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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
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UPPER SOUTH EAST DRYLAND SALINITY AND FLOOD MANAGEMENT (EXTENSION OF PROJECT) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 17 November 2009. Page 3932.)

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (21:18): This bill relates to the Upper South-East project, which is defined for the purposes of this project from Lucindale in the south to Salt Creek in the North and Padthaway at its western boundary. The project is a drainage system to manage dryland salinity, water logging and the degradation of ecosystems in the Upper South-East. The project commenced in the 1990s and received legislative effect through the Upper South East Dryland Salinity and Flood Management Act 2002—known as the USE Act—which was last amended in 2006.

The project was developed initially because of the drop in the watertables. While it commenced in the 1990s, when it was much more damp, there have been significant salinity and flooding impacts. So, the project has had some success in balancing some of these effects, but it is acknowledged that it has had some negative impact on the environment with the drying out of wetlands and, therefore, habitat for some freshwater species.

There are different components to the USE scheme: first, the shallow flood control drains, which are adjacent to Keith; secondly, the deep drainage, which is the overall goal; and, thirdly, the reflows project, which is to restore environmental flows to wetlands in the Coorong instead of out to sea.

In 2007-08, the Natural Resources Committee was not sure about the Bald Hill drain and the ability of Reflows to restore environmental flows to the critical West Avenue wetlands. The USE Program Board's independent advice recommended the project. Reflows will partially redirect floodwaters along historic lines and therefore benefit wetlands and watercourses. I note that habitat is at very critical levels and that only some 0.6 per cent of pre-development wetlands are intact.

This bill seeks a further three year extension to the act to 19 December 2012, and it will facilitate Reflows within the drainage system, which will result in partially redirecting historic environmental flows, hopefully, into the Coorong. It also provides a regime for the acquisition of land by easement.

Due to recommendations made by the Natural Resources Committee in its 2007-08 annual report on the USE Act, two reviews were undertaken. The first was an independent review of the environmental implications of constructing or not constructing the proposed Bald Hill drain, and the second was an independent review of community perspectives of the Bald Hill drain and the Reflows project.

The result of these reviews was that there was a need to continue the project, as degradation would occur to those drains already established, and there was broad community support for this to occur. I note that there are some in the community in that region who are opposed to it, but I take some comfort from the Natural Resources Committee, which I think is a vigorous and very conscientious committee and examines these issues for the greater benefit.

The benefit of hindsight is a wonderful thing, and things may have been done differently if the project had initially been established in a different period in relation to how wet the conditions were in that region. However, the overwhelming recommendation of the Natural Resources Committee is to continue to complete the drains, and therefore the Liberal Party will be supporting this bill without amendment.

The Hon. M. PARNELL (21:22): The purpose of this bill is to extend the Upper South East Dryland Salinity and Flood Management Act 2002 for a further three years, from 19 December 2009 to 19 December 2012. Because we knew this bill would be coming up and needs to be passed before 19 December, and because the bill is contentious—or at least the scheme the bill extends its contentious—I took the opportunity to put a great number of questions on notice, if you like, to the minister.

Today, I was pleased to receive a written answer to the 22 questions I posed. I do not propose to take the council through all those questions and answers at the committee stage, but I will be looking for an undertaking from the minister to transform what is, in effect, an unattributed email back to me into a letter on letterhead so that the minister's answers are more formally on the record without the need to put all this into Hansard.

I will go through some of the themes of the questions so that members of the council have an understanding of some of the concerns with this legislation. The first series of questions was in relation to evidence that the drainage works completed so far under the scheme have, in fact, been effective in achieving the objects of the act. The minister's response to me indicates a number of areas where they say that there is proof. Some of the landholders in the South-East beg to differ and say that there is not the evidence that the objectives of the scheme are being achieved.

I have also raised issues in relation to the commitment to ongoing maintenance. Having been down and had a look at some of these drains in the company of local landholders and local conservation groups, I was certainly told by local people that a number of the drains filled with silt relatively soon after they were constructed, and that was evidence that it will be an ongoing and a continuous maintenance liability on the scheme.

I also raised questions in relation to how the overall objectives of the scheme would be managed, given the great variety of intervention works—deep drains, surface drains, things called smart drains. The most important thing, of course, is that we have an adaptive management framework, so that we can make sure that the management is responsive to changes. When it comes to managing the drains—the water in them, the wetlands—we need to make sure that it is based on the best scientific evidence, and, if the evidence is insufficient, then the precautionary principle should kick in to ensure that the environment is protected.

