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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-05-29 Daily Xml
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South-East Water Allocations

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:59): My question again is to the Minister for Environment and Water. Does the minister reject the expertise and advice from his own department that has assessed that there is an overallocation of water in the region and that there is a very high risk to the sustainable use of water into the future?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Minister.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (14:59): I have been presented independent scientific advice, separate from what my department has come up with, which says that these areas are not overallocated. I am not a scientist. I don't know what the answer is with this, so I am saying, 'Let's step back. Let's support business in the South-East and take advice.' That, in my case, has to be independent advice.

Businesses in this state want confidence that government is making decisions that are based on independent scientific advice. That is exactly what I am doing. I am backing the businesses in the South-East, I am backing the communities in the South-East, I am working with the NRM board in the South-East—and it's been great to be able to recently appoint Fiona Rasheed as the new chair of the NRM board in the South-East.

She is a farmer who understands the South-East community and who will work with me, alongside other members of that NRM board, to understand the water allocation situation to procure independent scientific advice and to go forward to create certainty for businesses in the South-East. I don't think that this is something the Labor Party should be dragging up—their antibusiness rhetoric. Because what I want to do is get certainty.

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