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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-09-25 Daily Xml
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NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT PLAN

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (11:33): I move:

That this house—

(a) condemns the Rann government for the complete failure of the Natural Resources Management Plan;

(b) notes that there have been huge cost increases for local government and the community at large;

(c) shares the concern of local government with respect to the cost shifting from state to local government; and

(d) expresses general concern about the future and efficiency of the plan with respect to service delivery and effectiveness.

The levy increases in some cases have been astronomical. It is a favourite subject of mine, and I have raised it in this house many times in the 18 years that I have been here. The Northern and Yorke board has increased its levy by 320 per cent. You would not mind if the level of services had gone up commensurate with that, but it has not. In fact, in most cases, it is less than we had before. Some regions have experienced a jump from a $200 levy to, say, an $800 levy. The Eyre Peninsula, Kangaroo Island and South-East regions have also had their levies increased by a large amount—all this for services that are not as good as they used to have.

I have a lot of friends still in this industry who are chairs in the system and they all admit to me, 'Ivan, the system is not as good as it used to be, and look at these costs.' The bureaucracy has taken over. It has destroyed a fantastic volunteer organisation that we used to have. When the minister introduced this plan—and I had a fair bit to do with that—he said it would be cost neutral, and we trusted them to do that, but no extra funds were put into the budget by the state government to aid the establishment of the NRM boards. The money has been generated by the levy through ratepayers and collected by councils. The odium is unfairly with them.

Late last year, the presiding member of the Northern and Yorke NRM board, Mr Merv Lewis, whom I have known all my life, said it was necessary to increase the levy as the board had been forced to take additional responsibilities under the NRM Act. The state government has withdrawn $1.08 million in funding to the board—withdrawn it from the board. The Adelaide and Mount Lofty board also had $309,000 in funding withdrawn by the state Rann Labor government; that is the member for Kavel's electorate. No doubt the same thing could be said in Hammond and all the other country electorates, and, indeed, even in Fisher, the Hon. Bob Such's electorate. This goes right across.

The government has taken $1.08 million of funding from the board. That was never in the grand plan and never spelt out, but those people were out there diligently selling this concept. It was never spelt out to them. I feel that they have been betrayed. This year, the Adelaide Mount Lofty Natural Resources Management Board will have a budget of $24.5 million, with $14.7 million of that coming from ratepayers through the NRM levy. Over $2 million of the $24.5 million budget will be spent on staff and running the board. Here we go; what a massive bureaucracy! Kym Good, whom I have known personally, because he was with the Barossa board, is now with the Mount Lofty Natural Resources Management Board. When asked on radio if everyone will be paying more to fund natural resources management, he said:

We're coming up to, yes, a higher contribution, but we believe a balanced and affordable contribution. If we don't make these investments now it's going to cost us many times that amount into the future.

Well, talk about a cop-out! I know that he could not say anything else; he is a public servant, but no doubt he would be quite embarrassed personally about what has happened. Mount Barker councillors have questioned the level of service the region is receiving for the money it raises. The council's strategic planning mantra states:

The extent to which the allocation of board resources and programs benefit the Mount Barker district is not readily apparent.

The NRM system has turned into a massive, burgeoning, bureaucratic, expensive system. I regret that I may have inadvertently supported or initiated some of this. I had in mind a certain vision for natural resource management in South Australia. I never envisaged this, and for that I apologise.

A greater level of transparency at state government and board levels regarding the funding generated through the levy and given via government is necessary. The public need to know how their money is being spent on bureaucracy or NRM projects. Yes; this subject has been raised one way or another by me in this place for over 18 years, and I have been involved with this subject for nearly 40 years. My main interest has been in getting the best possible protection for our lands, particularly our native flora and fauna, environment and water.

I was previously chairman of the board when these things were discussed at a local level. Understand that this was mainly volunteer driven then, when we received no fee other than a small sitting fee to cover petrol and the telephone—nothing else—and it worked well. When I was chairman of the board we could see advantages in amalgamating some of these services. It was our board, under my chairmanship, that first put the pest plant board, of which I was chairman, together with the vertebrate pest board.

We had two boards running side by side with the same people sitting on them, so we put them together, and we did it at a local level. That then became the animal and plant control board. We got rid of half of the officers and one car, and there was no difference in service to the people, and they all said, 'Good'. We then thought, well, that worked very well—bloodless; no problem. It is just a movement from one to the other, all-encompassing, and no hiccup or problems with the public service or anything. We thought that we would then move to the soil boards and bring them in as well. When I was moving on soils this argument started to become political. That is also when I was elected into parliament.

