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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE: ANNUAL REPORT 2012-13

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (11:42): I move:

That the 88th report of the committee, entitled Annual Report 2012-13, be noted.

The 12 months to the end of June 2013 have again been a very busy time for the members of the Natural Resources Committee. The nine members appointed after the March 2010 state election continued to do their work on the committee with just one change: the January 2013 cabinet reshuffle saw the Hon. Russell Wortley replace the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars. There were no changes to the staff during that time.

I also acknowledge the ongoing input and interest of the members for Flinders, Giles, Davenport and the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars. Former minister Caica, ministers Hunter and O'Brien and their respective staffers have also been of great support. It may be unusual for me to comment about people who are not actually members of the committee, but we are very appreciative of the support we get from all members in both chambers and certainly those members in particular.

In the reporting period of the Natural Resources Committee, we undertook 27 formal meetings, a total of 70 hours, and took evidence from 85 witnesses. Thirteen reports were drafted and tabled in the reporting period. These were: the Annual Report 2011-12; seven reports into natural resources management levy proposals for 2013-14; a review of the NRM levy arrangements; an interim Eyre Peninsula water supply inquiry report, Under the Lens; the Annual Report on the Upper South East Dryland Salinity and Flood Management Act for 2011-12; Water Resource Management in the Murray-Darling Basin, Volume 3, postscript report, The Return of the Water; and a report on foxes, Hunting for the Right Solution.

Five fact-finding visits were undertaken during 2012-13: three related to the Eyre Peninsula water supply inquiry, including visits to Ceduna, Streaky Bay/Robinson Basin, Port Lincoln and the southern basins, and the Musgrave Prescribed Wells Area, including Polda Basin. The committee was also fortunate to be able to finally undertake a tour of the northern part of the Alinytjara Wilurara NRM region, including Umuwa, Indulkana and Coober Pedy. A day trip to Black Hill and Cleland conservation parks to learn about DEWNR's prescribed burning program was also very informative. The committee's inquiry into the Eyre Peninsula water supply was ongoing to the end of the reporting period, although it has since been completed.

I would like to acknowledge the valuable contribution of the committee members: the member for Frome, the member for Torrens, the member for Little Para, the member for Mount Gambier, the Hon. Robert Brokenshire, the Hon. John Dawkins, the member for Stuart, the Hon. Russell Wortley and the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars. I thank them for the cooperative manner in which we have all worked together and I look forward to the continuation of this cooperation in the coming year. I would also like to thank in particular the parliamentary staff for their assistance: Mr Patrick Dupont and Mr David Trebilcock. I commend this report to the house.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:46): I rise today to speak to the 88th report of the Natural Resources Committee, being the Annual Report 2012-13. I want to make general comments about some of the inquiries conducted by the committee. I must say that the committee does great work and, as the member for Ashford indicated, it interacts with local members. I have been very pleased with the interaction I have had with the member for Ashford and the committee members over time in my electorate at the lower end of the River Murray.

With regard to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan postscript report, The Return of the Water, I want to make some comments about whether the extra water returned to the system should be the 2,750-gigalitre amount or the 3,200-gigalitre amount. For people to get a picture of how much water that is, Sydney Harbour has about 500 gigalitres of water, so it is a lot of water to put back into the system, whichever way you look at it.

The report mentions constraints, and certainly there will be many constraint issues to be dealt with if the 3,200 gigalitres is the amount of water to be used in the future to get down through the River Murray system. I note that there will be some issues around that—there will be some flooding of shacks, and a lot of them will be in my electorate.

It is about how the water is managed. It is always good to have more water coming down through the system, but we need to have a whole-of-system approach. Having been involved with the Murray Darling Association's annual general meeting at Goolwa last week, it was pleasing to see a fair bit of love in the room; it was not total love, but when you are dealing with—

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: Was it free love?

Mr PEDERICK: No, it wasn't free either. However, it was good to see a reasonable amount and, in fact, quite a large amount of consensus amongst people involved with the Murray-Darling Basin, from Queensland right down through New South Wales and Victoria and the lower end. I note in particular that one resolution was put at the meeting about whether there should be more work done on raising the barrages at Goolwa and renewing them to Torrumbarry-style weir gates and automatic opening so that you can operate them with a mobile phone, basically, from anywhere. At the moment, they just use stock logs, which has been a great way to hold the river back, but this is technology developed 80 or 90 years ago, and we noticed during the drought how much they leaked when they were forced to do something they were not designed to do, that is, not having the back pressure of the fresh water coming up against them they were leaking sea water heavily.

There was a lot of consensus at that conference, from people right throughout the river, that those barrages not only need to stay in place but also need to be upgraded and appropriately dealt with. It is a bit of a different response to that of some other spokespeople in the Murray-Darling Basin further north, but there are certainly some issues that need to be addressed with the Murray—there always will be—but I congratulate the committee for its work with regard to the River Murray. Also, I want to talk about natural resource management levies. These are always a bone of contention in the community, and I note in one of the recommendations:

The Natural Resources Committee recommends that increases in NRM levies above the CPI should be the exception, not the rule. Due to the tendency over the past few years for increases to consistently exceed the CPI (in one case 15 times the CPI)—

and I note that the committee stood against that increase—

the Committee recommends that the Minister for Environment and Conservation direct DENR—

now DEWNR—

to ensure that in future increases remain within the CPI.

