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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-03-14 Daily Xml
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FARMING RIGHTS

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (11:02): I move:

That this house establish a select committee to investigate and report upon factors that impact upon a farmer's 'right to farm', including a specific examination of spray buffers, conflicting land uses, mining, farm sustainability, profitability, and the Development Act 1993.

Right to farm is fundamentally about a farmer's right to carry on the normal practices and procedures of farming activities that he or she has previously pursued in that location. Over many years, poor planning and knowledge and a lack of understanding have led to farmers' rights gradually being eroded to a point where, in some cases, their profitability and sustainability have been reduced almost to the point of being unviable.

Urban encroachment and other developments, conflicting agri pursuits such as viticulture and horticulture, which are incompatible directly adjacent to a broadacre farming enterprise, have led to increased complaints and conflicts amongst farmers—noise, odour, dust and other pollution (particularly chemical use) associated with farming—and consequently an erosion of farmers' rights to carry on with their operations as they were prior to the new development.

It is important to understand that only 10 per cent of Australia's land mass is considered good for farming, which is not very much—only 10 per cent is arable. Most of that is on the coastal fringes where population growth and urban sprawl are the greatest, so we automatically have conflicts. Shifting production to more distant and less suitable land is not in Australia's long-term interests because lower rainfall, less productivity and higher on-costs lead to less competitive pricing, loss of access to local labour and, ultimately, loss of employment as growers fail to compete with cheap imports.

In this, the Australian Year of the Farmer, we should acknowledge our farmers' right to farm. If things are made too difficult for farmers we will see them walk away—and some already have. This is why it is vital the parliamentary select committee conducts a full examination into the various impacts upon the farmers' right to farm and makes recommendations on what may be done to ensure their rights are protected. I should at this stage remind the house, as I always do, of my conflict in relation to being a farmer. I do declare that my family still farms, as do most of my friends and many members of this house.

Spray buffer zones are a major issue for farmers and have the ability to inhibit their productivity and hence viability and sustainability into the future. Buffer zones are intended to prevent or minimise contamination of neighbouring properties and crops as a result of spray drift across boundaries. Until recently, this has been controlled by the manufacturers' requirements as described on the label of each individual chemical container. The requirements for use are determined by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA).

The APVMA now proposes that a 300-metre buffer zone for ground sprayers be mandatorily applied to all waterways, native vegetation and sensitive crops. This has raised great concern in the farming community and scientists familiar with the subject. The Crop Science Society has expressed concern that the APVMA has used outdated and irrelevant data to determine this zone and not taken into account modern technologies and practices used in Australia.

It believes that farmers are now better trained in spray technology and drift reduction than ever before and already employ techniques that take account of different crops within their own boundaries. The equipment they use, especially self-propelled spray tractors, is state of the art, with equipment to detect temperature inversion (which causes a lot of this problem of spray drift) and also the ability to reduce drift—of this, obviously, I have personal experience.

Mr Marshall: In drift?

Mr VENNING: In the control of drift. It has been a problem in the past, particularly when we are using the volatile chemicals such as ester—which was a favourite cheap hormone chemical—on broadacre crops. It can actually travel up to five or six kilometres, particularly when temperature inversion occurs. It sits in the atmosphere and just moves downhill or on the wind and off-target damage occurs, then all of a sudden the temperature changes and down it drops. We have seen it; it is not uncommon. The new equipment we have—very expensive, I might add—can detect it and measures can be taken to minimise it (or you do not spray).

The society states that the 300-metre zone will have other unintended and undesirable consequences, including exacerbating roadside weed growth and subsequent fire risk, and that equivalent buffer zones in Europe and the US are much smaller. Another twist to the buffer zone matter comes in the form of neighbours inhibiting a farmer's right to continue to farm his own land. For example, farmer A has been growing a certain crop right up to his fence line, his boundary. Farmer B then chooses to grow something different in a neighbouring paddock that will not tolerate the sprays used by farmer A. Currently, this necessitates farmer A not treating or not using that part of his land adjacent to the boundary, thereby reducing his farm efficiency.

