South Australia’s new government has scrapped planned changes for the management of the state’s vast outback. 

SA’s newly-elected Labor government is moving the Pastoral Unit out of the Primary Industries portfolio and back to the Environment Department. It says this change will come alongside extra funding to prevent sheep and cattle stations from damaging the fragile country.

It is a reversal of the former Liberal government’s plans for South Australia's arid rangelands, which make up 42 per cent of the state and are primarily leased for sheep and cattle grazing. The previous administration wanted to pass a new Pastoral Act that granted graziers a lot more power, but it did not pass parliament before the election.

“The previous government, the Liberals, wanted to remove stocking rates, to have extremely long leases - up to 100-year leases - and also to not do on-ground assessment of the quality and condition of the land. All of that stops now,” SA’s new Environment Minister Susan Close says. 

Instead, the Pastoral Unit will be given an extra $1 million dollars to make sure it can undertake condition assessments of grazing land in a “timely way”. 

“These are lands that are precious, they're fragile and they are capable of primary production as long as they're looked after,” Ms Close said. 

“We'll work with pastoralists to make sure that happens.”

In another shift away from the direction of their Liberal predecessors, the Labor government plans to allow pastoral land to be used for conservation purposes.

“The last government raised a question mark about that. I don't think it is an issue, but I will find out and, if necessary, make some tweaks to ensure that's the case,” Ms Close said. 

“Otherwise, we need to work with pastoralists. We need to support the land that pastoralists depend on.”

The Nature Conservation Society of South Australia has welcomed the change in direction.