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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-03-23 Daily Xml
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Parliamentary Committees

NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE: SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ARID LANDS NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT BOARD REGION FACT FINDING VISIT

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (16:24): I move:

That the report of the committee on South Australian Arid Lands Natural Resources Management Board Region Fact Finding Visit, be noted.

Every year, the Natural Resources Committee aims to visit at least two of the natural resources management board regions to meet with board members and staff, as well as members of the local volunteer natural resources management groups. Mind you, Mr President, this is getting a little more difficult with the Clerk of the lower house continually pushing us on budgets and trying to restrict the work of the committee. It is a bloody shame that our work is being interrupted by the Clerk, I must say.

In November last year, the committee spent three days in the Far North of the state as guests of the South Australian Arid Lands Natural Resources Management Board. Our hosts included the former presiding member, Chris Reed; former general manager, John Gavin; NRM officer, Janet Walton; fauna recovery officer, Reece Pedler; and the GAB chief investigator and mound springs expert, Travis Gotch. I must say that Travis Gotch is quite an amazing character; what he does not know about the area is not worth knowing. They provided us with detailed and highly stimulating information at the various steps on our tour.

Since our visit in November 2010, I am sorry to say that presiding member Chris Reed's tenure has expired and that general manager John Gavin has also left as a consequence of the administrative changes associated with the board's integration into the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The expertise and enthusiasm of both Chris Reed and John Gavin will no doubt be greatly missed by the Arid Lands Natural Resources Management Board. Members may recall that when I first spoke about the visit to the arid lands NRM region late last year, when tabling the NRM levy report for the boards, I referred particularly to the dedication of the NRM board's staff to their work and the sometimes harsh conditions they regularly endure in order to do their job.

Retaining valuable staff in remote regions of the state is always a challenge. While staff employed in remote localities do not expect the same facilities as those available in the city, it is still important that they are provided with the basic employment conditions and support to enable them to undertake their role effectively with a minimum of personal hardship. Committee members agreed unanimously to take an ongoing and active interest in employment conditions for these remote region NRM staff, especially in light of the integration process with the Department for Environment and Natural Resources.

The committee recently obtained a briefing on the integration process from Allan Holmes, the Chief Executive Officer of the Department for Environment and Natural Resources. Committee members broadly support the changes as outlined by Mr Holmes on the proviso that they will maintain the strong NRM focus, efficiencies and critical onground works of the NRM boards and facilitate improved conditions of employment and opportunities for staff.

However, some concerns remain that the new NRM board regional manager role that has replaced the general manager role in the regions may at times prove difficult to reconcile, given the added complication of having two masters—a presiding member and the chief executive of the Department for Environment and Natural Resources—whereas the previous role was more independent. Members of the Natural Resources Committee look forward to seeing how these challenges will be managed.

On our first day in the region, the committee visited the Prominent Hill mine, south-east of Coober Pedy, where our hosts, Oz Minerals, provided us with a tour of the mine and a detailed briefing. Prominent Hill is a new copper, gold and silver mine. Not surprisingly, water is a major issue. As a condition of its water licence, Oz Minerals monitors its impact on the Great Artesian Basin. While Prominent Hill complies with its licence conditions, concerns were raised about the long-term upward trends for Great Artesian water use and the potential for negative impacts on the mound springs in light of additional mines proposed for the region.

On day two of our visit, the committee was very fortunate to be given a slightly bumpy but nevertheless spectacular aerial tour of the recently-filled Lake Eyre and surrounds, with radio commentary from the arid lands board staff. Members were able to see first-hand the dramatic transformation of this normally dry region resulting from recent rains and surface water flows.

In addition to the filling of Lake Eyre and the stunning greening up of the region, an increase in feral animals, such as camels, donkeys, horses and pigs, was also apparent. This demonstrated well the double-edged sword and the challenges that favourable conditions bring to the region. Members heard that feral cats also remain a major threat to wildlife and that rabbits are making a comeback as the calicivirus begins to lose its effectiveness. Highly mobile feral animals such as camels, horses and donkeys present an enormous challenge to the NRM board and to pastoralists. Members will be aware of recent federal government moves to price carbon as a prelude to the carbon trading scheme.

The committee heard that it may be desirable to provide offsets or carbon credits to landholders for the removal of camels, horses and donkeys, in the same way that offsets are being considered for agricultural practices. This kind of innovation could be useful, because to date the national feral camel removal project is barely keeping pace with the breeding rate and, when drought conditions return, the animals will once again become a major threat to outback ecology and pastoral infrastructure.

Committee members were impressed with the arid lands management board's dingo research and management projects. These projects have attracted funding support from the sheep industry as well as the mining companies. Dingoes are unique, in that they are both a pest (mainly south of the dog fence) and a benefit (mainly north of the dog fence). Dingo management is a prime example of how NRM boards, land managers and residents can work together for their mutual benefit.

The arid lands board is training local people to work as doggers to help maintain the dog fence and to manage dingo numbers where they are a threat to livestock. Research is also being undertaken at the arid recovery project near Roxby Downs into the potential benefits of dingoes in keeping fox and feral cat numbers down, thereby reducing the extinction rate of native animals.

Finally, I would like to mention the issue of outback roads. The committee heard from local residents about the challenge of outback roads and the need for improved road maintenance techniques. The arid lands board has been working closely with local landholders to build up expertise in road grading, to improve the long-term condition of outback roads.