Should farmer A be expected to reduce his productive area to cater for farmer B's new needs, or should farmer B accept that his decision has brought about the need for change and apply the required buffer zones to his own land—in other words, on his side of the fence? Fairness would dictate that farmer B should accept the responsibility for maintaining the required buffer zones as he is the one forcing change. He or she should take the change into account in their business plan. Farmer B should have known before he bought the land alongside farmer A that his existing use would hold sway over any new crop that was not compatible.

I am aware of many cases where vineyards and broadacre farming have ended up alongside each other, and many of the chemicals used to prevent weeds in the farmer's crops are not compatible with vines and grapes. In two cases I am aware of the broadacre farm was in place long before the vineyards were planted alongside. Should the land users in the first instance not have the right to continue farming as they always have? This is the type of issue I hope a select committee can investigate in order to put forward possible recommendations to encourage legislation to be more conducive to farmers conducting a viable and sustainable operation.

A further issue arises with spray buffer zones where rural residential housing development occurs next to a working farm. Given that farms on the urban fringe tend to be small horticultural holdings, a 300-metre no-spray zone would seriously reduce the productivity of that farm, reducing a farmer's profitability and perhaps rendering it unviable. A modest vineyard, orchard or a sprout patch may find itself completely covered by that zone.

Another impediment affecting some farmers is the current right of mineral explorers to access their land and undertake mining operations without the farmers' approval. Note the coal seam gas mining in New South Wales, which is causing great concern today. The Mining Act 1971 and the Petroleum Act 2000 allow for explorers to conduct mineral exploration and mining on most land in South Australia, including freehold and pastoral land, subject to approval by the Department of Primary Industries and Resources South Australia (PIRSA).

Official notice of entry must be given to the landowner 21 days prior to entry. According to the act, an explorer must give a landowner 21 days' notice of intention to enter land for the purposes of exploration or to peg a mineral production tenement or negotiate an access agreement with the landowner setting out the conditions of entry. Under the Mining Act, certain land is exempt from prospecting and mining. Examples are cultivated fields, forest reserves or land within 400 metres of a house, and land within 150 metres of building or structure used for pastoral operations (for example, a shearing shed or a water supply).

The mining and agriculture interface is an issue that is gaining prominence. Some farmers are entering agreements to allow mining on their property; however, there are many who do not want exploration on their properties. Yet, if someone wants to carry out exploration work on their farm, there is very little that can be done to stop it. In some cases, it appears that no regard whatsoever or compensation has been given to the farmer for the interruption and subsequent loss of revenue that the exploration work has resulted in.

The Development Act 1993 forms a part of this motion, as development (as I have outlined previously) has the ability to greatly affect a farmer's ability to farm in a productive and profitable way. Where farming, viticulture, horticulture and residential development intersect, there will be times when producers have restrictions placed on the chemicals—their common tools of trade—that can be used. The development plan needs to be incorporated into an inquiry about right-to-farm issues, with incompatible land uses and change of land uses alongside existing farm enterprises examined.

When new developments are approved, it should be legislated that the obligation to provide a buffer zone between a farm and a new development is on the developer's side, not the farmer's. Currently, the farmer must ensure, when spraying chemicals, that he or she observes the correct buffer zone, regardless of whether or not he or she was farming before development occurred around his or her property; and yet, he or she receives no compensation for having these restrictions imposed upon his or her operations.

All these issues impact the sustainability of farming into the future. If farmers' rights are continually eroded, with more and more regulation and development impacting on their right to farm, many will just walk away. What is the point of farming if you cannot run a viable and profitable farm? I ask: what will happen to our food security then? It is already a serious issue.

This is not a new subject; it has been raised in this place before—certainly by me, over the many, many years that I have been here. We need to stop talking and take some action. We need to provide certainty, firstly to the existing farmers, and also to those who may wish to set up alongside an existing farm with a conflicting farming practice or to live alongside an existing farm.

