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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-07-24 Daily Xml
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Natural Resources Management

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (14:42): My question is to the Minister for Environment and Water. Can the minister update the house about the government's reforms to natural resources management and the community consultation that has begun today?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (14:42): I thank the member for Flinders for his question on a topic that I know is very close to his heart, as a former member of the Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board before he entered this place. It is with great pleasure that I update the house on this government's commitment to following through on yet another of its election promises. We went to the 2018 state election with a very clear promise around the reform of natural resources management in this state and our desire to radically redraw the way that body of environmental management conducts its business and turn back to a back-to-basics approach.

We know that in the early part of the century, the previous government undertook quite a worthy body of reform with good first principle aims to integrate water catchment boards, pest control boards and soil quality boards, and those boards were integrated with the aim that environmental management would be a more thorough approach.

However, there was a centralisation that occurred over time, a dragging of decision-making back into the Adelaide bureaucracy and, as a consequence, a disempowerment of regional communities. As an opposition, we went to the electorate saying that we would create a body that was more straightforward, streamlined and back to basics, focusing on water quality, water catchment management, soil quality and pest control and importantly also valuing biodiversity and sustainable agriculture and the sustaining of our natural landscape, particularly in regional South Australia, to deliver a strong economic foundation for our regional communities while also sustaining the environmental and social fabric of those communities.

That is the key for this type of integrated natural resources management legislation: to be able to create a foundation that allows environmental, social and economic outcomes to be delivered in a thorough and well-considered way. The government's policy that we took to the election was very clear about that back-to-basics approach.

We also said we would cap the NRM levy that is currently collected. We feel that it has gone up in an unreasonable way over time, so we want to put downward pressure on every aspect of cost-of-living pressures that are experienced by South Australian households and businesses. Capping NRM levies is just one way through which we can achieve that.

We also want to introduce a $2 million grassroots grants program to focus on environmental projects in partnership with community organisations, with local governments, with NGOs, with agricultural bureaus, with friends' groups and with Landcare. We see the value of partnerships and relationships as being at the very core of our NRM legislation going forward.

Today, we announced that we will be undertaking a large and comprehensive consultation process right across the state. There will be an online component of that on yoursay.sa.gov.au and a series of workshops and focus groups being held right across South Australia and in all parts of this state. This will give people the opportunity to provide their views, their ideas and their vision for natural resources management in South Australia. I look forward to updating the house on this government's fulfillment of this very important election commitment.

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