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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-11-30 Daily Xml
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BIOSECURITY COST RECOVERY

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins:

That the Environment, Resources and Development Committee investigate and report on the cost recovery policy of PIRSA in the form of a proposed biosecurity fee as it affects livestock owners, in particular—

1. A comparison of the services to be provided by the proposed biosecurity fee with those of the commonwealth government's biosecurity program;

2. A review of the proposed cost share formula as it affects different species;

3. Consideration of the appropriateness of the exemptions criteria (species types and number of animals kept); and

4. Any other matters the committee considers relevant.

(Continued from 9 November 2011.)

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS (20:15): I rise to give the government's response to Mr Dawkins' motion, which we oppose. The proposal to cost-recover a proportion of the Biosecurity SA animal health program was adopted by the Sustainable Budget Commission and approved by cabinet as a budget measure in September of 2010. The savings target for Biosecurity SA through both expenditure savings and cost recovery is $4.8 million by 2014-15, of which $4.1 million is cost recovery.

Approximately $1 million will be cost-recovered through mandatory property identification which came into force through regulation from 1 January 2011. An additional $1.7 million is proposed to be recovered from the industry for endemic and voluntary pest and disease programs funded under the Primary Industries Funding Schemes Act.

The proposed biosecurity fee will recover the remaining $1.4 million over three years through a fee on cattle, sheep, horse, alpaca, goat, deer, pig and poultry properties. Commercial apiarists who already pay a fee will have their fees increased. For a cattle or sheep property this represents an initial fee in 2012-13 of about $50, rising to an average of about $100 in 2014-15. For pig and poultry properties the average fee will be around $700 and $900 respectively, due to the small number of operators in these industries.

An exotic disease incursion into South Australia (like foot-and-mouth disease) would result in the complete loss of export markets for over 12 months and severe restrictions on interstate trade. A robust exotic disease surveillance and emergency preparedness program is an insurance against the risk of exotic diseases incursion through rapid detection and response to that threat should it occur.

The current SA animal health program is focused on areas of highest risk and greatest potential for exotic pests and diseases. The highest risk and greatest impact would be in the form of a foot-and-mouth disease incursion which, on a national scale, would have an economic impact for an outbreak of between $7 billion and $16 billion. An outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the UK in 2001, which highlighted significant deficiencies in their biosecurity system, resulted in millions of stock being destroyed and burnt, and a cost to the economy of about $A10 billion.

South Korea recently experienced a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak and, again, hundreds of thousands of stock, mainly cattle and pigs, were destroyed, burnt and buried. The cost to their economy is currently about $A3 billion. The South Australian government, through Biosecurity SA, is continuing to invest in biosecurity management and emergency response. However, the livestock industry as a major beneficiary should be paying a proportion of these costs, instead of other taxpayers.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (20:20): I rise to advise that Family First will support the Hon. John Dawkins' motion that the Environment, Resources and Development Committee investigate and report on the cost recovery policy of PIRSA in the form of a proposed biosecurity fee and look into the four key points that he has in the motion. I put on the public record that Family First actually opposes this outright and, whilst we believe there should be an opportunity given by the Hon. John Dawkins to refer this to the ERD, this is wrong. I am interested to hear what the government has just said then.

The new minister has nothing to do with this, but we do need the new minister to fix this problem. This full cost recovery nonsense that is endemic within this government has to stop, and somewhere the parliament needs to draw a line in the sand and say, 'Enough is absolutely enough.' Mr Will Zacharin is an interesting senior public servant. He, I understand, is determined to get this through one way or another on behalf of the government. I asked a series of questions in the chamber of the new minister and, again in fairness to new minister (I give her time), she said that she was taking these matters on board, and I think she has probably told her department to steady off a little bit, from what I hear.