See what we have done: we have gone from that, where we brought in soils, and we brought in everything else, too. I can live with that, as the previous minister, minister Hill, said. I am happy to accept that, but we lost control of it and now, as we all know, Sir Humphrey has just taken over and seen a way to strap the cash out of the community, particularly landowners, the so-called wealthy people in our community.

Right now, landowners are hurting. We will not be here for two weeks but, if this state has not had a reasonable rain by the time we come back, I have to say that we will be in serious trouble. We will lose approximately 300,000 tonnes of grain every week if we do not get substantial rain, and substantial rain is 15 millimetres or more, but all we seem to get is three, four, or five millimetres.

You see crops that looked good now dying, and all farmers can do is cut it for hay if it has a value. It is happening now, and we are at a critical time. If we do not get that rain by the time we come back here, all I can say is that we will be in serious trouble, and there is no doubt about that. When I look at my own bank account, I am lucky because we run a very low debt situation on our farm, and I thank God that I am able to do that because my father, and his father before him, put an asset there that we now use.

Those farmers who bought an asset in the last three, four, five or 10 years are very anxious, particularly those who went to the bank and were just able to get finance to put in a crop this season, but what will happen next season? In all sincerity, I say to the Treasurer, who is in the chamber: that we have a very serious problem. Food is most important to our state and nation. It is as important as water.

The Hon. K.O. Foley: What can you do?

Mr VENNING: I don’t know. I spoke to minister McEwen yesterday and I asked what he could do and whether there was any light at the end of the tunnel. We already have the EC loan funding, but what can you do? We are now looking at a huge problem, and I would say that probably 60 per cent of our farmers will have huge financial problems putting in a crop while this weather goes on. I heard a speaker say this morning that it could be 2014 before we see a change in the weather pattern. If that is the case, even I might have to get another job when I retire!

This is a serious matter and it is not something to be political about. The Treasurer just asked, 'What can you do about it?' I do not have the answer to that, but I suggested in a previous speech that you could subsidise some of the costs for farmers. This is how ridiculous it is: next year, we are told that phosphorus, which is the base fertiliser, will be $2,000 a tonne, and that is up from $600 tonnes two years ago. Where are our farmers supposed to find the extra money for that, let alone for the huge cost of fuel, farm chemicals, labour and the on-costs?

Our farmers are rapidly becoming unviable. What do you do then? Food is most important. I think that it is time that the Minister for Agriculture, the Treasurer and others started considering working through this situation with organisations such as SAFF and others and asking, 'What is the way ahead?'

To return to the motion, it hurts me that I was involved with the NRM process all those years and this is the final result. I asked minister Hill and the officer in charge (who was Mr Wicks at the time) how they would control this. We all know that, as soon as you lay some of this bare and take apart the carcass, the bureaucrats will come in and pick at the bits, and that is what has happened here. They have set up a structure that is massively expensive and not service driven. It is all about providing a bureaucracy.

We have all seen it, and we all know how to build up a bureaucracy. We all do it, and we can even be accused of it ourselves in our electorate offices, and at times I have issues with the Treasurer about this matter. We have to make sure that we strive for efficiency and that people are getting value for their money.

I hope that the house will support this motion, and I urge it to do so. I am happy for the government to amend it. It is a serious situation, and I do not think that, in all fairness, anybody can disagree.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (11:45): I can understand the member for Schubert expressing concern, but I think he overstates it. His motion says 'complete failure'; I do not agree with that. The original catchment boards, which were, as I understand it, set up by the previous Liberal government—I think the Hon. David Wotton was one of the drivers for that—have now morphed into the NRM boards and are working to implement various natural resources management plans.

In fairness to the boards and to the plan, I think we need to give it some time to take effect. I am not aware of any group in the public sector that gets put through the hoops more vigorously than the NRM boards and, previously, the catchment boards. In contrast, we have huge government departments that spend billions of dollars and are never put through the grill in the same way as the NRM boards.

The Hon. K.O. Foley interjecting:

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: We probably should. I was on the Economic and Finance Committee during the halcyon days, and members used to question almost how many pencils the catchment boards had and whether people were claiming for two meetings instead of one, and all that sort of stuff. That is fine, and we should have accountability, but I think the NRM concept is a good one.

