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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-05-03 Daily Xml
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Seafood Industry

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:18): I hope our guests here today are not looking at us as model examples of how to behave. With that, I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development a very important question about a cost-recovery policy review of South Australia's seafood industry.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: As we know, the South Australian government recently commenced an independent review of the current commercial seafood sector's cost-recovery policy model to ensure that it was flexible, sustainable and appropriate. For that to occur, the minister established an independent cost-recovery review panel to ensure that there was an objective process to provide advice for government consideration.

For the uninitiated, the objective of the cost-recovery policy introduced about 20 years ago was to try to ensure any costs associated with government services that arise are directly attributable to commercial fishing practices and are recovered partly from commercial licence holders through regulated licence fees. Those services include management policy, scientific monitoring and stock assessment, compliance and licensing.

In reality, several commercial fishing sectors in South Australia are currently operating in an environment costing commercial operators between 10 and 25 per cent of their revenue in licence costs and at the same time there's no comparable policy applicable to recreational fishing sector bodies.

Commercial fishing sectors are facing a grim future and this is heavily impacting their mental health. Indeed, the Premier has acknowledged the stress the sector is under when he wrote to key stakeholders last year following the government's election when reinforcing Labor's election commitment to reduce licence fees by 50 per cent in the northern and southern rock lobster fisheries. In that letter he said, and I quote:

I know your industry has been hit hard over the past few years. There is no doubt this has been a difficult time for the dedicated fishers and producers in your industry who work hard to export a first-class South Australian product to the world.

Furthermore, he wrote:

My government stands ready to continue to assist the industry with a further commitment to review the effectiveness of the current cost recovery model by considering the merits of different approaches to recovering fees for that service that could incorporate more flexibility into what are increasingly volatile markets.

My questions to the minister are:

1. Can the minister provide an update on the review process?

2. Is the review on schedule? If so, and in light of the Premier's election commitment, his letter to the industry and the continuing volatility of the sector, will the minister assure this council, and most importantly the sectors involved and impacted by cost-recovery policy, that the final report will be publicly released prior to any recommendations being finalised and going to cabinet for sign-off?

3. In the meantime, has consideration been given to an interim report being made publicly available so as to give stakeholders the opportunity to respond to the panel's recommendations?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (15:21): I thank the honourable member for her question and, indeed, her ongoing interest in the commercial fishing sector. I would like to emphasise again the premise of the cost-recovery approach, which is that South Australia's aquatic resources are owned by the state and managed by PIRSA on behalf of the South Australian community. They are a community resource and therefore costs associated with government services that arise as a result of commercial access to the resource are recovered from commercial licence holders through regulated licence fees.

The honourable member has already outlined the election commitment that we made in terms of having a review of the cost-recovery process and that was in contrast to what had previously happened in terms of things that were titled reviews, which looked more at the nuts and bolts implementation rather than necessarily the underlying premise of cost recovery.

We have two cost-recovery reviews going. One is looking at aquaculture and the other is looking at the remainder of the fisheries. I have not been advised that there are any delays in that. In fact, in my regular catchups with various stakeholders within the industries, they have indicated that they have had positive interactions with the panel that is undertaking the review. As I have mentioned in the past, the expectation is that I will release the recommendations later this year.

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