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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-12-01 Daily Xml
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Water Licences

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (15:29): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Climate Change, the River Murray and so on and so forth a question regarding water licence levies.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: I declare my interest and my family's interest as farmers and irrigators before explaining the rest of my question. Farmers across the state, particularly irrigators, are becoming more and more concerned about the outrageous cost of water levies to be able to produce food in South Australia. In the South Australian Dairy Farmer Association newsletter of 24 November 2015 they talk about NRM water licence levies. They say that earlier this year the rural community was angry about the emergency services levy (and they still are), but the recently announced increases in water planning charges, commonly called cost recovery, have united rural South Australia to a new level of frustration.

Farmers, like the rest of the community, are prepared to pay fair and reasonable fees and charges for government services, but in this case there has been little transparency and the farmers believe they are paying well over the odds and that they are victims of government revenue raising. The article goes on to say that there is one way to resolve the situation and that is through an independent review. If the government and the NRM boards that have been ordered by the government to raise the additional money have nothing to fear, they should welcome a call for a review.

Former premier, the Hon. Rob Kerin, in his Primary Producers SA report refers to the inconsistent approach by the state government, on the one hand seeing the opportunity for agriculture to grow the economy but on the other imposing charges that will see investment in agribusiness sadly go interstate. In fact, this is so important, involving significant extra costs for farmers, that all irrigation industries are currently working on coming together under the PPSA banner to have the strength of a united stand on the issue.

My question to the minister is a simple one: will the minister agree to an absolutely independent review and, if he does agree to the absolutely independent review, will he then take notice this time of the independent review rather than the citizens' jury he put up in the South-East, which said that governments should pay more for maintenance on the drainage scheme? Because it did not suit him, he ignored it. This time, will he agree to an independent review and listen to what it says?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (15:32): I thank the honourable member for his most important question, and particularly for the very respectful, cordial and humble manner in which he asked it. I think it reflects well on him and on the way he conducts himself in this chamber. I will give him an answer in a similar vein.

Very briefly I will remind him of a previous answer I gave in this place. The government is committed to delivering on the NWI commitment we made, the National Water Initiative signed back in 2010-11, to cost recovery targets for water planning and management activities. As I said in the previous answer, we have shielded the farming community from this cost recovery for at least the last five years and the last five budgets, in ways that are very evident when you compare costs of water levies in this state with New South Wales and Victoria, for example. I will briefly go over that again, but it is on the Hansard record, so I will not belabour the point.

It is very important that there is a cost signal sent in terms of water management, and that is what we are doing. We are only going to recover something like $6 million to $7 million out of the roughly $40 million my department spends in terms of water planning and management. If you compare the current water levy in the South-East (or the Limestone Coast) for 2015-16, it is $2.67 per megalitre. An obvious comparison point is groundwater charges in New South Wales. The majority of these New South Wales charges range from to $5.92 per megalitre to $6.95 per megalitre.

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: It is not irrelevant at all. This is what the cost recovery targets are delivering for irrigators.

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire: I'm not interested.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: No, the honourable member is not interested in facts, he is not ever interested in facts. The facts are that the cost in the South-East is $2.67 per megalitre. In New South Wales you would be paying $5.92 to $6.95 per megalitre. In a similar vein, the South Australian Murray Darling Basin NRM region: the cost you pay for a megalitre in New South Wales and Victoria is $10.51, rising to $11.05, and in South Australia it is $5.63—more than half.

So, the facts do not stand with Mr Brokenshire and his arguments; the facts stand with the government. We are asking for a modest cost recovery and a contribution to all the water and science management planning that goes into this area. We think that is fair.

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