Ms BADGER (Lyons) – Honourable Deputy Speaker, I rise this evening to talk about the value of our night skies. Certainly socially, I would say that their value is astronomically far greater than that of a stadium. In fact, as a concept, protecting our dark skies, not only here in Lutruwita/Tasmania, but right across the nation, possibly indeed the world, is so well embraced by communities. Often when we see new proposals like that come up, there is opposition; there is a bit of uncertainty and people are not really sure what it means.
This is so well embraced. People are incredibly enthusiastic to get on board and do what they can, where they can, which is why I’m so excited about everything that the Tasmanian communities are doing. I hope that the Liberal government will step up and play their part as well.
Last week in Melbourne there was the Valuing Dark Skies Conference, which I was very privileged to attend. It was run by the Australasian Dark Sky Alliance. Over 200 people gathered in Melbourne to discuss how we could collectively solve light pollution. I am sure at some point we will see a light pollution policy for the stadium, because that is also really important there on the waterfront.
I want to acknowledge that at the conference TasPorts did get a notable mention for the lighting policy that they have in place. Often, what we do not consider is light pollution’s impact on various species such as turtles, where, if there is a big port, they can struggle to know where they are going and to get to their normal migratory places. We heard a lot about that very underappreciated species that live very commonly and are incredibly diverse, but lights have huge impacts on where they go, as they do for numerous other flora and fauna species.
We also need to consider what we can control outside of the atmosphere. This is what we are seeing in our cities, and it is easy to say, ‘Just turn the lights off,’ but as we are seeing an increase of satellite activity, we also have to consider what that is doing in terms of pollution.
It is quite funny when we think about if we pollute this planet, we will just go to Mars or something like that, but actually, even when we are launching satellites now, it has to be done at a very specific time because there is so much pollution in our atmosphere circling that it cannot even get out. We are kind of ruining that far extreme exit point as well.
There are quite a few events coming up across the state celebrating dark skies, and as it comes into winter, it is a little bit easier to do because it gets darker earlier. The Mount Roland Land Care Group up at Gowrie Park are going to be having an event on 5 April. There is also a specific talk on bats there, so that is exciting. On 7 May, Dark Sky Tasmania is holding an event at Shambles Brewery.
To give everyone an overarching understanding of the work that they are doing, a lot here in Hobart but right across Tasmania to raise this awareness – Wellington Park are looking at becoming a dark sky area or place; on the Tasman Peninsula, the council is doing an extraordinary amount of work. They are currently doing light monitoring to protect their area. Up in Ross, that community is looking at becoming a protected dark sky area as well, and this is really important because all of these communities are early adapters, so they are going to be front and centre when we are talking about nature tourism for our state moving forward.
You will note all of these are communities and urban areas. Where is our protection in our national parks and our Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area? This government could very simply, and they should very simply – I absolutely encourage them to put it in their next budget – make sure that there is a Southwest Dark Sky Sanctuary to protect south-west sky country. This is an area that is already protected from human-induced light pollution through building because it is a National Park and Wilderness World Heritage Area. This will keep us aligned; this will help us with our competitive advantage with New Zealand in terms of our nature-based tourism positioning for the world. New Zealand already has five dark sky sanctuaries, let alone all of their other dark sky places. We have to get on with it. The communities are leading the way and we need the government to step up and do the exact same thing.
I would like to leave everyone with a quote from Gavin Pretor-Pinney. He says:
It’s easy to forget that you live in the sky, not beneath it but within it.
That is absolutely true. We so often forget that actually, our dark skies are very much a part – they are an environment that we need to protect and they are something that we all live in collectively every day. It is time that this government stepped up and did its part in protecting our dark skies.
The House adjourned at 7.19 p.m.
