Bills

Pastoral Land Management and Conservation (Renewable Energy) Amendment Bill

Committee Stage

In committee.

(Continued from 5 June 2014.)

Clause 1.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: I want to put the position of Family First on the bill. We have considered the bill and, on this occasion, contrary to a lot of situations to do with pastoral land, opportunities for pastoralists and lack of support, we have not had any representation negatively from any of the pastoral sector. We understand that there may be an opportunity for some wind farms to be set up in those pastoral areas. We would have been keen to be briefed by the government as to what particular area they are looking at when it comes to renewable energy opportunities in the pastoral areas, but thus far I understand the government has not actually said what area it had requests from for this.

Suffice to say, given the problems with mining in prime agricultural areas like Yorke Peninsula and Eyre Peninsula, if there is mineral wealth in pastoral areas, possibly they can coexist a lot better up there than in the farming areas of South Australia and then, if they can have renewable energy to generate and drive the power sources for that mine, we believe that would be a sensible decision. With those few words, Family First will be supporting the government on the Pastoral Land Management and Conservation (Renewable Energy) Amendment Bill 2014.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.