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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-10-28 Daily Xml
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Parliamentary Committees

NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE: KANGAROO ISLAND NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT BOARD

Mr RAU (Enfield) (11:01): I move:

That the 34th report of the committee, entitled Kangaroo Island Natural Resources Management Board Levy Proposal 2009-10 'Don't tell the koalas…', be noted.

I would like to say, briefly, that we had a very interesting discussion with the NRM board on Kangaroo Island. The most important issue for the people on the island must be the water resource allocation issue. It is basically a case of there being more agreement than disagreement in relation to this matter, but the disagreements concern a very important aspect of the policy.

I will briefly explain. There has been a division of the island into two zones for the purposes of water allocation. One part of that has a 25 per cent rule, which most people we spoke to as a committee agreed was not necessarily a bad idea. Where it gets a little difficult is the question: 25 per cent of what? Unfortunately, with the exception of Rocky River, most catchments on the island are unknown quantities, so to say that a 25 per cent rule will apply to those catchments is well and fine, but if you do not know what the 25 per cent is a fraction of it makes it a difficult exercise in terms of striking the right numbers.

I suppose in defence of the board and the department, they had to pick some methodology in order to apply that 25 per cent, but they have taken rainfall and catchment figures derived from the Mount Lofty Ranges and applied them to parts of Kangaroo Island. Now, I am not a hydrologist by any means, but I know that if you vary the rainfall, the topography, the land use, the gradient or the temperature in a particular area you dramatically affect the catchment. So, picking a figure from the Mount Lofty Ranges and applying it to a particular part of Kangaroo Island is, with respect, little more than an intelligent guess.

It is critical that accurate figures about those catchments be obtained so that the 25 per cent rule can be applied in a realistic way and farmers and other people on the island have an opportunity to make investments and business decisions based on known quantities rather than notional quantities which are probably not accurate.

This means that there is a great priority in having accurate measurements taken of those streams, and I understand that a figure in excess of $1 million has been set aside for that purpose. Members of the committee have encouraged both the board and the department to treat getting those figures as an absolute priority, so that the water allocation rules can be applied in a way which is both credible and sustainable and which, at the same time, will give the land users on the island an opportunity to make informed and secure investment decisions based on known water supplies and known reserves.

As far as the committee is concerned, currently that is the most important issue on Kangaroo Island. We look forward to seeing those figures being obtained and that information being fed into all the equations so that accurate catchment figures can be obtained.

All that being said, it is an important step forward, however, that these plans are being put in place, because at least in the medium term it will guarantee a sustainable yield for people on the land and give greater information to the people living on the island, from the point of view of not only agriculture but also critical human needs and other important aspects of the water situation on Kangaroo Island. With those few words, I commend the report to the chamber.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (11:06): I acknowledge the contribution of the member for Enfield as Presiding Member of the Natural Resources Committee. I also acknowledge the visit of the committee to Kangaroo Island earlier this year, which I thought was a most beneficial exercise. I am sure members of the committee from both sides of the house found it a most useful exercise. The member for Enfield has covered many of the issues on which I wish to comment. He neglected to talk about the koalas, however. Don't talk about the koalas, or don't let the koalas know. The fact is that it is still a topical issue on Kangaroo Island.

The water plan that has now been signed off by the minister is a vast improvement on what the island could have got if not for the intervention of the Natural Resources Committee, some members on this side of the house and almost the entire community of Kangaroo Island which, at one stage, came together at a public meeting at Parndana, totally irate about what was proposed.

As the member for Enfield said, the reality is that the poor devils who came over from the government to talk about the proposals for the water plan were basing their potential outcomes on Mount Lofty-Adelaide Hills data, which is totally and completely irrelevant to Kangaroo Island because it is a different area. They were hung out to dry, so to speak, although that is probably the wrong terminology.

I very much believe that, because of the public pressure and, I acknowledge, pressure by the Kangaroo Island Council on the KI Natural Resources Management Board, the government revisited this plan. It was wrong, it was dumb, it was stupid, and not in the best interests of the future of Kangaroo Island. There is absolutely no doubt that no-one had any objection to having a water plan per se; it was a question of getting that water plan right. If it had gone ahead as it was proposed originally, it would have been an environmental, economic and social disaster for the island. It would have been downright dumb and not in the best interests of anyone.

As it turned out, we have had a return to a normal season on Kangaroo Island this year. We have had normal rainfall and, from one end of the island to the other, with a couple of small exceptions, watercourses have been running as they have in the past. Dams have filled up. I know our own property in the Menzies area, which is the Wisanger district, had 19 or 20 inches of rainfall and the major house dam was overflowing in July.