I hope the government will support this motion. I have had some discussions with various members, and I even encourage them to amend it. My words may be a little emotional; they may wish to amend this motion, and I have no problem with that. A member of the government may even wish to chair it; I have no problem with that either—I have a pretty reasonable idea as to who should be on this select committee. It is all about providing certainty for the future and the security of our food producers.

I certainly encourage the government to consider this. I know they will probably adjourn this today—I have no problem with that, as long as we can get it back onto the Notice Paper for discussion in a couple of weeks' time. This is why I have decided to move this motion: I believe a full-scale inquiry into the issues surrounding our South Australian farmers' right to farm is long overdue. I urge all the members to support the motion.

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (11:14): I also wish to rise and speak in support of the member for Schubert's motion. I do so on the basis of living in Maitland on Yorke Peninsula, which is probably one of the most agriculturally productive lands in all South Australia and where agriculture has shown for a long time that it has driven the economy and the growth in the economy.

I do recognise that there are some great challenges facing farmers. I am lucky enough in Maitland to live on the extreme eastern side of town, so I look over the Yorke Valley itself; it is on the other side of the road from me. So I am impacted by the snails that—

Members interjecting:

Mr GRIFFITHS: No; it's not that.

Mr Pederick: A hundred million dollar view out of your house.

Mr GRIFFITHS: That happens. But when burn-offs occur and the snails come across the road, and snakes, and all that sort of thing, you put up with it because you are part of a community that recognises the importance of agriculture.

Before I came in here I worked in local government, and a lot of the planning issues which I had some involvement in actually related to the conflict between the growth in communities and farming. Indeed, I recall a development that was approved at a salt lake for a brine shrimp farm which suddenly put impacts upon the adjoining property owner about what he could spray and when and the records he had to keep. So we have had to negotiate all the way through.

You look at the fact that our towns have grown; the land that those towns have grown into was farming land. The towns never existed there at the start when it was just open country, so there has been conflict for hundreds of years. It is appropriate that the parliament takes a very close look at that. All of us in this chamber would recognise the importance of agriculture to our state's economy, and it is important that we put in place some really strong principles and guidelines to ensure that protections are there so that farmers have the ability to continue to use their land.

On Yorke Peninsula we have a very significant wind farm proposal of $1.3 billion. We have a lot of mining exploration being undertaken. All that involves negotiation with property owners from an access viewpoint, for the opportunity to actually purchase land for some of these developments to take place, for leases to be entered into for wind turbines to be erected. There is a real diversity of opinion, but the strong message I am getting from people who are concerned about unregulated growth, or even just over promoted growth opportunities, is that farmers will be the one who miss out. So it is appropriate that the member for Schubert brings this motion to the house. It is important that we look at all these issues to try to work out what solutions are there.

The member has talked about access agreements for mining exploration. I know that on Yorke Peninsula we had a very proactive group of 50 farmers who came together and developed an access agreement that Rex Minerals, the company in question, actually agreed to. It talks about compensation, it talks about respect, about when access is given, and about weed control issues that have to be maintained when any vehicle goes on a property. The people who are concerned about the wind farm proposal want to ensure that they have the ability to manage their farms in the way they choose and not be impacted on by what happens on an adjoining section owned by a different farmer who might agree to a turbine.

People have come to me and said, 'We personally don't want the wind farms on our own land. We are prepared to accept them on our neighbour's property though, as long as we can continue to aerial spray up to our boundary.' So that is a design concept that has to go into the wind farm development in terms of what happens there. It is about negotiation, it is about ensuring that both sides of the equation are listened to and that both sides get respect, and that it is not just the farmer who continually misses out.

The member for Schubert's motion is a passionate one for him and I will always respect that in him, that he is here to represent regional communities. It comes down to what the profitability of farming enterprises must be. Farms are not just a lifestyle choice for people. Farms have to be driven by the opportunity to make a dollar, for them to meet their financial obligations, for them to continue to invest in machinery and buy more land, and invest in the community that supports them, also through businesses, and it is about profitability. If you have a lot of external influences that cause farmers to have to adjust their practices that costs them money and that reduces the amount of productive soil they can actually use, that is a cost to all of us—not just to the farmer concerned, but to all of us.

