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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-09-22 Daily Xml
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Western Mount Lofty Ranges Water Allocation Plan

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (15:24): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Environment and Climate Change some questions regarding a petition that I received about water levies in the Western Mount Lofty Ranges.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: There has been much debate about water levies per se across South Australia, particularly with the increases in water levies and also the fact that both the Eastern and Western Mount Lofty Ranges now have water levies for the first time, as of 1 July 2015. Today I received, and probably other members of parliament received, photocopies of a petition by a lot of people from the Fleurieu Peninsula in particular, and in that petition those petitioners say that they will (1) not be putting water meters on their dams and (2) that they will be refusing to pay the water levies.

My question therefore to the minister is: what action will the minister take if irrigators with new water levies or existing water levies prior to 1 July 2015 decide that they will not put water meters on their dams or bores, or that they will not pay the water levy as per their statement on the petition? What action will the minister take regarding this, or will he listen and reconsider these huge expenses that are now applying to irrigators across the state?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (15:26): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. There has been, I accept, quite a bit of recent media interest about water levies and licensing in the Mount Lofty Ranges, based, I would say, on some incorrect assumptions. I do not point to any individual in putting that information around, but let me now supply some facts to assist people in this matter.

Water resources in South Australia are, of course, finite and require management and monitoring to ensure they are sustainable into the future. The NRM water levy is a direct contribution to the cost of ensuring the sustainability of those water resources in the region for all users, including industry, farmers and, of course, the environment. I do not believe anyone would disagree that we need to have sustainable management of that most precious resource.

Until the 2015-16 water-use year, water licences within the Western Mount Lofty Ranges prescribed water resources area were exempt from the requirement to pay a water levy. In July 2015, a water allocation levy was introduced and raised for the 2015-16 water-use year for this area. The allocation levy is based on the right to take a volume of water (an allocation) as endorsed on a water licence and is not determined by usage.

The farmers in the Western Mount Lofty Ranges are, of course, very similar to those in other regions who currently do pay water levies. The levies are being paid in the Barossa, McLaren Vale, the Northern Adelaide Plains, the Western Mount Lofty Ranges, the Far North, the Musgrave and Southern basins, the Angas-Bremer, the River Murray, the Mallee, the Peake, Roby and Sherlock, the Marne Saunders, the Eastern Mount Lofty Ranges, the Clare Valley, the Lower Limestone Coast, Padthaway, Tatiara, Tintinara-Coonalpyn, and the Morambro Creek region, and also those now in the Western Mount Lofty Ranges, as the honourable member said in his question, are required to pay the levy also.

Anyone who received an account and is experiencing extreme financial hardship should contact the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources to discuss the possibility of a payment plan. As I said, it now falls due in the westerns that a levy is in place, as it is in all those other areas, where farmers right around the state have been paying the levy, knowing the services that they are paying for. I would be very hesitant as a member of parliament to encourage members of the community to disobey any laws or regulations that are currently in place. I think that would be giving people very, very bad advice.

The levy, of course, supports water planning and management costs across the region, and I think most farmers would understand that, in sharing a valuable resource fairly and equitably across the region, you need to have in place certain things, and these things are: development and implementation and ongoing monitoring of the region's water allocation plans; reducing the impact of leaky wells across the region, for example; working with farmers on the Northern Adelaide Plains on adaptations required as a result of climate change; trialling the use of remote telemetry to monitor groundwater levels, as we do for example in McLaren Vale; working with Dairy SA and farmers to improve management of dairy effluent; and increasing water monitoring to validate the science behind existing water allocation plans.

These are the sorts of things that the levies go towards: direct, important functions that our farming communities rely on for their day-to-day productivity of their farms and whatever it is they are producing. It is important, I think, that honourable members, when we are talking to communities, understand that basic service delivery so that we can tell them what, in fact, those levies are spent on.

I know, for example, some people in the media—again, I won't identify any individuals—have been conflating those water levies for use for other functions that the NRM boards fund through different funding mechanisms. One of those claims was made in this place, indeed, but certainly on the radio, about works being funded at the Patawalonga, and there were allegations that the water levies were being utilised to pay for those works—not correct.

Before that was raised in the public again, I understand that Mr Chris Daniels, the presiding member of the NRM board, sent an email to the office of the member concerned providing the facts and information packs to hand out to attendees at a public meeting. I understand that that information was provided to attendees to ensure that they had the correct information before them.

People are well aware, I think, that the NRM water levy is not used to fund any works related to the Patawalonga now—I haven't heard that allegation recently—so that was a useful dissemination of facts, to let people know that, in fact, sometimes even things that are said on radio can be wrong. Having the facts at hand is a very useful way of informing our community about exactly what levy funding, for example, goes to fund.

As I said, information about development of plans is vitally important, but it also goes to science, knowledge and understanding of a water resource—understanding what is happening underground (which is not easy to see); understanding what happens in terms of seasonality to watercourses; and understanding, of course, what the local environment requires in terms of water. If you take all of the available water out of productive streams for irrigating purposes, you are going to have very negative impacts on that local environment and the ecology of the stream to the detriment of the farmers further downstream when they need to take water out of that resource for their own farming.

So, in fact, applying some equitable processes to the distribution of water resources is vitally important for people down catchment, and that is something that is often overlooked. When some members go on radio to talk about their concerns about these matters, they overlook the fact that not all farmers are created equal in terms of where they are located in the catchment system. Some of them are fully dependent on what happens upstream and, if we do not put in place proper processes to fairly distribute those resources through the environment to the community for recreational purposes, for example, and also to our irrigator communities, someone is going to miss out.

It is vitally important that honourable members understand that and understand what that funding is for and not go on the radio and to public meetings and put out information that is, shall we say, not as accurate as it otherwise could be.

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: You mean flag information?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Well, Mr President, I understand, in fact, that the Hon. Ms Lensink had a meeting with my departmental staff in my office this month. At that meeting, the department confirmed for her that they will be providing Ms Lensink with a breakdown of all those costs associated with water planning and management.

I really hope that she will use her influence (and it is substantial, I know) with her colleagues, perhaps one or two crossbenchers, and her colleagues in the other place also, to actually advise them that in South Australia these costs include supporting the water management requirements of the Natural Resources Management Act, including water licensing; compliance activities; science to support the development and management of water resources; development, review and amendment of the water allocation plans; and, of course, where necessary, debt recovery.

It is vitally important that members of our community understand where these levies go, what they fund and how they advantage them into the long-term future for sustainable use of that resource and productive industries.

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