One of the things concerning landholders to whom I have been talking is whether or not we have robust administrative structures in place that make sure that decision-making is objective, that the effectiveness of management actions is monitored and evaluated and that the management responses are altered as new information becomes available.

There is a whole range of questions that I have asked of the minister that relate to endangered species discovered down there and various other things. I look forward to the minister's commitment to put that in writing to me so that it can be distributed amongst the relevant landholders in the South-East.

This is the second time that this act has been sought to be extended in order to complete the drainage scheme, which is the key objective of the act. When we looked at the bill last in 2006, I voted against it, and I did so on the basis of evidence that was presented to me by local landholders that the scheme was not working as promised and, in particular, it was not adequately delivering either economic or environmental benefits.

My view in 2006 was that we should use the opportunity presented by the sunset clause to undertake a comprehensive, rigorous and independent review of the works done to date, their effectiveness and their impact on both economic production and environmental values. We now see ourselves three years later in the same position again where we are debating the expiry of the act and deciding whether or not to give it a further three years of life.

It is worth just exploring what has changed in the past three years. When we debated this bill in 2006, the scheme was around two-thirds complete. Today, as I understand it, there is really only one major drain left to complete, and that is the Bald Hill drain. A comprehensive independent review of the whole scheme up until now has not occurred, but there has been a review of the desirability of proceeding with the final part of the project, in particular that Bald Hill drain.

The findings of that review support the construction of the final drain. My view, however—and it is a view that was supported by both local landholders and even some government scientists—was that we should not build this final drain and we should seek to keep at least a small remnant of the original wetlands in some sort of natural condition to provide something of a control against which to measure the impacts of the overall scheme.

In July this year the minister announced that he had approved the Bald Hill drain. I criticised that decision at the time, and my views have not changed. As I said, this is a contentious issue locally. There are local landholders both for and against, but the opponents of the drain predict that it will severely restrict vital natural freshwater inflows, especially into the Parrakie wetlands, which have the highest biodiversity significant index rating in the Upper South-East, and the Bald Hill drain is the last in a long series of deep drains that have collectively radically affected water flows across the region. Back in July when the decision was made to proceed with this final drain, local landholders basically reaffirmed that it was not going to be acceptable for the government just to build the drain and walk away. The ongoing maintenance was something that had to be guaranteed, and we know that that will come at a cost.

However, another development since we last debated the extension of this act has been the introduction of the so-called Reflows project. 'Reflows' is an acronym that does not quite but closely enough stands for 'restoring flows to the wetlands of the Upper South-East of South Australia.' This project involves the construction of floodways to partially redirect historic environmental flows to the Upper South-East. The hope is that it will manage flood events and that it will provide more water to the environment.

Among the landholders to whom I have spoken, this aspect of the scheme is generally supported although there is a great deal of scepticism that it will actually achieve much particularly in relation to the delivery of water to the southern part of the Coorong, which is an area so desperately in need of fresh water. My understanding is that it is now something like four times the salinity of the sea.

We even see ecologists, whose solutions to environmental problems rarely involve engineering, now saying that we need to pump seawater back into the Coorong and pump the hypersaline water out, so we know from experience that engineering solutions often lead to more engineering fix-ups rather than genuinely fixing environmental problems.

Having said that, the hope of local residents and my fervent hope is that the Reflows scheme will be successful and that there will in fact be some water flowing northward back up from the South-East into the Coorong. The drains proposed for the Reflows project are different to the deep drains that have been so criticised for their impact on the natural ecosystems of the South-East and the wetlands in particular.

In summary, my view is, as it was in 2006, that we should take the opportunity of the sunset clause to stop and take stock and do a proper review of all of the operation of the scheme to date. I do not believe that the decision to build that last drain was correct, and I will not be disappointed if this bill fails to pass and we do in fact buy ourselves time to at least keep one part of the wetlands system (which I think is now down to about 6 per cent of its pre-European settlement status) in some sort of natural state, because the local landholders around the Parrakie wetlands are desperately concerned that this final drain will in fact cause irreparable damage to the wetlands.

I will not be supporting the bill, but I accept that a majority of members of the council probably will, and it is my hope that they are right in part and that at least the Reflows project will deliver some benefits to natural wetlands and ecosystems.