One of the new dams that was visited by the committee is on the property of Mr Nathan Trethewey, and those in control of the destiny of South Australia had taken the option to restrict the size of that dam, which was totally ludicrous, because on the day the committee was there the dam was overflowing by a huge amount. Mr Trethewey made some estimations of by how much the dam would overflow for the rest of the winter; and the amount of water that has run out to sea across the island this year has been quite incredible.

As I say, it is simply a return to a normal season. We acknowledge we have had a run of dry years and we have had runs of dry years before but, across the island and across a lot of agricultural South Australia, there has been a return to a pretty normal season and, indeed, much of the state has also enjoyed a good spring. I can tell members that a lot of the rivers and creeks on the island are still running out to sea, some two or three weeks after the last rain, and will continue to do so for a long time to come.

So, the fact that the natural resources board on the island chose to try to implement the original water plan was a flawed concept and, now that we have divided up the island with the 25 per cent rule applying to some but not the rest of the island, I think that is a step in the right direction. It is always going to be a topical issue.

It is worth noting the agricultural and horticultural production which comes out of the island and which will continue to come out of the island as time goes on. The Natural Resources Committee of the parliament very kindly invited me along and we were shown some of the activities that are taking place over there and some of the uses that these vast amounts of water on the west end of the island, particularly, are being put to. A few examples are the marron industry, a cherry orchard, which the committee visited, and a potato growing enterprise. All these enterprises use surface water, because it is important to remember that the underground water on the island, although it is there and there is plenty of it, generally speaking, is saline, so you have to capture the surface water.

There is plenty of water to capture and there are too many restrictions put in the way, and putting bureaucrats in the way of progress of agriculture or horticulture is not in anyone's best interests. I will be watching extremely closely, and I know the Natural Resources Committee also will be watching very closely further attempts by bureaucrats to try to inhibit commonsense development of Kangaroo Island. It is critical that that go on and, if I get a sniff of a bit of mischief, I will be standing in this place and having a few words to say, and I am sure the committee will follow it with interest.

The last thing we need is further inhibition by bureaucrats who are mostly city-based, or young graduates who have just come out of university with the best intent in the world but have absolutely no practical experience of how the world goes. There is only one way to learn that, and that is to get out in the field and learn, but you do not want to come out there and get in the way of progress.

So, I encourage them to learn, perhaps to shut up and listen a bit more to what the farming community says and not to what the university lecturers have told them. They should get out and get some practical experience. There are plenty of members on this side of the house who have had practical experience in land management who do know a bit about it. That is the way to go in the future. I do not know that the member for Unley has had a lot of experience, but quite a number of others here have.

As the member for Enfield indicated, there is a considerable sum of money being set aside to do the scientific research. I hope that it is spent well and wisely, and that the best long-term interests of the island are accommodated within that science and we can progress and go on to feed Australia and the world which, indeed, is most important.

It is fair to say that the same cannot be said for the Fleurieu Peninsula. The water allocation plan there continues to be the subject of a great deal of derision and concern. Residents and land-holders really do not know whether they are coming or going. The departmental people are messing a lot of them around and they are not happy about it. So, that is another thing that will unfold. It could be well worthwhile for the Natural Resources Committee in the next parliament to revisit the Fleurieu Peninsula and have a look at that water allocation plan.

To return to the subject at hand, the future is extremely bright for Kangaroo Island. A wonderful season has resulted in outstanding production. It is a pity that, because of the commodity prices and a few other things, the farming community across the state (and in this case Kangaroo Island) will not benefit to the extent it could by better prices. However, that is all a part of farming.

I will also take the short time remaining to say that the structure of the Kangaroo Island Natural Resources Management Board needs to be looked at. I have had indications that is it is going relatively well at the moment, despite the best actions of the former minister for environment to stuff it up, as she stuffed everything else up. This one at the moment is not working too badly and we hope that in the future—

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: Yes; well, I could do. I hope that in the future whenever those board positions come up again the minister for environment uses a few more brains than did the previous minister.

Mr RAU (Enfield) (11:16): I would like to thank the tremendous support staff we have on the committee, Knut and Patrick, who have again done a great job. I would also like to thank all my parliamentary colleagues on the committee, both in this chamber and in the other place. All of them have really made a tremendous contribution to this report.

I would also like to acknowledge the member for Finniss. He has always been of tremendous assistance to the committee when we have been into his electorate, which we have done on a number of occasions over the last few years. He has always facilitated the arrangements with people in his own constituency and, on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank him, because it has been of great assistance to the committee.

Motion carried.

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