I met with a key stakeholder group on this last week, from memory, and this group has been working on biosecurity issues for several years with what they thought was goodwill between the key stakeholder groups, Will Zacharin's Biosecurity SA and the government of South Australia. If we go back a step with PIC fees, I moved a disallowance of the regulation on those fees. Tactically I made a mistake on that because I should not have actually put it to a vote. When I put it to a vote I did not have the numbers on that occasion and those PIC fees came through. Those PIC fees are on top of the NLIS fees.

I can remember when Rory McEwen was the primary industries minister and the NLIS came in: of course farmers agreed that we should have national livestock identification schemes, property identification codes and biosecurity. But farmers are already paying this money: we are paying it with some of our state levies—in my own family situation, Dairy SA, through the SADA. We pay it every time we sell a bobby calf, we pay it when we sell a chopper cow, we pay it when we sell dairy beef, we pay it when we sell sheep. We pay, pay, pay and pay between state and national now.

Other states are not doing this, and certainly none of them, as I understand, are proposing cost recovery to this extent. I understand also that Mr Zacharin has indicated that he has to get the $4 million, which has just been confirmed by the Hon. Mr Kandelaars, but he knew that he may have a problem in this house. I flagged, when I spoke to the disallowance of the regulation on PIC, that if they did not do the right thing by farmers and show some fairness in this I would do, as one member of parliament, what I could do to encourage and alert my colleagues to see through what is going on here.

Knowing that, I understand Mr Zacharin then said, 'We'll fix this another way: we won't take the $4 million out of a direct biosecurity fee; we will actually, sleight of hand, up these other fees and charges (which we have just had confirmed by a government member on behalf of the government) and we will only have to get then about $1.4 million and, if worse comes to the worst, if we lose out on that we lose $1.4 million, but we've picked the rest up by default and we'll be able to get through that way.' This is how the government is travelling, and it is not on. We have to stand up. That is why I actually strongly support this motion.

With the NLIS, when I spoke to the Hon. Rory McEwen, I said, 'What's the charging structure in all this?' He said, 'Oh, well, you know, the nominal fee for the tags, and so on, and there's some declarations involved.' Well, there was a nominal fee initially for the tags. We have just had to order another heap of tags ourselves, and the bill was nearly $900 and heading north. You cannot even get a vendor declaration book for free anymore; you now have to pay for those. So, I highlight that and ask that the ERD Committee has a very close look at it because it is thin end of the wedge stuff.

Members have already heard that some of these smaller egg producers could be looking at $700 a year this year. This is just like the water charges, and it has to stop. We are totally putting agriculture in this state at risk by hitting it left, right and centre and making it uncompetitive. I for one have had enough. We will be doing everything we can to encourage support from our colleagues to bowl this over and send a message to the government to get on and manage for a change, instead of full cost recovery. The government has $15 billion worth of taxes now, why does it need this full cost recovery? That said, I know that SAFF and other key stockholders I have spoken to are keen to support as one plank in fighting this.

I commend the Hon. John Dawkins for putting up this motion, but I also say to the house that, having spoken to the key stakeholders, they are going to dig in on this, too. They have had enough. They have been let down. They went into this negotiation with Biosecurity SA and Mr Zacharin thinking that there was some goodwill there. This is double dipping; it is probably triple dipping. I hope that is all exposed in the inquiry.

I commend the motion, and I say to the government, 'Pull this now because you are going to end up embarrassing yourself.' You have a Premier starting to run around saying that he is a friendly person to the regions, unlike the former premier. At the same time he is running around doing this, we have the regions being done over by the government again. We have had enough, and we are going to take the fight to the government on this occasion.

The Hon. M. PARNELL (20:27): The Greens will be supporting this motion but not for the reasons the Hon. Rob Brokenshire has put forward. This motion calls for the Environment, Resources and Development Committee to investigate and report on the cost recovery policy of PIRSA, in the form of the proposed biosecurity fee.