The Hon. C.V. SCHAEFER (21:33): I made the majority of my contribution last week when I spoke on the Natural Resources Committee report on this matter. I do not intend to speak for long tonight except to say that I disagree with the Hon. Mark Parnell inasmuch as I believe that there have been so many pauses now and so many inquiries that we can continue and continue but we are not achieving anything and we are not moving forward.

It is my belief—and I recognise that it will continue to be contentious until such time as the drains are completed—that the fresh water flows across the top will in fact top up areas such as Parrakie and that the saline water will be drained eventually into the Coorong where again it is desperately needed to support the bird life there.

I regret that I have heard this debate now for at least 10 years or probably longer. Many of us know the history of the contention in relation to the construction of the drains, involving where they should have gone and where they, in fact, ended up going for various reason. It will continue to be a contentious issue in the South-East. Therefore, I think we have the courage to either press ahead or cease. It seems to me to be quite ridiculous to have three-quarters of the jigsaw puzzle completed and then decide not to go on and finish it.

My belief is that it will be a successful drainage system and that it will improve the ecology of the South-East, but I do not believe that any of us will know that until it is a completed capital work. Sadly, only then will we know how successful or unsuccessful it is. If it is not successful, it will be a sad time for those wetlands. My belief is that those wetlands are dry because we have experienced unprecedented drought, rather than for any other reason. As I have said, I regret that the decision was not taken more courageously some time ago because, if that was the case, we would now be seeing those drains working as they should be.

The Hon. DAVID WINDERLICH (21:37): I think it is important to be aware at the outset that this is not just an environmental discussion: this is also a debate about approaches to land management. Some of the protagonists who are supportive of keeping the Parrakie wetlands, or rather seeing the drains as a threat to the Parrakie wetlands, are, in fact, successful landowners and award winning farmers.

There are also issues in this about the rights of landowners relative to the government. There is the notion that these wetlands should be kept as a reference site—that we have been conducting a gigantic experiment in the South-East. The experiment has been really widely unsuccessful so far. We have local species on the verge of extinction. In fact, we thought the Yarra Pygmy Perch was extinct. It was recently recovered, but it is still very fragile. We are down to a very small remaining portion of wetlands. So, in the context of this, keeping one portion aside is not so much not finishing the jigsaw puzzle as not putting all your eggs in one highly unproven basket.

In terms of the relationship with the Coorong, I do not remember the exact figures, but I have spoken to David Patten about how significant the volume of water would be for the scheme at the Coorong, and the conclusion is 'very insignificant'. The Coorong needs hundreds of gigalitres, and I think this would have produced about 20 at best case, but I would have to check that figure.

The Natural Resources Committee, in its past considerations of this scheme, has found that the drains have had negative environmental effects. The committee found a lack of transparency in relation to the release of program documents, and it found that there had been rigorous and detailed scientific evidence of the rapid decline and probable local extinction of two species of freshwater fish in Henry Creek in the Upper South-East. In relation to the Yarra Pygmy Perch, they did find a remnant colony in Henry Creek. The committee recommended that no further steps be taken towards the construction of the Bald Hill drain (or Reflows) until there was thorough independent assessment of all drainage options on the West Avenue watercourse and wetlands.

There have been well documented allegations by Mr Frank Burden, a former commonwealth government senior scientists turned bee farmer in the Upper South-East, that the Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation attempted to silence various critics of the project. He drew attention to a letter written by Rob Freeman, the former chief executive of the department, in which he said, 'I would urge the committee not to publish Mr Burden's submission.'

The outcome of all that was that two reports were commissioned: one was a community perceptions report, and the other was a report on the 'Risks and Benefits to Environmental Values of the West Avenue Watercourse and Bald Hill Flat Associated with Hydrological Manipulation and Drainage'. This was put forward by minister Weatherill as justification for continuing with the drain.

If you actually read the report it is underwhelming in its endorsement. In fact, there really is no endorsement. A section from the executive summary reads:

From an environmental assets perspective, the REFLOWS only program scored most highly as likely to provide environmental benefits, particularly to the wetlands. However, this option was considered highly likely to introduce the Eastern Gambusia…to this system, which was considered highly likely to impact on the EPBC-listed frog and fish species of the WAW [West Avenue Wetlands].

The report continued:

The ‘Do Nothing’ option was considered likely to lead to further environmental degradation, but also provided the benefit of not conducting management actions without the knowledge necessary to accurately quantify the risks of those options. The 'Groundwater Drain Only' option was considered likely to provide some benefit to the floodplain and wetlands environment, but was considered to hold inherent risks to both the wetland and floodplain environment, given the current gaps in knowledge.

