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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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RIGHT TO FARM BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 28 March 2013.)

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (23:02): The government supports the right of farmers to have a level of certainty in the operation and management—

Members interjecting:

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. G.A. Kandelaars): The Hon. Russell Wortley has the call.

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY: The government supports the right of farmers to have a level of certainty in the operation and management of existing farming activities. The government believes, however, that this bill is not the appropriate mechanism to achieve this outcome. Elements of the bill are considered to have some merit, but the appropriate way to ensure the measures are implemented is in an effective and supported way through the expert panel's work to improve the state planning system. The government therefore does not support the bill at this time.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (23:03): I rise on behalf of the opposition to speak to the Hon. Robert Brokenshire's Right to Farm Bill. I indicate that the opposition has always supported the rights of farmers, and I guess it is in the context of existing land use. I just make a couple of observations, and we have seen it in the wind farm select committee and the debate on wind farms where one landowner has done something on his property that impacts on the neighbour's property.

I have always been of the long-held view that I should be able to do whatever I like on my property as long as it does not impact on the way that my neighbour goes about his or her daily business. So, we have often seen some conflict, and certainly we have seen that with the wind farm debate. It comes about when you have a change of land use, and I know that there are some concerns up in areas where grapes are often planted.

It has been raised with me by people who have lived on the periphery of the Barossa Valley where there has been a change of land use from broadacre agriculture to horticulture, yet the landowner who has not changed to horticulture and has not planted grapes is required then to have a 300-metre buffer zone, I think, for the use of certain herbicides. So the neighbour has changed land use, maybe to a higher value, but then they are required to have a buffer. It is the same for urban development. It is the Liberal Party's view that it should actually be the developer or the owner of the land on which there is a change of land use who should provide that buffer, rather than the existing landowner.

I am also reminded—and this is probably an ancillary activity to farming—that in my old home town of Bordertown houses were much cheaper on the north-eastern side of the local saleyards because of the smell every week of the sheep and cattle in the saleyards. Trucks would be—

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire: A beautiful smell.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: The Hon. Robert Brokenshire says 'a beautiful smell'. It is a smell that only a dairy farmer could love. Every week there would be noise, smell and occasionally a bit of dust. You would get residents who had bought a house because it was cheap, a good buy, who within a matter of weeks would complain and petition the council to put controls on the local saleyards. Often we see this when people move into a rural community. I have had it explained to me in McLaren Vale where small subdivisions have happened right next to a vineyard: new house owners complaining about grape harvesters and other machinery and activities that are happening on neighbouring properties.

We will go a step further than the government in the sense that we will support the Hon. Robert Brokenshire's bill, but on the basis that we think there does need to be a long hard look at the interface between farmers and other activities. We have heard the debate on Yorke Peninsula with mining and farming. The two have to coexist. This state has been built on agriculture and it has a significant mining past, so the two have to coexist. I know that it is the view of Primary Producers SA that those two activities have to coexist. In fact, every activity in South Australia has to coexist.

We will support the Hon. Robert Brokenshire's bill on the basis that we think we need to have a closer look at it. If we are fortunate enough to win government at the next election, it is something that I then, as the minister for agriculture, will have a close look at: how we can make sure that industries and different land uses coexist for the betterment of our community.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (23:07): I will try to be brief at this late hour that the Legislative Council is sitting again, compared to other houses. I thank the Hon. Russell Wortley for his contribution. He is a great local member, but I just do not understand what he is saying on behalf of the government, because the government is saying that it supports the right to farm but, in the next breath, it is saying that it cannot support my bill, which is a bill to protect the right to farm. I think the government is trying to have a quid each way and frankly does not genuinely want to support farmers. I also thank the shadow minister for agriculture, food and fisheries and Leader of the Opposition in this place, the Hon. David Ridgway, for his contribution.

I explained the intent of this bill during the second reading debate on 14 and 28 March last year—during 2012, the Year of the Farmer. I remind honourable members that a similar bill under my name passed this place on 18 November 2009, before the last state election.