The member for Schubert says that costs have increased. There is no free ride. We cannot expect the wider community always to subsidise people who are involved in economic activities. We need farmers, we need people in horticulture and agriculture. We desperately need them and we want them to survive, but there is no such thing as a free lunch or a free ride for people in industry or any economic activity. They all seek it at times. They never call it a handout or a subsidy; they call it restructuring, or something similar—a bit like the milk levy that the federal minister, Tony Bourke, is finally getting rid of, I am pleased to say. However, he is taking until next March to do so. That was a plan to assist the dairy industry to restructure, and now we find that the money was going into purchasing igloos and other bizarre sort of activities.

An amount of $1,500,000 million went into that tax on milk that is drunk by our children, supposedly to help people in the dairy industry to restructure. It certainly did help some. Dairy farmers did it tough for quite a while and then world prices picked up a bit. They were lucky if they got anywhere near 50¢ per litre for white milk at the farm gate. Then we find that, if a bit of sugar and coffee are added, it sells in the deli for nearly $3 for 600 mls. That is just another example of a backdoor subsidy, if you like, called restructuring.

There should not be any major subsidy involved for people required to deal with soil erosion, management of soil, weeds, pest plants or pest animals. They are economic costs that someone has to pick up. I do not object to a minor cross-subsidy. If members look closely, they will see that ratepayers in urban areas, for example, are actually subsidising some of the rural component of the NRM plan and implementation. I do not get too upset about that because I do not think that it is too out of whack with what we could, and should, expect.

The catchment boards have become the NRM boards. They will take a while to settle down because, every time reform is undertaken, there are additional costs and a settling down period. It happened with the catchment boards. When they were first set up, members said, 'Look at your administrative costs; they're 20 per cent.' It takes some time to get the operating and administration costs down. However, the concept of an integrated, comprehensive approach to managing the environment is a very good one.

The NRM boards are doing, and have done, some excellent things. Most of the money, for example, to help restore the Torrens down at Breakout Creek is coming, as I understand it, out of the NRM levy. In the upper reaches of the Torrens, the NRM has been subsidising fencing so that stock is less likely to get into the upper reaches of the Torrens. One would query why we have to subsidise people to keep their stock out of the catchments for the drinking water that ultimately the people of Adelaide and elsewhere will consume.

The reality is that at the moment the law is weak. The law does not prevent people from grazing animals in the catchment streams and, as we know, cattle and sheep leave their signature where they graze, and that faecal matter ends up in the Torrens and in the Kangaroo Creek Reservoir from which the people of Adelaide ultimately drink. So, the NRM board in the Mount Lofty Ranges is subsidising people who are running animals in the upper reaches of the Torrens to keep those animals out of the catchment and thus help maintain the quality of the water for Adelaide and also improve the quality of the water in the Torrens itself. That is just one example.

The NRM boards have helped restore many creeks which have been degraded over time with weeds and exotic plants. There are many more that they need to work on, and I have given them some examples recently. The creek between Stirling and Aldgate next to the Old Mount Barker Road is an absolute environmental disaster; likewise, the creek running through the town of Clarendon is a nightmare. They are the sort of jobs that the NRM can do and should do. They cannot do them all at once, and I acknowledge that, but they are doing a lot of good things. Part of their brief is to educate young people. They spend a lot of time and money trying to get the message across to schools and schoolchildren.

I think the member for Schubert is being overly harsh and unfair in his motion in talking about complete failure. I do not believe it is a complete failure at all. It needs to be managed tightly. We do not want unfair burdens on farmers, many of whom are doing it tough, but the reality is that you cannot expect other people in the community to pick up the tab for managing pest plants and animals and for soil conservation. That should fall primarily on the people whose properties are involved or are likely to be involved.

I make the point that, as with the carbon tax or carbon trading, this idea that there is a free ride for people in the community is a nonsense. There cannot be a free ride. Everyone has to contribute and play their part, and the fact that the costs have gone up for the NRM plans and their implementation is a reflection of the fact that the community is much more serious about protecting, restoring and managing the environment than it was many years ago when there was a cowboy mentality that resulted in widespread destruction of flora and fauna in this state.

We have come forward a long way. We still have a long way to go, and the NRM, I think, is a step in the right direction, but it needs to be managed tightly. I am sure that the people within the NRM boards and management are well aware that they need to keep their administrative costs as low as possible but still be able to do the job that the community expects them to do.

I have not had anyone come to me criticising the NRM plan or the local board or objecting to paying the modest levy. The people in my neck of the woods pay a significant amount towards the management of our NRM. On reflection, I think the member for Schubert is probably overstating his concerns, and I think that if he gives the NRM a chance to settle down and bed in he will have a different view in five or 10 years' time.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

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