This motion is a good one. The member for Schubert has informed me that there are some discussions taking place across the chamber about its future. I look forward to the select committee being established and I hope to have the opportunity to present information and my thoughts to that select committee at a future date.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (11:19): I also rise to support the member for Schubert's motion this morning. It is a very good motion, it is a very appropriate motion and he spoke most articulately about his motion and what he wished to achieve.

It is most correct that the farming community, probably across Australia if not across the world, feels under increased pressure from urbanisation and from the fact that people from urban areas wish to move out into the country and the farming areas for a lifestyle that they have not had and, in doing so, show some lack of understanding or, indeed, disregard in some cases for the way that farmers go about their operations. They simply do not know how farming works, how it operates, the pressures on farmers, the seasonal requirements and the climate—if it rains, if it does not rain, if it rains at the wrong time.

They really have no idea, and that has probably been enhanced a bit just lately in my area by everyone telling me, 'It needs to rain. We need to have lots of rain. We have not had rain for months.' Well, I am afraid in my area we actually do not want any rain until after ANZAC Day and I am sure that many in cropping areas understand the same thing. The summer rains that come and go from time to time bring up hosts of weeds and that requires spraying. I know even the member for Schubert this morning was telling me that they have sprayed a lot of their country twice because of weeds that have come up in the summer.

There is a need for those who come to live in the bush to understand what the requirements are. This extends particularly into intensive agricultural practices, whether they be viticulture or vegetable growing, where, increasingly, we have to use more and more sprays either for weed control or pest control. It is just a necessity of life. Nobody likes to use hosts of chemicals, trust me, but if you want to get a return on your investment, you simply have to use them.

It applies similarly to burning. People need to do some burning. We do not do anywhere near as much burning as we used to, but if you have snails, you actually have to burn. If you have snails, you have to burn to try to ensure that you get a crop the next year. I had a case recently of a farmer in my electorate who was told by their next-door neighbour, who has not been there very long and has a professional career, that the next time they burn and put smoke over their property they are going to sue them because it might damage their hobby farm grapes. This is what the member for Schubert's motion is all about. I think his select committee is a great idea and I hope that the government supports it.

Closer to home, let me just raise the case of what our own bureaucracies are doing—in this case, SA Water, which is seemingly a totalitarian organisation which could not care less about farmers or anyone else for that matter. This relates to a water storage facility that was announced in last year's budget, which I support, for additional storage out of the Middle River Dam on Kangaroo Island to supply the townships of Parndana and Kingscote and other areas.

SA Water, in its own unique way, has decided that it is going to compulsorily acquire land adjacent to a vineyard. This is where the vineyard wants to expand. It is in a rural living zone. I have talked about this matter in the house before. It is arrogantly going about its business in trying to secure this land or put a compulsory acquisition order on it in a vain desire to further its cause. There are other options which, sure, may cost a few more dollars but that amortises out over the life of the project. That argument just does not hold up.

What it is doing is putting this particular vineyard—the Bay of Shoals vineyard—under enormous pressure. It is going to close that vineyard down. It is going to close it down because they simply cannot expand. They are going to have an industrial site adjacent to them on land which will be taken from them for a measly amount of compensation.

Of course, that is just another example of what the member for Schubert is on about in his motion. It is blatantly stupid—absolutely blatantly stupid. Some farmland just out of the main township of Kingscote has been offered to them and I am taking some steps to see if we cannot get some sort of satisfactory outcome, but it should never come to this. We various members in this chamber who have farming land contained within our rural electorates fight for the rights of our communities generally, but we particularly fight for the rights of our farmers.

