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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-10-27 Daily Xml
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30-YEAR PLAN FOR GREATER ADELAIDE

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (14:55): I have a supplementary question, given the minister's statement. Will the minister support the right to farm legislation coming into parliament in order to protect farmers, given the decision to bring housing and road corridors into the northern food bowl in the Virginia triangle and further towards Roseworthy?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister Assisting the Premier in Public Sector Management) (14:56): I have not seen the legislation the honourable member refers to, and I suppose it will be assessed by government in the appropriate way. I know when I was the shadow minister for agriculture we considered the right to farm legislation. From my experience, it creates almost as many, and perhaps more, problems than it solves. It is not easy to do it.

I think the best way we can protect the right to farm is to ensure there is no intrusion either onto or adjacent to farmland by inappropriate activities. I can remember from my days as agriculture minister that you can often have competing sorts of agriculture—it might be horticulture, and even different types of horticulture—where spraying on one allotment may be incompatible with a horticultural activity. If you are spraying at the wrong time of the year it can impact on, say, a viticulture or vegetable crop. What we have to do is, rather than making legislation which gives absolute rights but they may in some instances collide, try to ensure you have good zoning and clear boundaries, and that you have protection from inappropriate activities that might curtail the operation of farmers.

It is all very well to say, if you have legislation and you let people build adjacent to a farm activity and that farm is spraying and it is drifting and creating a nuisance, that that is an entitlement. It is a bit like saying if someone lives near an airport you do not consider any nuisance. I think it is very problematical when you go into that sort of legislation.

I have a great deal of sympathy for the rights of existing landholders and I have a lot of sympathy for the rights of farmers who have moved into these areas. However, if you speak to many of these farmers, often there are changing economics and, as they see the intrusion of urban land, through significantly higher land values, it potentially gives them the opportunity to shift their farming operations. That is what sometimes happens. I am not saying they should be forced to shift but sometimes that enables that to happen.

I mentioned in my answer to the question how we are looking at a significant amount of land north of the Gawler River. If you provide water to that area it has a great capacity to grow crops. I am told that many farmers with a modern form of horticulture find that preferable and more profitable than farming in more traditional, high rainfall, undulating lands. The market will choose these things. While I have a great deal of sympathy for existing land use for farmers as much as anyone else, legislation, from my experience, is not always the best remedy and can create these problems where existing farm rights collide.

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