The committee has recently met with both the Minister for Environment and Conservation and the Minister for Transport to discuss these issues. With the exception of designated highways, outback roads passing through pastoral lease land fall under the responsibility of the pastoral board. High visitation rates, compounded with prolonged and repeated wet weather in the region, have caused more damage than usual to these routes and there are insufficient resources to maintain them properly.

The committee has recommended a new strategy to ensure public access routes are better funded, either through responsibility being handed back to the department of transport or through funding for pastorialists to undertake—

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: Pastoralists!

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY: I am very glad that your little mind is amused. It does actually make me happy that you are over there sniping while someone is trying to talk. If you only looked after the people of the outback as much as we do, you may have been in power at the moment. So, just sit there and suffer me giving this report.

There is also potential for mining companies to become more involved. I commend the members of the committee: Presiding Member the Hon. Steph Key, Mr Geoff Brock MP, Mrs Robyn Geraghty MP, Mr Lee Odenwalder MP, Mr Don Pegler MP, Mr Dan van Holst Pellekaan MP, the Hon. Robert Brokenshire MLC and the Hon. John Dawkins MLC. Finally, I thank the committee staff for their assistance. I commend this report to the chamber.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS (16:33): I rise to support the motion and to concur with the words of my colleague the Hon. Russell Wortley. I will preface my remarks by saying that the next time we go to the Coober Pedy region I hope that the Hon. Mr Wortley is more observant as he walks around the mine shafts in that part of the world.

I will be brief in supporting the Hon. Mr Wortley's motion. I have made some remarks about the trip that we made to the arid lands, or should I say 'trips', because the first one that we planned was aborted because of wet weather and cloud that limited our ability to fly to the places that we were supposed to fly to. That meant that the costs that were expended on that first trip did overflow onto the completion of the trip, and that has compounded some of the pressures that the Hon. Mr Wortley referred to as far as funding for the committee to do its work. I might speak more on that briefly in a few moments.

I have spoken before in a couple of other motions we have dealt with in this house about the benefits of that trip. Certainly, we were delighted to spend some time in Coober Pedy with the district council; at the Prominent Hill mine, as the Hon. Mr Wortley reminded me, looking at the remarkable mound springs; and also around Lake Eyre South and associated pastoral areas, some of which are owned by BHP and some by the Aboriginal community.

The Hon. Mr Wortley also mentioned the flight from William Creek across Lake Eyre to the mouth of Cooper Creek, and then back over the lake to the mouth of the Neales River and the Peake River. It was an extraordinary experience because we hear a great deal about the amount of water coming into the Lake Eyre system from Queensland, but I think for the first time in many years there was a large amount of water flowing into Lake Eyre from the Peake and the Neales rivers, and it was an extraordinary experience to fly over that system and to see what can happen in that area.

The other thing I remember well from that trip has been referred to by the Hon. Mr Wortley and that was our meeting in Roxby Downs with the Outback Lakes group of cattle producers who, despite extraordinarily tough times, when they have had few or no cattle on their properties, got together to market themselves as a brand of cattle producers, and I commend them for that. We were privileged to meet with them after their normal regular meeting, given that some of them had come from many hundreds of kilometres to meet in Roxby Downs

One of the significant things they raised was the condition of roads in the outback and the very small number of crews that work across that vast network of roads across South Australia. In recent times, we have seen pictures in the media of the state of those roads, and many of those cattle producers, now they have cattle in tremendous order, as you would know, sir, are having great difficulty in getting them to market because they cannot get the trucks in or out of their properties. So, it is an issue I think we need to look at further.

I know the member for Stuart, who is a member of the Natural Resources Committee, recently went to Birdsville and had meetings with the Diamantina Shire Council, who are concerned that the network of roads in South Australia leading to Birdsville is not of a suitable standard, which limits their access to southern markets. I think it makes sense for South Australia to look at the fact that that country in south-west Queensland is as closely situated to Adelaide as it is to Brisbane, and in many senses why would we limit the opportunities for them to market their cattle to South Australia and for South Australians to go there in a tourism capacity? I hope that the government takes notice of the recommendation in the committee's report about the state of outback roads.

In conclusion, I want to make reference to the fact that the area for the South Australian Arid Lands Natural Resources Management Board is supposed to be based on catchments, and so a significant area of the pastoral region of the state, being the North East Pastoral district, is actually not included in the arid lands board: because of supposed catchment boundaries, it is actually in the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin Natural Resources Management Board.

I think people like yourself, sir, and others who have spent some time in that north-east pastoral area would recognise that the amount of water that flows from that area into the Murray-Darling Basin is absolutely minimal, and I think that that part of the state has so much more in common with the remainder of the Arid Lands NRM Board that it should be annexed to that board.

I have made that clear in the committee hearings to the Chief Executive of DENR, and I hope that that might be taken on board. The previous presiding member of the Arid Lands NRM Board, Mr Reed, as mentioned by the Hon. Mr Wortley, was also of the view that the arid lands board would be a much better place for that north-east pastoral area to be included in.

In winding up, I do say to the council that I take on board the comments from the Hon. Mr Wortley about the ability of this committee to have the resources to travel widely. The committee is charged with having oversight of the activities of all of the NRM boards. We need the ability to go out and see what they are doing and that means a lot of travel. It is also a large committee with nine members, so that will add to the cost of doing that, but I think that there are some other committees that do not have the necessity to travel as much as the Natural Resources Committee does. Having said those words, I am pleased to support the motion.

Motion carried.

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