One illustration of why we need right to farm is that when we do not have right to farm we get situations like we saw in the Barossa, where broadacre farmers are very frustrated about the character preservation legislation. I met with them, as I understand the Hon. Mr Darley and I think the Hon. Mr Ridgway did; certainly Mr Peter Treloar did. They would have had no reason to be concerned if we had good right to farm legislation. Indeed, Mr Jeff Kernich and his family were quoted in The Leader newspaper on 27 June 2012. He said that the preservation bill prevented him from upgrading his dairy farming operation at Greenock because he did not have right to farm protections.

I want to read from the New South Wales Greater Hume Shire Council's local government policy on right to farm. The policy states that they will not support action to interfere with legitimate agricultural use of land, including: logging and milling of timber; livestock feedlots; piggeries or poultry farming; dairies; dogs barking; noise from cattle or other livestock; intensive livestock waste disposal systems and ponds; burning of stubble; clearing and cultivation of land; growing crops including those that may produce aromas or pollens like canola or lucerne; bushfire hazard reduction burning and firebreaks; constructing dams and drains; fencing; using tractors, chainsaws, motorbikes, etc; pumping and irrigation; spraying herbicide and pesticide (including aerial spraying); animal husbandry practices, including castration and dehorning; driving livestock on roads; fodder production; construction of access roads and tracks; slashing and mowing vegetation; planting woodlots—and it goes on and on.

That is what this bill is about—protecting farmers from complaints about these activities on their farms. That New South Wales council has done great work but the state has to take the lead on this and not leave it to individual councils. Farmers need consistent application of these principles across the state—but has the government taken a lead here? The answer, sadly, is no.

I acknowledge that on 5 March 2005, Mr Don Page, National Party Minister for Local Government and Minister for the North Coast in the current O'Farrell Liberal New South Wales state government, tabled a private member's bill during the life of the former Labor government called the Protection of Agricultural Production (Right to Farm Bill) 2005 which, in part, is similar to my bill in that both require notices to be imposed on land purchasers about the rural land uses that happen around the land, and that then limits rights of complaint by that landholder in future about legitimate farming activities. To quote Mr Page on the defeat of the bill by the then Labor government, the now minister said in a Ballina publication:

Increasingly, we are finding more and more people in coastal areas in New South Wales and indeed in large regional centres wanting to go to rural areas to experience the pleasantries of a rural lifestyle, but then complain about the legitimate and legal activities that are occurring on the farm next door.

There was an interesting development in the USA this year: Missouri will now vote in elections on their latest right to farm bill in November 2014, a bill that amends their constitution to provide a guarantee to farm land. How good would it be to farm over there in Missouri where you have a government that is going to enshrine it in legislation and so to provide a guarantee to farm land which allows them to raise livestock, protects farmers from red tape, and includes guarantees of reasonable consumer prices?

They already have right to farm legislation but, if passed, Missouri will join North Dakota as the only states with constitutional guarantees for farming. Just as an aside, if you would like to google it and have a look at what is happening in North Dakota, it is possibly the richest state for economic growth and wealth of any state in the US. They are the only states with constitutional guarantees for farming.

In conclusion, we are falling behind. There was a lovely, glossy taxpayer-funded document No. 7 from the Premier this week on clean, green food production which was published to make people feel warm and fuzzy but this government will not even support the fundamental right to farm. What would have really marked 2012, the Australian Year of the Farmer—what would have really made farmers sit up and take notice—is if this state parliament had supported right to farm legislation.

Let's look at the Newspoll. The first ever Rural Pulse survey released on 15 May shows that the number one concern of farmers (at 76 per cent) was government regulations and farmer concern about right to farm. It is interesting to note that the same survey indicated that only 14 per cent of city people thought that farming was environmentally damaging. So 86 per cent of people do not see it that way—that is, they do not see it as environmentally damaging—so why are our farmers hit time and again with more red tape?

We need statewide right to farm legislation. Every North American state or province has a form of this legislation and some are now putting it in their constitutions. I urge the council to send a message to its farmers that they are valued and protected at law from nuisance complaints—nuisance in the legal sense and in a practical sense—and have this state's backing to press on doing their very good work and economically advancing South Australia into the future.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

Bill taken through committee without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (23:16): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

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