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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-04-29 Daily Xml
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NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (15:35): In the short time available to me this afternoon, I want to once again raise the issue of natural resources management in South Australia, some concerns and some explicit examples of where I think minister Gago has again lost the plot.

The main concern which is coming to me from my fellow members in this house is that we have put these boards into place and all we have done for the last couple of years is to try to invent or reinvent plans and create, in some cases, administrations of a considerable size. I turn to the Kangaroo Island Board which I mentioned in here just recently. I have some concerns about one of the outcomes from this board. It has been talking about a plan for a fair while. The Soils Board had a plan, the old Kangaroo Island Natural Resources Board had a plan—surely all these could have been dusted off and we could have got on with the job. That is one of my concerns.

Another concern that I have with these boards—to be more explicit, across the state—is how they are appointed. Under the act, they are appointed by the minister. I think this is an abject failure. I do not think that it is working. I think that it removes the local input into creating boards for local communities, and I believe that we will have to revisit this legislation and put in place provisions for a publicly-elected board in the case of natural resources boards around South Australia.

I do not believe that this appointment process is working properly. I am most disappointed with the actions of the minister and the way she has approached the Kangaroo Island board. I have been on a couple of government boards over the years, and anyone who knows anything about it knows how they are appointed. The fact is that the minister talks to the presiding member, and the presiding member says whom they want or do not want on there, and they are gazetted—end of story.

It runs through government; that is the way it works. I find that the current situation is not tenable and I think it is failing communities. For the sake of the house I point out that local communities across South Australia are actually paying a levy attached to their rate notice which is collected by local government. So they are being levied, yet they have no input whatsoever into these boards that are controlling their districts.

The boards rely on federal funding, state government funding and local funding through the ratepaying public. Anyone can put their name forward by a process of elimination (as I mentioned earlier) to go on there, but in effect, despite the fact that they are paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars across South Australia, they have no say, and I think that is wrong.

What has happened more particularly with the Kangaroo Island board I think has been an abject disgrace. Mr Rodney Bell, a former member of the Advisory Board of Agriculture, a citizen of some distinction on Kangaroo Island, highly regarded and highly respected, was dumped from the board because he chose to speak out at a hearing of the Natural Resources Committee on Kangaroo Island. He was not invited to attend by the presiding member of the board at that time, but he got wind of it and went along and had a few words to say. He spoke up on a few issues and was conveniently removed from the board, and I do not think that that is in our best interests.

Then lo and behold we were told in the Stock Journal last week that the NRM board now comprises six farmers or former farmers. I have had a look at it and I can make 4½ out of it (I don't know how they get six), but I am really concerned. The minister has put in a letter supporting the presiding member. The presiding member is a dead dog walking on Kangaroo Island, I am afraid. She is a dead dog walking. She does not have the respect of the local community anymore and I think there is a great sadness about that, and the board is in desperate trouble. It has no respect, no integrity, and this thing is just dead in the water to all intents and purposes.

I ask that the parliament look at this process when it comes up and that we revisit the legislation and look at electing these NRM boards from communities, getting some local input into them, rather than set-ups by ministers such as occurred on Kangaroo Island.

Time expired.

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