The 'Groundwater and REFLOWS' option was considered likely to provide benefits to the environmental assets of the West Avenue Range but also included the individual risks of both options. These management options may be complementary but are not necessarily dependent on each other. These management options work at different temporal scales and magnitudes, which suggests that they do not directly offset each other.

Refinement of the risks and benefits associated with the proposed management options will require more detailed studies in a range of areas, but particularly in regards to the floodplain and wetlands asset of the West Avenue Range. The relevant absence of vegetation health and distribution data and associated hydrologic monitoring within the watercourse has hampered capacity to effectively determine both the current underlying trends in vegetation dynamics, and identification of associated hydrologic drivers.

That is probably not the most riveting thing to hear at this hour of the night, but I will go over a few key phrases again: 'current gaps in knowledge', 'without the knowledge necessary to accurately quantify the risks of those options' and 'more detailed study is required'. The clear conclusion of this report, which is apparently the vindication of this final drain, is that we really do not know the effect it will have.

So, in the context of a scheme that so far has, at the very least, a flawed record—some would argue a disastrous record—we are now moving ahead with the next iteration of this scheme on the basis of an admitted lack of knowledge by the people assessing the environmental impact of the scheme. It does not create much confidence.

I will now read into the record an email from Frank Burden—and there are a few pages here, but there will not be too much more after this—the former commonwealth government scientist and very articulate critic of the drains program. I think it will be very useful to have this for future reference, when we look back at how this decision was made. The email reads:

I understand that comment has been sought on the proposed amendment bill for the Upper South-East Dryland Salinity and Flood Management Act. Unfortunately this is a very hastily written email due to lack of time and pre-warning that comments had been requested. I admit to being exhausted from a battle for honesty in government, and to be highly disillusioned with what I consider to be seriously corrupted processes that allowed government officials freedom to abuse their positions and mislead parliamentarians and the public without being made accountable for their actions. While closer federal and state parliamentary scrutiny since 2005 has forced improved honesty, there remains considerable scope for improvement.

Firstly, I doubt that if proper governance processes had been followed there would be a deep drain network in the USE [Upper South East]. Only selective or misrepresented science and analysis has supported the digging of deep drains. Dryland salinity and flooding problems (receding naturally for over a decade) were always grossly exaggerated, and these were the only justifications for deep drains. Deep drains have only ever been demonstrated to be economically and environmentally effective in rare circumstances. The only good thing that has come out of the USE program has been the addition of the REFLOWS floodways to bring fresh water into the region, in order to correct the enormous damage caused by deep drains.

I have not had time to study the bill in detail, but my initial observation is that many obligations are placed on landholders but hardly any placed on officials. Recently dug deep drains have experienced major wind and water erosion, resulting in them becoming blocked, and in at least one case fences are close to collapsing into drains. One 100 metre five year old section of Mount Charles drain close to my property has experienced major wind erosion of its 4 to 5 metre high banks, which have been receding at more than 0.5 metre a year. About half of the eroded bank has fallen into and blocked the drain and the remainder blown onto the adjacent property. I understand there are several other similar blocked and eroded sections in the northern catchment of the drain network, which are visible in Google Earth.

Furthermore, government officials have allowed weeds and feral pests...to move uncontrolled within the fenced drain corridor. We had a pest free property until the drain was dug, and we are now being invaded by rabbits that are breeding uncontrolled within the fenced off drain corridor! Furthermore, we are still waiting for about 60 hectares of 'confiscated' land to be returned to us. We were advised (recorded in Hansard during original 2002 debate on the Act) that confiscated land not required for drain construction would be returned promptly to landholders. Five years later we are still waiting, and I saw no reference to dates when this would happen in the amendment bill. I note that landholder concerns regarding capital gains tax were addressed in the bill, but disappointed that the subject took so long to be addressed.

I think the implication of that particular extract of the email is that there are some essential management problems in the whole program, including maintenance of the infrastructure that has been created. The email continues:

The program, supported over the last seven years by the Upper South-East Act, has been sustained since its conception in the early 1990s by misinformation, exaggerations, and suppressed information on the adverse effects of deep drains. The most recent benefit-cost analysis of the program (2002) indicated that it was probably not viable after realistic costs were incorporated, but it still went ahead. No attempt has been made to validate the cost-effectiveness of the program. My concern is that landholders will be faced with enormous ongoing drain maintenance costs for a program that provided many with very little economical benefit. Failed agricultural trials have also not been reported. One such government trial of 21 pasture species conducted last year on my property about 700 metres from a section of deep drain failed to produce a single plant that survived more than about three months in the naturally highly saline soils. I presume the trial was conducted by officials to prove that my criticisms of the program were wrong. The trial resulted in no publicity. The trial was not an isolated failure (I know of at least four others), but I guarantee you and the public will only be offered information on successful trials...

