STATE BARRIER FENCE — ESPERANCE EXTENSION
183. Hon COLIN de GRUSSA to the Minister for Agriculture and
Food:
I refer to the Esperance extension
of the state barrier fence.
(1) Since the
completion of the initial 63 kilometres of fence in April 2020, have any
additional sections of the fence been constructed?
(2) If no to (1), what has been the
cause of the delay?
(3) Have any
materials for the construction of the remaining sections of the fence been
procured; and, if so, how are they stored?
(4) Can the minister commit to a definitive time line
within which the remainder of the fence will be completed; and, if not, why
not?
Hon
ALANNAH MacTIERNAN replied:
I thank the member for the question.
I think he probably knows the answer because he has been following the issue
for some time.
(1)–(4) Our
inability to start the remainder of the project is because we are still undertaking
the Indigenous land use agreement negotiations, and I can understand that they
are taking a long time. There has been some impact
from COVID in that some of the group meetings had to be cancelled. We certainly
have looked at other ways that we might be able to do this. I presume
that the member has been contacted by the farmers on whose property the fencing
is stored. There is a view that 70 per cent of the remainder is on freehold
property, so we should be able to get on with it. My understanding is that only
around 25 per cent of the remainder is on freehold property and it is very
interspersed.
I
have certainly had a letter from Mr Neil Wandel about whether we can look at
having some arrangements whereby
those little bits that are there can be done separately while we are trying to
resolve the native title issues for the other areas. The advice from the
department initially was that that would be too expensive, but if we can
negotiate something, we are happy to do it.
On
the idea that somehow or other there is a problem with this fencing being out
in the weather, it is outside. Certainly,
the member can assure Mr Wandel that this is designed to be out in the weather.
It is our intention that it will be out in the weather for many, many
decades. It is galvanised and certainly from the pictures I have seen, it looks quite bright and shiny, so I
am not quite sure what the cause of concern is. It has taken much longer
—
Hon Colin de Grussa: Will you
table it?
Hon ALANNAH MacTIERNAN: I am
quite happy to table the photograph of Mr Wandel, who would like to get into Hansard!
[See paper 229.]
Hon ALANNAH MacTIERNAN: I understand
the frustration. Certainly, the ILUA negotiations are taking a long time. The
department is very focused on trying to bring those to a resolution, but there
are processes that are outside of our control.