I certainly agree with that, and there should be a far more astute way of allocating any increases, because it is tough for all our ratepayers out there. We know that these levy rates go out with the local government notices and people get upset when they see anything that is unreasonable across the board.

Another thing that interests me is the recommendation to amend the NRM Act to require that business plans are reviewed no less than every three years instead of annually, together with a commitment to core funding under the state government NRM fund for the same period. I declare my interest. My wife had a bit to do with integrated natural resource management, which was the precursor to natural resource management as it is today. I have witnessed and seen over the years the number of business plans that have been produced, and I would hate to see how many trees have been cut down to produce these business plans.

It has been ongoing, and it has frustrated the heck out of the community that there is so much work going into all this paper and more planning and more planning, when the community just wants to see the outcome of more work done in the community and near their properties, and that kind of thing. Thankfully, in some of the dialogue I have had with my natural resources management board is the fact that they are suddenly recognising that farmers exist. That is a good thing, and they are realising that there needs to be a better dialogue.

I note there was an issue dealt with in regard to prescribed burns. They have always been a fascinating thing in South Australia. A lot of the time they turn into uncontrolled prescribed burns, and we have seen the Gawler Ranges, Messent park in the South-East, and other areas where these prescribed burns get out of control. I am not saying we should not have them, but we need to have far more control and more appropriate days when these burns take place so that they can be managed a lot better.

In closing, I want to comment on the recommendation about a joint select committee on foxes and the possibility that it could be expanded to include wild dogs. I think this is very apt. I have had conversations with the member for Stuart about wild dog attacks at Waikerie, and there was a rumoured attack at Coonalpyn—I have not verified that—by a wild dog. This is wild dogs that are breeding below the dog fence. It is not as though the dog fence has just collapsed. I think a select committee into the control of foxes and wild dogs would be very apt. I congratulate the committee on its work and commend the annual report.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (11:54): I commend this report, also. I notice in the terms of reference for this committee that they are to look at a range of things. There is one area that I think has not had enough attention by this committee—and I guess that that is ultimately the responsibility of individual members for not putting something forward—but what has happened in recent times is that, partly because of the unpopularity of some of the policies advocated by the Greens, aspects of the natural environment have fallen into disfavour.

I do not want to be too critical of the Greens party, but they are pursuing a whole lot of issues, not just those related to conservation and preservation. They are on about asylum seekers and same-sex marriage which are important topics, but I think what has happened is that, in the community, there has been almost a breakaway from supporting what are traditionally conservation type projects—national parks, conservation parks and so on.

If you take the environment literally to cover everything, you get into a ridiculous sort of debate, but I think there needs to be some focus back on habitat, on preservation of native species—whether they be plants or animals—and on national parks and conservation parks, if they are properly managed, and all those issues. To some extent that aspect of the environment has fallen off the radar and it needs to be brought back on to counter what has been a negative political focus arising out of people's hostility toward the Greens as a political party. I just make that point.

This committee has done some good things. We seem to have an obsession in this place with the NRM boards which I think overall do a good job. There has been a bit of a tendency towards increasing bureaucracy in them, but I think we should focus on a lot of other issues as well as NRM boards. I notice that the committee looked at a whole range of issues—Upper South-East dryland salinity and so on. I just make the point that maybe in the next parliament it might be time to have a look at some of the aspects of managing what have been traditional areas in the environment—that is, conservation and preservation type issues.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (11:57): I would like to make a contribution to the debate on the tabling of this report as well. I congratulate all the committee members and especially the Presiding Member (the member for Ashford). I would concur with a lot of the comments that the member for Hammond made on the committee's adaptability, their preparedness to travel, their preparedness to take on extraordinary tasks as far as inquiries go and also their understanding of local issues and their preparedness to engage the local members.

I appreciated that opportunity very recently when this committee undertook an inquiry into the Eyre Peninsula water supply. Since the tabling of this particular report, the final report on that inquiry has come out and, as recently as this morning, I was making comments on local radio with regard to that particular report on the Eyre Peninsula water resource. It will remain topical for some time. There are a number of recommendations—14, I think—as part of that report to ensure that Eyre Peninsula's water can be better managed both as a resource and as a supply for the commercial customers that exist on Eyre Peninsula.

I think one of the challenges with all these committee reports—and, ultimately, their recommendations—is to ensure that they are adopted. My understanding is that the relevant ministers need to respond in due course, but having said that, governments have no real responsibility to take on any of the recommendations or do anything in particular with regard to those. The challenge, I think, for me as a local member and for any member who is interested in some of these reports, is to ensure that the recommendations are undertaken. I congratulate the committee and commend the report and I look forward to the opportunity to work with them in the future.

Motion carried.

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