NATURAL RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT — 2019–20 STATE BUDGET
638. Hon DIANE EVERS to the Minister for Regional Development:
I
refer to the $6.5 million per annum allocated to natural resource management
activities in the 2019–20 state budget.
(1) Is the
minister aware that this amount is significantly lower than historical state
government funding levels—for example, $30 million in 2009?
(2) Given that
the scope and impact of environmental problems has been increasing and is
likely to continue to do so, why has this level of funding not been increased
in this budget?
(3) What steps is
the state government taking to address the difficulties of keeping volunteers
engaged in NRM activities when federal contributions are limited and often
based on a reductionist, rather than holistic, decision-making model?
(4) Given we have
another three years of Liberal control of federal funds, what is this state
government doing to ensure that land conservation district committees are able
to carry on addressing environmental issues?
Hon
ALANNAH MacTIERNAN replied:
I thank the member for the question.
(1)–(4) First
of all, I need to correct the member: the sum she referred to is regional
natural resource management, and we have in the budget, across the forward
estimates, around $7.6 million per annum. It is not just $6.5 million; that is
just the regional allocation. In total, we are committing $7.75 million.
In respect of the $30 million figure
in 2009 that the member has chosen, we have not been able to discover why we
saw that huge spike that year and to what extent it may have consisted of
federal funding. But we can tell the member that that was totally and utterly
atypical, and the funding the following year was less than $5 million.
Generally speaking, funding levels continued at around $6 million. We made a very
clear election commitment to provide NRM funding to guarantee at least $6.5
million, but we have added to that and made it $7.75 million.
We certainly cannot fill the gap
created by the federal government; we think it is completely reprehensible that
it has moved away from funding its share. Given our current budget constraints,
we cannot fill that gap, but we are trying to get the next rounds moved forward
very quickly so we can keep our pipeline of projects going. Indeed, the
applications for next year's funding round closed this month. We have a
series of small grants of between $1 000 and $35 000 for projects of a duration
of up to 12 months—really focusing on smaller projects—and we
have large grants, intended to be more strategic, that can last for up to three
years. We think we are certainly more than meeting our election commitment in
this area.