My own electorate, which is all high-rainfall country, is absolutely critical to the future food needs of Australia and the world and, as time goes on, pressure is being put on local government authorities to provide hobby farms in some areas which are inappropriate. Unfortunately, there are some areas where hobby farms or small landholdings could be appropriate, and the councils have not quite come to grips with that. They need to work out in their own minds how they can make land available for small subdivisions in farming areas, where it is somewhat dubious as to whether they can go on in marginal country.

There is a host of problems, but we have to ensure that our farming community can provide food and fibre to the world, as we have in the past—for well over 100 years in South Australia. We have to provide for that, and this house needs to understand that it is absolutely imperative that this sort of motion gets up and is debated and that a select committee is put in place to assist the farmers of this state.

The government of the day—unfortunately, over the last decade, this Labor mess—is very quick to get out there, pat people on the back and say what a wonderful job it is doing, but it has its bureaucrats out there trying to impede farmers at every opportunity. Primary industries has been wound down to such an extent that it is hardly relevant. Compared with the great organisation that once provided so much assistance under former ministers, it is now a small outfit. We have bloody-minded bureaucrats in the Department of Environment—whether that be EPA or NRM—who run around trying to tell people how to go about their business.

I can tell you that the farming community is well and truly fed up with it, and I think the member for Schubert's motion would certainly flush out some of this stuff and bring it out into the open, and members of that committee could get out and hear from farmers about the pressures they are under. They must have the right to farm as they have always done. It is hard enough to make a quid out of farming on a good day or in good seasons. We have had a run of good seasons and that will come to an end, and prices have been reasonable and that will also come to an end.

The impediments put in the way of the farming community in this state, and across the nation, are simply not conducive to the future of Australia, South Australia and, more particularly, my electorate. So, I urge the house, and I urge the government, to get behind the member for Schubert's motion and support it. It is a good motion. It is common sense, it is sound in its basis, and they could do much worse than to support the motion on this particular occasion.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (11:28): I will be brief. Before getting into the substance of this motion, I think this important issue highlights the fact that the government needs to allocate more time for committee reports to be dealt with. I think the current system, in which we are trying to debate a select committee motion and then trying to deal with about 12 other issues, is just impossible, and I do not think it does justice to the work of the Public Works Committee and others who have put a lot of time into preparing reports.

I welcome this select committee. I think the select committee process is a good one. In recent times, governments have become a bit wary of them but, properly conducted, select committees are a very useful mechanism for enlightening us about issues, and I think particularly of the cemeteries select committee (I believe we will see the outcome of that shortly in this house) and various other select committees.

I do not believe that there is an absolute right to farm. I know what the member for Schubert is suggesting, and I know he has it in inverted commas, which means that he qualifies it. No-one has an absolute right to do much at all—not even the queen, although years ago they had the right to take off your head or whatever. There are important issues that need to be examined, and the member for Schubert has indicated some of them in terms of land use, conflicting land use, and the ability and opportunity for people to farm. I think the thrust of it should be about allowing farmers to do what is appropriate and reasonable in terms of their farming pursuit; but there never will be, and cannot be, an absolute right to farm because that would transcend every other consideration. We know through the challenge of trying to get a bill of rights in Australia that some person's right becomes someone else's wrong.

Nevertheless, I think the issues that could be canvassed and should be canvassed by this select committee are very important. I think we are approaching a situation where the buzz words 'food security' have taken on a more serious focus, and I think there are a lot of other issues, as indicated in the motion, relating to farming and so on that should be addressed.

I would urge the government to support a select committee to look at these issues that are confronting the ability of farmers to farm. Whether the wording here is exactly right we can talk about, obviously, but I would urge the government and all members to support it because I think it will help clarify some issues. It may not provide the answers for every single one but it will at least clarify some of the challenges faced by farmers today and people involved in horticulture and so on.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:31): I rise to acknowledge this motion. As we have heard from the member for Schubert, and other members in this place, farming is being challenged more and more as to where it can operate and how it operates. Certainly, in relation to spray buffers, farmers are supposed to have a certain spray buffer if they are next to a new residential development, but my understanding is that these residential developments can build right up to the farmer's fence, so where is the equity in that? I do not think there is any equity.

