South-East Coastal Lakes Project

Tuesday August 29, 2023

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (14:56): My question is to the Minister for the Environment. Can the minister provide an update on the South-East Coastal Lakes Project and when we can anticipate the consultation report to be finalised and provided to my community?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water) (14:56): Thank you very much for the question. As members may recall from the last time I was asked a question about this, this is a project that I inherited from the previous minister. Of course, I was happy to allow it to continue to have the consultation. I recall since then, between these two questions, there has been a bit of controversy about an organisation that was used to engage in some of that work. That was, of course, also arranged prior to my coming into office, but again I chose not to trouble any of the existing arrangements that I inherited in that case.

The consultation report is still some time off. I was reading a brief just on the weekend where they're looking at questions of native title that have yet to have been settled in a number of the locations, so just working out the extent to which it might be necessary to work through that before we do anything else. But I will make sure that the chamber and the individual member concerned are kept abreast of the timing as we get closer to working that through.

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