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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-05-04 Daily Xml
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Pastoral Lands

Ms STINSON (Badcoe) (15:08): My question is to the Deputy Premier. Can the Deputy Premier provide details on the South Australian government's approach to pastoral land management?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water) (15:08): It is a delight to answer this question about the pastoral lands, often also referred to as the rangelands in South Australia. Just to give some context to my answer, the rangelands cover some 40 per cent of South Australia. They are over 39 million hectares of South Australian land and are used for a variety of important purposes.

There is grazing that occurs, of course, on lots of pastoral leases. There is tourism, there is mining, there are Aboriginal lands and Aboriginal values and heritage values, and of course they provide a very important wildlife and ecosystem service. The rangelands matter and the rangelands are fragile. It is a dry part of our state and it is absolutely threatened by climate change.

Given that context, what did the previous government propose to do with the pastoral lands? They proposed to essentially abandon any idea that these should be managed from an environmental perspective. They proposed to bring in a piece of legislation that would remove the requirement to prevent degradation, that would remove the requirement to have a maximum stocking rate. You can have as many stock as you like on it: go for your life, as many hooves as you like.

They proposed to remove from the objects of the act any reference to managing appropriately, to avoiding degradation, to sustaining the resource. They were just going to remove that from the act. They also proposed to make conservation leases unlawful, so there are many of the leases—

Mr PISONI: Point of order, sir.

The SPEAKER: Deputy Premier, please be seated. There is a point of order.

Mr PISONI: The Deputy Premier is debating the question.

The SPEAKER: I will continue to listen carefully to the Deputy Premier's answer.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: There was also the proposition that conservation leases would no longer be lawful. Some of the land—a bit over two million hectares of the pastoral lands—is under a lease for conservation purposes which you would think, if you understood how the environment works, is about strengthening the rest of the lands by keeping the ecosystems intact. They proposed to move from 42-year leases to 100-year leases, effectively—

Mr PISONI: Mr Speaker—

The SPEAKER: Order! Are you raising a point of order, member for Unley?

Mr PISONI: I am calling a point of order, sir.

The SPEAKER: Very well. Perhaps you would raise that at the start. A point of order, I will hear it.

Mr PISONI: Thank you, sir. The Deputy Premier continues to debate the question rather than discuss the content of the question.

The SPEAKER: I have listened carefully so far and I'm afraid I can't see any debate in the answer.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: They also proposed to no longer do any on-ground assessments. The way the pastoral lands are managed is it's a 42-year lease, but every 14 years—ideally, every 14 years—you get a renewal of your lease based on having had people go out, have a look, check how the land is going. If it's being well managed, another 42 years, so rolling leases. They proposed to move that to 100 years and not have any on-ground assessments. In the process of doing that, they of course failed to speak to any significant Aboriginal groups, any significant traditional owner groups.

What is it that we will be doing? Well, first of all, none of the above. We are not going to let 40 per cent of the state go to rack and ruin. Incidentally, the pastoralists didn't ask for this. The pastoralists didn't support having the stocking rate lifted. The pastoralists weren't asking for this kind of intervention on their precious land.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Deputy Premier has the call.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: What we will be doing, and have done, is bring it back into the environment department so that it can be appropriately managed. We are going to add a million dollars so that they are able to maintain the on-ground assessment at appropriate pace. The pastoralists were rightly frustrated at the slowness of the pace in the last few years of the assessments, so we are adding a million dollars to pick up the pace—

Mr Patterson: What about the other 16 years before that? There was none done.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: —to make sure that that rolling assessment is able to be done. Importantly, we will ensure that carbon offsets can be part of managing the pastoral lands. The government tried to use that as an excuse for why they were making the changes. It was a spurious excuse. We will make sure that the range lands are protected and there are multiple sources of income, including carbon offsets.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the member for Heysen, the member for Hartley yesterday addressed to me a question in relation to the use of papers in the house. That matter was resolved by the tabling of those papers by the minister. I refer to Blackmore's commentary on House of Assembly practice at page 322:

It is obviously right that the House should have access to the same sources of information as a Minister, if the latter makes statements, or bases arguments, or asks the House to accept conclusions, founded upon Public Papers which he quotes. But the rule applies to public documents only, not to private letters, or even memoranda.

Of course, the matter was resolved in that instance by the tabling of papers, and I acknowledge the former Speaker's erudition in relation to matters of this type. The member for Heysen.

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