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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-10-16 Daily Xml
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Dog Fence

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:39): My question is to the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development. Can the minister update the house on the progress and delivery of the dog fence?

The Hon. T.J. WHETSTONE (Chaffey—Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development) (14:39): Yes, I can. I thank the member for MacKillop for his very important question. As one of the state's largest sheep producers, along with his constituency he is very concerned about wild dogs heading south, and we know that there have been a number of wild dog sightings in areas that it was never thought possible that they would travel—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. T.J. WHETSTONE: —from the north, and particularly from the northern pastoral country. Initial procurement information for prospective suppliers and contractors has been released for the $25 million build of the dog fence. It is a 1,600-kilometre piece of infrastructure. It's a generational piece of infrastructure. This government—the Marshall Liberal government—the Morrison Coalition government and industry have come together and realised the importance of the rebuild. It is a 100-year-old piece of infrastructure that a previous government ignored. They left the pastoralists on their own, albeit they did replace some small parts of that fence that are now being pulled down because they were built inadequately.

That leads me on to the next point, that we have a dog fence rebuild committee that have just visited Queensland and they are looking at the exclusion fencing that they have up there. We looked at Barcaldine and Longreach, areas that are now experiencing protection for their sheep industry. Those pastoralists up there are now enjoying the investment of that piece of dog fence or exclusion fencing up there that has changed the lives of the sheep producers and the pastoralists. They now sleep at night, they are now saving money and they no longer have mental health issues that they once had with the loss of large numbers of sheep.

I know that the member for Flinders, with his constituents, is also experiencing large losses. In some cases, 10,000 and 20,000 head of sheep are being lost due to wild dog attacks. What I can say is that the committee, consisting mostly of the local dog fence boards and those chairs, are working with Livestock SA to understand how we will implement and build this piece of infrastructure.

It's not just a fence that is strewn across the state; it is a fence that traverses large and different landscapes across sand dunes, creek crossings, through different parts of the pasture country. It's not just about erecting a fence. It's about clay topping sandhills, it's about building those creek crossings, it's about a significant amount of planning so that we can actually get this piece of infrastructure right so that we can protect a vitally important industry here in South Australia.

It also needs to be understood that the Queensland trip gave the rebuild committee a much greater understanding of how we can put a piece of infrastructure in place now that rarely ever lasts 100 years. Today, we are taking those tenders in place. We are actually putting this fence in place so that it can last for another 100 years. It is vitally important that it creates jobs. There will be 14 FTEs on the initial rebuild but that will then build to 63 full-time equivalent jobs in that vitally important part of our state's productive farming country.

What I would say is that the report has told us that once the dog fence is built we could save $120 million to the state's economy. That is massive. This is not an issue that will be fixed overnight. It will take a number of years to build and get it running, but it will be on the back of an already committed trapping and baiting program.

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