Since its conception in the early 1990s, a small group of influential landholders in collusion with government officials appear to have been obsessed with digging the deep drain network, without giving serious consideration to its financial and environmental costs. Damage caused by deep drains is only now being addressed by the floodways component of REFLOWS. Government officials have grossly misrepresented the benefits and costs of the drain network to the environment. Unfortunately, supporters of deep drains attracted support of both the Labor and Liberal parties, and I presume that following the recent glowing but factually incorrect reports by the Liberals in both houses...majority parliamentary support for the amendment bill is a foregone conclusion. However, I still found it astonishing and presumptuous...that digging of deep drains was recently restarted even though the Upper South-East Act was due to expire within a few weeks. Examples of misleading comments used to sustain the program have been:

There has never been strong landholder support for the program. In the early 1990s when fear of advancing dryland salinity was at its worst, only one-third of landholders who provided comments on the original EIS supported the construction of deep drains. Many landholders then, and still now, believed that more sustainable, natural solutions to the problems should have been investigated. Since then, the threat of dryland salinity, rising watertables and flooding has receded naturally.

When the first stage of work for the program was approved, it was on condition that work would only continue to later stages after successful evaluation of the Fairview deep drain trial in 1998/1999. Despite the drain removing less than 20 per cent of predicted volumes, approval to continue to subsequent stages of work was approved.

In 2002, a number of research reports identified serious environmental consequences associated with deep drains. None of these reports were released to the public, although most copies were supplied...In the same year, minister Hill informed parliament that productivity of upper south-east land would double as a result of the deep drain program. This might apply in very limited cases, but agricultural productivity in the region has barely benefitted from the network, at enormous environmental cost. A benefit-cost analysis of the program, also conducted in 2002, raised serious concerns about the cost-effectiveness of the program, which has never been reported publicly.

In 2004, an independent scientist, now an employee of the DWLBC, reported that the Fairview trial drain had 'minimal impact' on watertables. His report, and other work conducted in the Northern Catchment has not yet been published. However...

In 2006, minister Gago justified continuation of the program with the key claim that nearly 90 per cent of the upper south-east would need to be planted with deep-rooted vegetation to control rising watertables and dryland salinity (at the time had been receding naturally for well over a decade). The revegetation area 'was considered an unattainable target'. However, the figure was a three-fold over-statement of CSIRO advice provided to the government. Indeed, the target area had been very nearly achieved in 2006...

In late 2008, I discovered a DWLBC webpage which warned of the serious consequences of drainage and disturbance of potential acid sulphate soils, and a map identified major areas of such soils in SA. I was concerned to find that an area of several thousand hectares of such soils was located within the [Upper South-East's] Northern Catchment deep drain network. I wrote to DWLBC expressing my concerns that this information had not been used by program officials in determining where drains should be dug.

I think it is important to interrupt the email for a minute and note that one of the key strategies for managing acid sulphate soils is not to disturb them. This is in documents produced by the Coast Protection Board and other government documents. Returning to the email:

The written response was typically dismissive ('there is considerable information written on the subject'), and the warnings and the map were removed from the DWLBC website. It appears that officials appear to think that they can get around environmental problems by removing offending science from official publications. I had made copies of the webpage and written on this topic at—

and he gives a reference—

I am probably one of only very few landholders in the region who has been able to read and understand the science and analysis that underpins the program, and wherever I look I find major inconsistencies between what the public, media, and politicians are informed and what is reported in official reports. My concerns are derived from a life-time (since 1964) experience and knowledge working in science and engineering. In 2000, I resigned from a Federal Government position as a Research Leader in the grade of Senior Principal Research Scientist in order to pursue a life-time ambition of owning and operating a farm. During my professional career I received awards for my academic and professional work. My key awards were the Sir Frank Whittle Prize for academic achievements during a UK post-graduate degree in systems science and engineering in the 1980s, and in the 1990s I was presented with the Ross Treharne Shield for contributions to a specialist field of systems research. Recipients of the Ross Treharne Shield have included Professors, senior officials in the Federal Government, as well as successful members of Australian industry. I consider these peer-reviewed awards adequately demonstrate my ability to read and comment on scientific and analytical disciplines of relevance to the [Upper South-East] program...