Then we have the issue of different types of farming being next to each other, such as broadacre farming and vineyards; and there is another issue with sprays that might be safe enough to use in broadacre cropping but, obviously, will damage broadleaf plants like vines. For a long time now we have had the situation that Estercide 800 cannot be used within many kilometres of vineyards because of the inversion layer effect that can happen. It does not have to be a windy day, but the spray goes up into the atmosphere, translocates and knocks out part of a vineyard.

Farmers are well aware of their obligations, and you certainly have to take a lot of note when spraying crops. As the member for Schubert rightly said, technology has moved on so far, especially in recent years. It is expensive technology but, when you have spray equipment now with windshields so that you can spray in windier conditions and, obviously, with global positioning systems, you can spray a lot more accurately.

Everyone needs to be aware of the limitations on what farmers can do. As we have seen urban infill and encroachment of development onto our farming lands, some people do not realise what happens when they move into a farming area. I have had some issues in my electorate at Finniss where there are some small, I guess you would call them, lifestyle blocks with dried weeds accumulating in their yards, and issues like that. People need to be aware with winds and plants that dry off in the summer time that these things can happen in rural areas. So there needs to be a general understanding of what goes on in these communities.

Certainly, we recognise that both mining and farming need to coexist so that we can enjoy the wealth of this great state and what it can produce, but we need the mining companies to be far more aware of farmers' needs. It has certainly been brought to my attention up in the Mallee at Mindarie and Strathalbyn on the Fleurieu Peninsula.

Certainly, up in the Mallee there were some real issues where the initial mining company, Australian Zircon, got far ahead of where they should have been and far ahead of the rehabilitation program that was supposed to be in place. They also got behind in compensation payments, and they have been behind in compensation payments for farmers that have had their land mined. Apart from the fact that the rehabilitation was a mess, people were not getting the appropriate financial recompense for what was happening on the land.

I understand there is another company about to start up there with Chinese backing. I think it is called Southern Zircon. Let's hope procedures are followed in a better way so that the miners and the farmers can get on together, because there are many, many kilometres of strands of zircon, rutile, etc., that have the potential to be mined in that area.

Everyone needs to know where they sit in the scheme of things. The farmers need to know where they fit and the miners need to know where they fit, but what I find is that sometimes one or both parties just refuse to talk. That is why SACOME and SAFF have been working through guiding principles, so that farmers and miners can work together to get the appropriate outcomes in regard to that.

I know there will always be some difficulties, but so long as people can work through it, work through the buffer zones and do it in a businesslike manner, I think we can have a win to both parties. I certainly acknowledge that this is something that needs further investigation under the select committee. I notice the member for Schubert brought up the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, and they are talking about 300-metre buffer zones around native scrub and other areas. This is just ridiculous and it shows how far removed some of these people in Canberra are from reality.

We had an issue in my electorate and around the state where they were talking about banning the use of diuron, a commonly used chemical especially used in knock down prior to seeding, because they were worried about the Barrier Reef. Well, I do not think that a 100 or 200 millilitre per hectare application of diuron at Bowhill is going to affect the Barrier Reef. I really do not think that is going to happen. There needs to be a bit of reality. I know that with regard to farming in Queensland and the higher rate they use in banana crops may have an effect, but let's get real.

While I am talking about the APVMA, we need to make sure that farmers have the right access to chemicals to control mice outbreaks. I think they are far removed from reality there as well. Farmers should be able to mix chemicals on farm in a price conscious manner instead of having to basically borrow money so that they can keep mice at bay. I think a lot of the authorities need to get in the real world. I think this is something that another part of the select committee could look into.

Far too often in this day and age we see regulatory authorities that have no real idea about what happens on the ground and no real idea of what happens with people, especially farming families who have been farming for generations. They just do what they do: they learn, they use new technology. Sadly, they do not get much extension work out of PIRSA anymore because that has been gutted by this current government, but they are using other groups like the agriculture excellence alliance groups and the no-till farming groups to ensure their farming future.

