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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-11-01 Daily Xml
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Natural Resources Management Levy

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (15:15): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Water and the River Murray a question about the NRM water levy increases.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: The government's NRM water levy frequently asked questions fact sheet, which has the 'Government of South Australia' and still the piping shrike on the bottom, leads the reader to conclude that the South Australian Murray-Darling NRM Board was ultimately responsible for the decision to raise the NRM levy. This decision, the sheet claims, was made by the board after a process was undertaken to test the majority opinion of the wider community. These 15,000 opinions, we learn, were gathered using a variety of tools but we do not know what the majority were as the fact sheet does not list them.

All we are told is that amongst these tools, some stakeholders were consulted, an online chat group discussion page was used (that's a very scientific way of doing it) and a panel was formed consisting of 50 randomly selected individuals whose opinion swayed the board. My questions to the minister are:

1. Why doesn't the government tell the truth on these information sheets, as they are calling them information sheets not misinformation sheets?

2. Why doesn't the government tell the residents of the South Australian Murray-Darling NRM Board that 300 FTEs at $22,000 each for corporate services is a hit from the state government instruction to the NRM board of about $6 million, and on top of that, $6 million going into Treasury? Why doesn't the government actually tell the people that the government is, in a shonky way, ripping the money out of them?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (15:17): I thank the honourable member for one of his last questions in this place. I must warn him that when going off to the commonwealth parliament and the Senate, don't try and ask questions like this and misrepresent the people you are asking questions of, as you will be slapped down pretty quickly.

This is the cheapest form of standing up and asking a question based on absolute misinformation, and completely confusing fact with a fantasy world that the honourable member creates for himself in his own mind. 'Rob world' might be very good for Family First but it is not good enough here. The fact is, and he answered the question pretty much in his own explanatory remarks when he said that, frankly, the board was responsible for making this choice. Of course they are, as all the boards are.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Well, I'm sorry, that is exactly what they are. They put in their reports to the parliament's NRM committee and they are endorsed.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: We have members opposite making up fictitious statements. It is up to the NRM boards to make determinations—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! Please allow the minister to answer.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: —about their income and their expenditure; that's what it is all about. That is why we are returning control back to local communities and determining through consultation processes, as the Hon. Mr Brokenshire alluded to but actually didn't go into much detail about, because the local communities contact the NRM boards through their consultation programs and tell them what they want. They tell them what services they want or they tell them they want reductions.

As the honourable member said, the NRM board for the Murray-Darling Basin area determined, in consultation with their local communities, that the services being provided were so esteemed and deemed so worthy by local communities that they were prepared to pay more for them. That's the outcome. When they had explained to their communities what the NRM board does and the services that are provided to their local communities by the NRM board, the community said to the NRM board, 'We want you to provide these services and continue to provide these services, and we are happy to pay a little bit extra.'

So, that's what the NRM board did. It was their determination to reduce the amount of services provided and to continue to provide those very important services that the community asked them to provide. That was a determination of the NRM board. They feel very confident that they have consulted their community extensively. They feel very confident in the fact that the community told them what services they wanted the NRM board to continue to provide and they were happy to provide funding to that end.

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