THE Pastoral Board has been thrown a lifeline and looks set to be saved from the scrapheap after the Lower House successfully passed amendments to the Statutes Amendment (Boards and Committees - Abolition and Reform) Bill last week - but it may need to make some improvements to its operation in order to appease its supporters and constituents.
While the bill still needs to pass through the Upper House, the amendments have been welcomed by the Opposition and pastoral industry.
Three other groups - the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, South Australian Tourism Commission Board and Health Performance Council - have also been removed from the list of 107 boards and committees which were set to be abolished by the Weatherill government in September.
The Opposition has agreed to support the passage of the government's bill through parliament with the accepted amendments.
Member for Stuart Dan van Holst Pellekaan said he welcomed the decision by the government to agree to the Liberal Party's proposed amendments, and pointed out that prior to their acceptance, he had several "very good" meetings with Environment Minister Ian Hunter about possible ways of having pastoralists "fairly represented to government".
"The key thing for me was that, while in my view the Pastoral Board is not perfect, it was completely unacceptable to remove it and replace it with nothing," he said.
"It's very positive that it has been saved, but I also think we have the opportunity - while this issue is fresh in everybody's minds - to consider various proposals to improve the operation of the Pastoral Board."
Mr van Holst Pellekaan said he would like to see the board being "more proactive" with regards to representing pastoralists to the government, as well as in addressing areas of concern between pastoralists, such as boundary fence disputes or wild dog control.
"Government has the enforcement authority - they're the lessee - but the Pastoral Board could be far more proactive in regard to positive involvement in dispute resolution before it even gets to the stage of government needing to enforce regulations," he said.
The primary focus of the Pastoral Board and the government should be to support viable businesses on pastoral land and ensure they were environmentally responsible, as opposed to the reverse scenario.
"If we didn't have responsible pastoralists across all of outback SA, we would very quickly have an environmental nightmare in our outback areas," he said.
"We need sustainable pastoral businesses across all of outback SA for the protection of the environment."