Farmers are keen to do the job; they just need to be rewarded, and they just need people to be aware of how difficult their task is. Sadly, there are some in the city who do not appreciate that and do not appreciate the contribution farmers make to this state. So, I fully recommend the establishment of this select committee and acknowledge the member for Schubert for introducing it.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (11:39): My colleagues have spoken in great detail about a lot of the very important issues here. I certainly fully support the member for Schubert in his motion that this house establish a select committee to investigate and report upon factors that impact upon a farmer's right to farm.

This is a very important issue for my electorate, and this motion is very much about farming, but I would highlight that some of these same issues exist in the pastoral areas of Stuart, Giles and Flinders. The same issues exist with regard to interaction between pastoral activities and mining. We have a bill on the way to consider how wind farms and solar farms might encroach upon people's rights to pursue their pastoral enterprise. However, we are here to talk primarily about farming, and two weeks ago we all spoke very genuinely and very passionately about the Australian Year of the Farmer. We all had the opportunity to talk about how important farming is, so I hope the house is well aware of that.

A strong, successful, sustainable and environmentally responsible farming enterprise is one of the very, very best uses that our land in South Australia can be put to—not the only positive one but one of the very, very best. Our world, our nation and our state needs food and fibre production and without it we will all be lost, both in a very real-world sense and also commercially and economically.

So our farmers do need protection; they do not need overprotection. They need to be protected in a very, very common-sense way, in the same way as a pub or hotel if a resident moves in next door and wants to complain about the noise or the foot traffic. The pub might have been there for 50 or 100 years and it is a bit rich for the new resident to come along and complain about the existing enterprise. The same is true of people who live near airports.

The sorts of difficult interactions between farming enterprises and others (who are typically more recent local residents) include impacts on residents from spraying, noise and dust, but they also include an impact on the farmer. Local residential developments often bring in weeds and ferals, town dogs that roam onto farms and the dumping of rubbish on farmland.

It is very much a two-way street but I think the common-sense issue here is that if the farming enterprise is there first and the residential area grows and encroaches into the farming zone, the farmer should not be penalised. As long as the farmer is operating in an environmentally and socially responsible way, they should not have to turn their whole enterprise upside-down because people have decided that they would like to come and live next door.

The encroachment issue is a very interesting and important one. It is worth pointing out—and I hope if this motion is successful this will be something that the select committee looks at very, very closely—that encroachment of residential areas, industrial areas or any other different land use into farming land happens because a previous farmer sold their land. While I certainly do want to protect the rights of farmers from encroachment, I would not like any legislation to be proposed that would prevent a farmer from selling his land, because that is a very, very important thing.

If a farming family is fortunate enough to have recently purchased wisely, or has been very fortunate through nothing that they did in their generation but perhaps their grandparents or their great-grandparents happened to buy farming land which is now particularly valuable because it is particularly close to residential or commercially-viable areas, then I would not want them to miss out on the opportunity to sell that land. So it is important to mention that the encroachment upon farming usually comes because farmers choose to sell and that is an important opportunity that should not be taken away from them.

I would hate, in an effort to protect the rights of farmers, for there to be some obligation to continue to farm. That is a very, very important thing for this select committee to look at. Whoever holds land, regardless of what they do with it (whether they want to build a factory, a highway, an airport, a mine or continue to farm on it) must use that land responsibly—a common-sense approach based on the fact that whichever enterprise was there first does have some prior rights and opportunities over the enterprise. Whether it happened to be a home or whatever else that came second and chose to be right next door, they chose to come and be right next door knowing what goes on there already.

This is a very important issue in the electorate of Stuart. It is also a very important issue throughout regional South Australia. We deal with these issues in Stuart all the time with regard to mining. We have power stations very close to grazing land, we have mines next to grazing land, we have residential encroachments into farming areas all the time, and they can be very positive. Certainly, the southern end of Stuart, south of Kapunda and around the Truro area, is a very important area.