The Greens' position is that we try to support genuine inquiries into genuine matters of public interest, and I think this is such a matter. The cost recovery policy of Primary Industries is controversial. We are not philosophically opposed to it. We think that there is a proper place for cost recovery, particularly when the beneficiary of a particular project is an identified sector of the community. So, we are not philosophically opposed to cost recovery, as the Hon. Rob Brokenshire is.

Our understanding of the current situation is that there is nothing particularly time-limited about this. We are not actually holding up any particular legislation or regulation. As a member of the Environment, Resources and Development Committee, and having had discussions informally with other members of that committee, I do not expect this would be a lengthy inquiry. We know that the Farmers Federation, for instance, has an interest, Horse SA has an interest, as do a few other groups as well. I think it should be possible for the committee to undertake a short, sharp and shiny inquiry into these fees and to report back to both houses of this parliament some time not too far into next year.

Whilst our support for this motion should not be seen by anyone as necessarily opposing what the government is trying to do, we do believe that some of these organisations, especially the Farmers Federation, deserve their day in court, and they deserve to be able to put their case to a committee of parliament. We will listen to them very carefully, and I hope that the final outcome will be in the interests of the state.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Dawkins to wrap up.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS (20:30): Thank you, Mr President, and I also thank the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars, the Hon. Robert Brokenshire and the Hon. Mark Parnell for their contribution. I also thank other members of the chamber who have indicated their support for this motion but did not wish to contribute.

Only today, the minister introduced a bill to amend the Livestock Act. For some time, that act had been expected to be the vehicle by which this proposed biosecurity fee would be brought into legislation. I do give the minister credit for making sure her office made me aware yesterday that the bill would not include this biosecurity fee. I also give her credit for telling this parliament, in response to my recent questions (and I am only paraphrasing the minister, so I will be careful), that there was more work to be done. As the new minister I do not think she was comfortable with where it was at the time. I know that she subsequently told me that she intends to re-examine the proposal with some significance. I welcome that.

I also believe very strongly in the role of standing committees in this parliament. I am a former member of the Environment, Resources and Development Committee, and I think this matter fits very well into its purview because, as I said in moving this motion, the animal husbandry sector does husband a great resource in this state. I think the development of animal industries is very important to the future of South Australia and, as I said, I think it is a relevant inquiry that, as the Hon. Mr Parnell said, could be done in a relatively short space of time.

The Hon. Mr Kandelaars reminded us that it was the Sustainable Budget Commission that told the state, in September 2010, some 14 or almost 15 months ago, that this was a measure that needed to be implemented. So some considerable time has gone by since then. It came to my attention a few weeks ago (I think this was just before the current minister came into the role) that PIRSA—and in saying PIRSA I think we should probably say Biosecurity SA, as one of its agencies—was committed to getting this through both houses before Christmas. I think a number of us thought that was very optimistic because no-one had actually seen the detail, despite the fact that the consultation—and I think some would question the level of that consultation—finished in early October.

There has been mention of the PIC fee. There was a significant difference to this proposed biosecurity fee. The PIC fee has been accepted by all the animal industry groups in South Australia—

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire interjecting:

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: The Hon. Mr Brokenshire says 'reluctantly'. I think the reality is that they generally saw a benefit in that, far different from the biosecurity fee. There is a significant difference, and this biosecurity fee as it is proposed, as it has been put out there, is not accepted by industry.

In conclusion, I take note of what the Hon. Mr Kandelaars said at some length about biosecurity risks, foot-and-mouth disease, and things that happened in Asia and other places. However, as someone who has come out of the sheep breeding sector, who has had a lot to do with the stud industry and many commercial breeders, and who knows quite a bit about the quality of people involved in animal husbandry across all the different species, I can say that I think the quality of animal husbandry in this state is almost second to none. There are always a few cowboys, always a few people who cut corners, but the quality of the people who breed and market animals and their products in this state is exceptional, and I think we should recognise that. With those words, I commend the motion to the council.

Motion carried.

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