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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-10-14 Daily Xml
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NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE: ARID LANDS NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT BOARD

Mr RAU (Enfield) (11:25): I move:

That the 33rd report of the committee, entitled Arid Lands Natural Resources Management Board Levy Proposal 2009-10, 'Ask not what your Board can do for you...', be noted.

I will be very brief in relation to this matter as well. This is one of the reports the committee has prepared in respect of an NRM board. This particular NRM board is one that we had had not much to do with before and we were somewhat shocked, I think you could say, with their proposal to raise the water based levy for people within their zone by about 1,000 per cent, given the fact that CPI at that period was, I think, 5 per cent. I am happy to say that the committee unanimously formed the view that an increase of 1,000 per cent was a little over the top and made that view known; and, after consultation between the board and various other interested parties and, in particular, the one ratepayer who was going to be bearing the full burden (almost) of the increase, the increase was agreed at 200 per cent.

I have to say that, had that one ratepayer not been content with that, I am not quite sure what the committee's opinion might have been as to an unagreed position, but given the fact that the one party who was basically going to be doing the paying and the other party who was going to be doing the collecting had agreed, we formed the view that it was not for us to disturb what appeared to be an amicable resolution of the problem. However, that does explain why the title of this report is 'Ask not what your board can do for you...', because we did form the view that the board was doing very nicely, thank you very much!

I do want to say, though, that there are legitimate reasons for boards to be raising money. In this particular instance, capping of the uncapped bores in the Great Artesian Basin is an important matter. In summary, basically the committee formed the view that, having seen the reduction in the water based levy to a level that was accepted by the players, some consideration needs to be given to increasing the land based levy to make up any shortfall in the future in relation to funds.

Again, I commend my fellow committee members for their work in relation to this matter and I thank again our staff Patrick and Knut who, once again, did an excellent job. I recommend that members who have any interest in these NRM matters at least have a passing view of the report.

Motion carried.

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