Natural Resources Management Boards

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA (14:48): I ask the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation a question about the program Caring for our Country. Will the minister update the council on the importance of the federal Caring for our Country funding for the vital work undertaken by the state's NRM boards?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (14:48): I am very pleased and thankful for the honourable member's most important question on this very important topic. Our environment and our natural resources are one of our state's greatest assets. We all carry responsibility for caring for them and for ensuring that we leave them in good condition for coming generations. But it is often the eight natural resources management boards who plan and carry out important local projects in the end and who bear the responsibility for them.

The federally funded Caring for our Country program, introduced in its current form in 2008, plays a very important role in the work and projects carried out by our NRM boards. It is an initiative that funds environmental management of our natural resources by our supporting communities, our farming communities and other land managers to protect Australia's natural environment and sustainability. In South Australia in the first five years of the Caring for our Country program, from 2008 to 2013, the eight regional NRM boards received a total of $88 million of funding. This is a substantial amount of money and provided much needed complementary funding for a range of projects.

It was previously projected that the next five years of Caring for our Country funding allocated to our state would be about $85 million. That money would have built upon existing state-based funding and enabled many great projects to get off the ground. Unfortunately, it now seems that the federal Abbott Liberal government's cuts announced in last week's federal budget may put many future projects at risk. The Australian government has announced its plans to merge Caring for our Country and Landcare to create a single national landcare program.

Measures that avoid duplication and ensure funding goes directly to benefit communities and regions are admirable—they are admirable policy decisions—but if experience is anything to go by the primary motivation of this federal Liberal government would be to cut funding for environmental programs. The Liberal government in Canberra has already abolished the Climate Commission, the Environmental Defender's Office has been defunded and the Australian Renewable Energy Authority. We are still waiting on more detail regarding how this new program is intended to function, but what is clear is that the Australian government will make substantial savings over five years, savings in the order of $483.8 million. This will be achieved primarily through a reduction in uncommitted funding for future grant rounds.

A significant reduction in the program will have considerable implications for natural resource management across our state. As you would be aware, the regional NRM boards in South Australia are funded through a variety of sources, including NRM levies, state recurrent funding, the state NRM program as well as the Caring for our Country program. The Australian government is a significant source of funds for all the regional boards in South Australia, but in particular those boards with limited capacity to raise funds through the imposition of the NRM levy. By that I mean, perhaps, Kangaroo Island, AW and SAAL (South Australian arid lands).

In fact, Australian government funding provides over 50 per cent of total income to four of the regional NRM boards in South Australia. This funding allows individual NRM boards, in conjunction with community and local authorities, to develop projects and initiatives that are designed specifically to address local issues. The projects are varied and include ways of tackling problems around water resources, animal and plant control, biodiversity, climate change and culture. These projects tend to be practically designed and often provide tangible activities and outcomes that are visible to the wider community. People have the opportunity to be involved and informed and to become part of the solution.

For example, the Alinytjara Wilurara NRM board is focusing on increased participation of Aboriginal people and resource management and linking community and culture to conservation. The Kangaroo Island NRM board is tackling water health and biodiversity, as well as pest management and eradication. These projects are underpinned and supported by capacity-building surveillance and a visitor education program, and they are just two examples.

As you can see, the types of projects undertaken through the Caring for our Country funding have the potential for a lasting positive impact on the environment and our communities. It would have extremely adverse impacts, however, on our regional communities if that funding was diminished. The future of such programs, as I said, are now in jeopardy and those who will suffer the most will be the future generations of our state, but particularly those in regional South Australia, unless we continue, as a state, as a parliament, to stand up for our regions, to stand up against the federal Liberal government's cuts.

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: You never have. You never have and you never will. Every other state Liberal government around the country is getting on board with the campaign against these cuts, but not you, not the Liberal Party of South Australia. You are the cheer squad for Tony Abbott's cuts.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: I rise on a point of order. Mr President, the minister needs to refer his remarks through you, sir, and not direct them at the opposition.

The PRESIDENT: And it would probably be appropriate for the minister to be able to give his answer without any interruption. The honourable minister.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Thank you, Mr President, I have been browbeaten by the Hon. Ms Lensink all week: shouting over the top of me, interjecting to defend Tony Abbott's cuts, and I take great pleasure in responding through you, sir, that the Liberal Party in South Australia formed the cheer squad, the only Liberal cheer squad in the country, for these bruising cuts of the federal Liberal government which will impact on South Australia's regions harshly. Get behind us. Stand up for your state for a change and attack these cuts for what they are: an impost on country South Australia.