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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-05-05 Daily Xml
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MARINE PARKS

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (15:43): On a number of occasions I have spoken in this house about the government's proposed marine park zoning—sometimes known as sanctuary zones, no-go zones or exclusion zones—and members are well aware of the government's draft proposal to introduce these zones pursuant to the provisions of the Marine Park Act 2007.

They have issued a draft. I have canvassed issues in respect of the consultation process; the scientific modelling and data; the adverse impact on coastal communities and families in particular; recreational fishing and the lifestyle aspects in that regard; the adverse impact on food producers, processors and consumers (with, ultimately, higher prices of food); and the adverse impact on the value of land, whether that be coastal land or investment by urban dwellers in holiday homes or equipment, caravans, tents, camping and fishing gear. Whether you own a boat or beach house, this is an issue that affects thousands—hundreds of thousands—of people across South Australia.

Today I specifically raise the question of cost. The state budget is imminent. There have been a number of statements made by the current minister and former ministers as to the question of costs, and I wish to place on the record a number of those statements. First, the former treasurer commissioned the Sustainable Budget Commission report, which has been published. Prior to that being published, a leaked copy of the Sustainable Budget Commission report was made public, and that proposed a cost saving for the development of marine parks over the next three years, being a 40 per cent cut on those costs.

Given the proposed cut and the estimate, the total over four years for the development of the marine parks (that is, to pay people to draw up these plans, consult, advertise, draw up pamphlets and draw up the drafts, etc.) is approximately $8 million. So, that was the first clue to what has been currently spent before we even implement any zones within marine parks which will need, in some way, some supervision.

The matter was particularly acute after statements were made by David Hall, a former director of fisheries, in the public arena when he estimated a cost of $250 million per year, as I understand it, to adequately service and supervise a sanctuary-zone process within the marine parks model.

That resulted during April in a number of statements being made, particularly on radio, about this matter. On the ABC on 28 April 2011, Neil MacDonald, the Deputy Chair of the South Australian Marine Parks Management Alliance, answered questions about the projected cost of managing marine parks as a result of a Cambridge University study which suggested that the cost was something like $2,600 per year per square kilometre to do that.

He declined to confirm whether that would result in costing some $70 million a year to look after South Australian parks, although it does seem clear that there is a substantial cost in undertaking any supervision, irrespective of the size of the park. Chris Thomas from the department was also questioned by Mr Ian Henschke about this matter, and his answers were along the lines that it is not certain yet as to what that will be because the design phase is still underway, but he acknowledged that there was a $17.5 million a year cost just to run one marine park (much larger admittedly), the Great Barrier Reef.

We are left somewhat in the dark still about what the costs will be, but, given that it is costing us $2 million a year just to prepare for having parks, we can expect that, on the information already available, this is going to be a very expensive exercise. That may well be justified in the end, but what I ask is this: what will it cost, when will we know that and who will pay for it? What has happened to date—

Time expired.

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