Member for MacKillop Mitch Williams has called on the Natural Resources Committee to use its power to demand the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources disclose a breakdown of the $40 million a year spent on water planning and management.
It comes as the state government seeks $3.5m in cost recovery in 2015-16 and $6.7m in 2016-17 through the NRM Boards – the majority coming from levypayers in the South East, Adelaide Mount Lofty Ranges and SA Murray-Darling Basin.
On Friday, Mr Williams gave evidence to the Parliamentary committee that while Water Minister Ian Hunter had invoked the cost recovery option of the National Water Initiative, he had “broken at least three rules” signed off by the federal and state governments.
It states the costs must be disclosed and an independent review conducted before any “cost recovery”.
Mr Williams was also concerned the figures had been agreed by the presiding members of the NRM Boards, rather than apportioned on ‘impactor pays’.
“Until the minister comes clean and demonstrates where the money is being spent, I will be suspicious he is using cross subsidisation across the three valleys,” he said. “Those costs, which can be fairly attributed to SE irrigators, such as a Water Allocation Plan, and operating licensing costs and compliance are fair enough, but that’s it.
“I’m not disputing the government is spending $40m on water planning and management costs, but I suspect the vast amount goes into managing the state’s River Murray system and the biggest beneficiaries of this are those in metropolitan Adelaide and other households from Keith to Ceduna.”
Primary Producers SA continues to push for an independent inquiry and has sent a letter to the Natural Resources Committee highlighting this.
“We have been waiting three months to get these details from DEWNR and their staff and have still not seen anything other than the total costs for each region,” PPSA NRM chair Fiona Rasheed said.
She says Mr Hunter’s response for them to discuss the costs with the NRM Boards is unacceptable because that detail is not available in their budgets.
In a statement Minister Hunter said he had given all interested stakeholders the chance to meet with their NRM Boards and DEWNR. “Their books and costs are open to you,” he said.