My wife and I moved to Wilmington; I moved from the outback and Rebecca moved up from Adelaide. We live approximately 150 metres away from a paddock that is regularly cropped. We know and understand that it will be dusty, that there will be chaff in the air at times and we might get allergies or hay fever, but it is our choice to live there. We love where we live and we understand that the farming enterprise was there before us. We chose to go there: I think that is the spirit in which residential and other developments should grow, as they should, throughout our state.

Mr BROCK (Frome) (11:46): I rise to support the member for Schubert's application to establish a select committee to investigate and report on the factors that impact upon a farmer's right to farm, including a specific examination of spray buffers, conflicting land uses, mining, farm sustainability, profitability and the Development Act 1993. As previous speakers have indicated, farmers have every right to continue farming as they have been; if they want to move away from farming opportunities, then they should have the right to do that.

In the electorate of Frome there is a wide range of activities: viticulture, grain, mining, wind turbines and fishing and there is a wide range of activities and people who have been there for many years. As the member for Stuart indicated, the farming communities were there first. If we elect to live in those areas then we should appreciate and respect the farmer, or the operation, who has been there.

I will let you know of an incident that occurred while I was mayor of the Port Pirie Regional Council. Conroy's Abattoirs has been in Port Pirie for many years. As the city of Port Pirie started to grow it grew in a southerly direction and then came towards the existing and long established abattoir, which has been there for many years. We then had new residents complaining of the smell, the odour that may come from that premises at different times. As the member for Stuart indicated, if you move into an area and there is something there, such as neighbours, if you go into an area and you know who your neighbours are, then you understand what is there, you know the region you are going into.

The thing we also need to understand and recommend on is food security going forward. In my travels from my home town of Port Pirie to Adelaide for parliament, I see many areas of farming communities that are being withdrawn and reduced. While that is some people's philosophy on progress, I do not think it is progress. I think we need to ensure that we maintain the best land for agricultural use and work around that.

As for the idea of a select committee into this, I will explain my experience on the Select Committee on the Grain Handling Industry of South Australia. You talk to one person and it opens another three doors. A select committee can delve into real issues. I will not talk for too long because I know the member for Mount Gambier wants to get up, but I would encourage the government to support the member for Schubert's application for a select committee. As the member for Schubert indicated, he is quite prepared for the government to alter or change the motion and to have a government member as chair of that committee, if it means getting it up. I congratulate the member for Schubert and I fully support the establishment of a select committee into farmers' rights.

Mr PEGLER (Mount Gambier) (11:50): I would first of all like to say that I support the intention of the member for Schubert's motion. I think he is being a bit ambitious when he wants a select committee to actually address all the issues of sustainability and profitability on farms, but I certainly support the rest of the motion, and I certainly support the intention of the motion.

The issue of buffer zones is a much more complex one when we look into it. Those people who wish to grow vineyards next to people who wish to spray should have the right to grow those vineyards, but those people who wish to spray should also ensure that their sprays stay within their own farms. There does need to be a proper examination of how the actual buffer zones work and what the rules are for who can spray and when they can spray, etc.

For many years I was the mayor of the District Council of Grant, and I used to get a lot of people ringing me up complaining because farmers were irrigating of a night-time or ploughing paddocks next door to them, or had smelly silage pits, or were putting out fertilisers, such as pig manure, that may stink.

Those people had moved out into those areas for a lifestyle and as hobby farmers, and my answer to them was always that they were moving into a primary industry zone and that is where those sorts of industries were carried out and they would just have to put up with it. I am a great supporter of the fact that farmers should be able to go about their farming activities in the proper manner.

The other issue that should also be looked at is the hobby and lifestyle farming enterprises. There has to be a much better education program, as far as their having stray dogs or dogs that stray and not doing anything with their weeds. They often have diseased livestock on their properties, which can put major farming enterprises very much at risk. I certainly support the intention of the motion, and I will always support the right of a farmer to be able to farm in the proper manner.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Sibbons.

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