I was unfortunate to have bought an 840 hectare farm through which a 4km long deep drain was dug in 2004. During the planning process, I met a number of senior State Government officials involved in planning and management of the program. I quickly became aware of their appalling lack of understanding of some very basic science. Their responses to some simple questions were clearly made up. This inspired my own extensive research and reading into the background of the program...This led to extensive submissions...to the 2005 Senate 'Inquiry into the extent and economic impact of salinity'...and to [the Environment, Resources and Development Committee] and NRC inquires, as well as invitations to be a witness at all inquiries. I have been maintaining a website (www.usedrains.org.au) which catalogues many other examples of inconsistencies between the science and what we have been told. Only two [Upper South-East] program officials to date...have attempted to contact me to discuss my concerns.

That is an account by someone who is well credentialled to criticise and analyse the programs.

In addition, on several visits now to the South-East, I have spoken to local landowners. I have also spoken to several supporters of the drains, and they have provided a different account, not so much a scientific critique but a very personal account of people who have invested decades and incredible attention into managing these wetlands, and if you do visit them (while they still remain), you will see that they have been outstandingly successful. They truly are quite a wonderful place.

It is quite an experience to sit on the front of the cabin at night or in the morning having a coffee with one of the owners, Jack Rasenberg, and listen to him give a running commentary on every single piece of animal life that is passing through the vicinity. He can give a commentary on which bird is in which tree and which call relates to which bird, and what call a particular animal is making. At a practical level, not a scientific level—he is not an educated man—his knowledge and love of this area is immense and extraordinarily impressive.

And so, if I stack up the evidence of the proponents of the program whose record is a flawed program, which has led not only to at least one extinction but almost two extinctions of species, and which has led to almost all the wetlands being destroyed and clear indications that the actual maintenance of the program is open to question, and I compare that to the scientific analysis of Frank Burden and the intense personal experience of this area of someone like Jack Rasenberg, I can only conclude that I think this act is a mistake.

I think that the program is most probably a mistake. Certainly, it is a terrible mistake to apply this flawed model to the very last wetlands left in the area. There is really no reason, from a lay person's point of view (such as me) to have any confidence in this program or in the proponents of this program. There is every reason to doubt it. What will be lost probably—and lost forever—is something absolutely irreplaceable when it draws in low quality saline water containing heavy metals through the drainage program, and that is what they are predicting.

So far the predictions of the critics have proved to be very accurate and the assurances of the proponents have proved to be wrong. I think that we are making a mistake. I think that we are condemning an irreplaceable asset, and it is a sad day. I only regret that I have not done much more about this, that I have not prepared a much more compelling critique and that I was not able to be part of a sustained community campaign about this.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Small Business) (21:55): I thank members for their contributions to this debate. The Hon. Mr Parnell raised a number of questions in discussions with officers of the department, and I think he has been supplied with some written information. That information will be formalised by the minister, as I understand it, as was indicated. I thank all members for their contributions and I look forward to the speedy passage of the bill.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I mentioned briefly at the start of my second reading contribution my appreciation for the minister having responded to the 22 questions I had put on notice. I wonder whether the minister, on behalf of his colleague in another place, is happy to say that we can have those answers on some letterhead and signed by the minister so that they can be attributed to the minister rather than simply an emailed note from one of the staff members, because it is my wish to circulate those answers to landholders in the South-East.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: That is what I meant when I said that the minister has agreed to formalise them. The honourable member has described what that means. Yes, my understanding is that the minister will be happy to provide that written information on his letterhead.

Clause passed.

Clauses 2 to 11 passed.

Clause 12.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: This clause refers to fencing works and drainage reserves, and specifically states that some of these works may be required to be performed by the landholder. Is any funding available to assist landholders who may not have the resources to erect and maintain fences; and, if so, how much would be available?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: My advice is that it is the government's intention to construct all of the fences in association in the first instance.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: So, to clarify, the government will construct them and pay for them; and maintenance works will then become the responsibility of land-holders.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: My advice is that the overall maintenance program will become part of the subsequent legislation. I understand that that would be necessary. At this stage, as I said, it is the government's intention to fund the initial works and, in the long term, an agreement with land-holders on cost sharing would be developed.

Clause passed.

Remaining clauses (13 to 16), schedule and title passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

Bill read a third time and passed.

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