have a popularity contest amongst those people who choose to put their hands up.

The minister has agreed the elections will be postponed to 2022, but my expectation is they will never happen. That is after the next state election. I do not expect that we will see elections, and that was certainly what was asked of me by conservation groups and other stakeholders.

I understand the Local Government Association is disappointed, because it looked as if they might be relieved of the obligation to collect these taxes. I have spoken to the CEO today and it is fair to say he is not entirely happy with this, but he did want the extra assurances that the minister has now provided in relation to full cost recovery and also the ability for the cost of non-payment to be reimbursed to local councils.

My question of the minister, who might want to take some advice on this, is that the wording in the proposed new amendment is that a council is required to write-off the debt before it can be reimbursed to them. The procedure in the Local Government Act for writing off the debt is that one of two things must happen: either they have taken reasonable steps and they just cannot get the money out of the person who is not paying, or the cost of getting that money just is not worth the effort. They are the two preconditions to writing off the debt.

My specific question is: is it possible for a local council to split the bill, as it were—in other words, to write-off the non-payment of the landscape levy portion and not write-off their ability to continue to pursue the rates that have not been paid? The importance of that is that the landscape levy is very likely to be under $100 for the vast bulk of taxpayers, whereas council rates are more often over $1,000. I want to make sure that local councils will not be obliged to write-off the unpaid rates in order to recover the unpaid landscape levy.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: The advice I have received is that, yes, that is the case. Councils will be able to write-off land levies separately to council rates as the Local Government Act arrangements provide for any debt owing to the council to be written off.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: I rise to say that we obviously oppose the amendments. I thank the opposition for showing their support for us. I must say, I am quite disappointed. I am probably pleased in some way that the Hon. Mark Parnell was able to get something out of this for conservation groups. Unfortunately, local government is again the loser here. Again, there is government cost shifting to local government. They are now having to collect this levy that, in essence, is a government tax. It will appear on people's rate notices next year.

It is disappointing that, when the chamber came to and made a decision, it has now been reversed because the government found it unacceptable and believed that great costs were going to be involved in the process. I received some lengthy explanations last week from the government about why my amendment would not work and would create all sorts of issues in terms of them having to set up the whole system to be able to collect the levy. In actual fact, it is probably a very simple process of local governments—

The Hon. C. Bonaros: Like they do now.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: Yes—sending a database to the government so they can then virtually cut and paste and go ahead and impose their levy. I could not see where the costs were justified, and the explanation I received was so convoluted that, in the end, I gave up having a look at it because it was quite clear that they were just trying to stonewall this.

There were other things that we sought from the government. There is a clause in the bill relating to special circumstances. This is almost a trip-wire for local government, in that if the government decides that it wants to introduce another levy or another mechanism to collect money from local government, it can do that. So local government continues to be a tax collector for the government.

The Hon. Mark Parnell mentioned the amendment that has been provided by the minister for the ability to write-off the debt and then collect it. It is a very lengthy process for a council to go through when somebody does not pay their rates or their levy, having to chase them and the subsequent legal action. Even then, they may not be lucky enough to be able to retrieve the funds available to them. It is a long process; it could take a long period of time.

We would perhaps have liked the government to consider, instead of doing this through regulation, having legislation that would enable councils to get their actual costs and invoice the government. In closing, again, I am quite disappointed that we were not able to come to an agreement in relation to that amendment. With that, I will say again that we will oppose it.

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY: For the record, I indicate that I will be supporting the minister's motion.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: I will just do a really quick summing-up because some of those comments need to be responded to, particularly those from the Labor Party. In terms of negotiations, I think we are seeing the new normal for this parliament, unfortunately, where the Labor Party just drags the chain endlessly. We have had three conferences, and the Labor Party seems to think it is appropriate that they go back to their cabinet. They have probably had these amendments all week; they want to take it back to their cabinet. I know what would have happened to me if I had been the opposition spokesperson and tried to drag this out as much as they have.

The Hon. I.K. Hunter: The minister wouldn’t even speak to the shadow minister. He wouldn’t pick up the phone. He is the one that's been dragging it out.

The CHAIR: The Hon. Mr Hunter, this is in committee. You can have another bite of the cherry.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: I would have had my head ripped off in this chamber by the highly protesting former minister. Secondly, if I can just address some of the comments in relation to the Hon. Frank Pangallo, I quickly read out some stuff in relation to where local government sits. He may want to reflect on that and consider those comments when he gets the opportunity, but from my understanding councils will not actually be financially worse off under the new arrangements compared with their existing arrangements. In fact, they will be better off because they will be able to write-off the landscape levy debt, and they will also have a greater role in terms of the partnership for programs.

If I can address the matter that the Hon. Ian Hunter raised about heritage agreements, there used to be significant funding available for heritage agreements when Labor took office. Under his leadership, that princely sum was $4,330. He is now complaining about $3 million on the table. In relation to coastal recovery—

The Hon. I.K. Hunter: Two years and it's gone.

The CHAIR: The Hon. Mr Hunter, we are in committee. You can say this on your feet. We are not in question time.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: His amount might have funded two grants. In relation to coastal recovery, in the last budget there was $52.5 million.

The CHAIR: The Hon. Mr Hunter, would you like the call?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Yes, sir, I would. My advice is the amendments only arrived today. The offer of money was only made at 1 o'clock today, and the dismissal of any local government money was done at 1pm, so the shadow minister is ill informed and misleading the house. This deal is a terrible deal for the community. I am surprised the Greens went so cheaply: $3 million and it is over after two years—no more money.

The CHAIR: The Hon. Mr Hunter, I will just ask you to withdraw 'misleading the house'. You can say that the minister may be ill informed but the—

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: She was ill informed, incorrect and ill advised to tell the house what I consider to be incorrect information.

The CHAIR: I will take that as a correction and a withdrawal.

Ayes 10

Noes 9

Majority 1