Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, while we acknowledge that this bill is, in part, administrative and tidying up in nature, we do not support it. The Greens do not support this bill because it has the potential to increase habitat loss and fragmentation across our forest landscape. Also, it disempowers regional communities.
The member for McIntyre talked about ‘reducing green tape’. I always wonder what people mean when they use that term. Do they mean the Environmental Management and Pollution Control Act? Do they mean the act that establishes the Environment Protection Authority as a statutory authority? Perhaps they mean the Nature Conservation Act, which is the act that allows for the establishment and management of reserves. What can be described as ‘green tape’ is what has been decided by a previous parliament to be a necessary or desirable legislative response to the need to protect the environment.
It is a fundamental human right to have access to a clean and healthy environment. How privileged are we down here? We breathe the cleanest air in the world. Our soils are largely healthy. Our rivers are in trouble. When you look at what is happening to waterways right across the state as a result of intensified agriculture, irrigation schemes, hydro schemes and the like, the Greens will always argue that you need to have robust environmental protection laws in place.
I hear the argument that landowners are entitled to do what they want on their land, but it is like the right to free speech. It is not an unfettered right, and that is why governments, for example, to various degrees of success, will put in some restraints on land clearing because it is recognised that there is a public good in making sure that you have representative landscapes, healthy ecosystems and habitats that can support the myriad of species that are not human.
This fact sheet for this bill says it is a red tape reduction bill. That is rubbish language to have in a government fact sheet or in a second reading speech. I have been hearing this language in this parliament ever since the Liberals came to government. In fact, as members will know, the Liberals enacted or established a red tape reduction commissioner. How ridiculous.
Mr Edmunds – Does not reply to emails either.
Ms O’CONNOR – Does not reply to emails.
Mr Edmunds – Not from when I was a councilor.
Ms O’CONNOR – Too tangled up in red tape, possibly. I do not know. You always have to be wary when government says it is slashing red or green tape because it could mean the weakening of necessary legislation and regulations – that could place people, property or the natural environment at risk.
If you want to look at the consequences of unfettered deregulation, one of the most grim and tragic examples is Grenfell Tower in London, that terrible tragedy where a whole housing complex, a large building, caught fire because the building industry in the UK had been so massively deregulated under a stated red tape reduction mission on the part of government. That is a free-for-all that failed to protect people.
Dozens of people died in Grenfell Tower. Let us just be a bit careful when government talks about slashing red and green tape, because invariably that is done on the part of private interests.
I note that this amendment bill removes the requirement to go to Executive Council to have a private timber reserve declared and, again, one less layer of transparency, removing the compensation provisions for refused private timber reserve applications. Tick, good, but it says here in the fact sheet: ‘Providing for a more streamlined application process for minor boundary extensions to private timber reserves’. This is code for excluding the affected public and members of the community from raising an objection to a boundary extension to a private timber reserve. It potentially is very disempowering to affected regional communities not to be able to have that capacity to raise an objection to an extension of the boundary increasing the size of a private timber reserve.
Is it not a shame we are not having discussions about, for example, a private carbon reserve where a landowner is incentivised and encouraged to protect the carbon stores on their land?
We are among the very privileged Tasmanians who have a second place and it sits on the contiguous edge of the Tasman Forest at Nubeena. When I resigned from parliament last year, and I was not sure if I would be successful in running for Hobart, I thought I might become a carbon farmer because we have an enormous carbon reserve on our 30 acres at Nubeena, which I regard as extraordinarily precious. There are giant blue gums there. We have swifties come through. All manner of bird life, rosellas, wedge-tailed eagles, goshawks, little pardolotes and that is all part of an ecological mosaic which is increasingly rare and threatened and precious. Is it not a shame we are not having a discussion about a private biodiversity reserve where the Commonwealth government steps up and supports landowners to protect the intact ecosystems on their property?
Every northern member and every person who drives past the Midlands Epping Forest can see a fragment of something from a lost time. It is what the Midlands would have been like before the arrival of the Europeans. It is an extraordinarily precious small patch of forest. It is on private land where some of our most significant and important landscapes and habitats are, which places on landowners a special obligation as custodians because we are all ultimately just passing through.
Would it not be better that we left the world a better place for our brief time on it? That can be in whatever endeavour we choose in our lives, but to make it for public good or for the good of the Earth and the life that it sustains. However, we are not having conversations about private timber reserves or private biodiversity reserves or even covenants, which this government has largely walked away from, where landowners are encouraged and incentivised to place a covenant over important landscape and habitats on their properties.
We are having a conversation today about private timber reserves and we are very concerned about the bypassing of public consultation requirements. As the Environmental Defenders Office points out in its submission to the draft bill, it is a fundamental human right to have access to a clean and healthy environment.
The EDO in its submission, says it is particularly concerned by the proposal to diminish the already limited opportunities for the community to be notified about, object to or appeal against boundary extensions to existing private timber reserves. The EDO recommends not supporting these provisions and points out that currently, if a person wishes to amend the boundaries of an existing private timber reserve, those changes must proceed through the act; the same process for making, assessing and approving an application for a private timber reserve. This includes the public notification of the application and an opportunity for prescribed persons – defined as local or state authorities, a person who has a legal or equitable interest in the land or the timber to be harvested on the land, adjoining landowners or those landowners within 100 metres of the proposed reserve – to object before the Forest Practices Authority determination on whether to approve or refuse the application.
We are dealing with an amendment to allow the owners of existing private timber reserves to extend their boundaries by 10 per cent in area or 40 hectares and, providing the boundaries are not within 50 metres of neighbouring land, without completing the public notification of or objections phases under the act. These extensions are referred to minor boundary extensions under the bill but when you are dealing with fragmented and threatened or endangered habitat, 40 hectares is a fair chunk of land. The risk that we face here is the death by 1000 cuts risk, the sliding baseline where, just this little piece of land, just this 40 hectares, just that 10 hectares over there. Before you know it, you end up with a landscape that looks like most of the Midlands today, which is a denuded landscape, particularly as you go up through the part of the Midlands where – and it is extraordinarily haunting and beautiful in its way – the tiers start rising up on your left and there are all the farm lands in there. I often get a bit depressed, looking at those sick and stricken trees, lonely and dying in those paddocks and that is degradation on private land. It is unfair to ask farmers and landowners to do that repair work on their own. There will be members here who have visited Connorville (ok) with Roderic O’Connor(ok) and what an incredible custodian of that land Roderic is. He undertook some work, it probably goes back 10 or 15 years, at least. It is so impressive. Roderic has created forests on his property, but he was talking about the costs of doing that kind of work. It is huge – particularly when you are dealing with feral deer that were coming in and stripping the saplings he had planted. It requires extra fencing. The costs go on and on.
Similarly, with that beautiful little forest created by Julian von Bibra as you head up the Midlands near Ross. It is so delightful to drive past that because it is one landowner’s really generous and significant contribution to landscape repair – creating a forest and protecting the river. The waterway that runs through there provides habitat, and provides people who drive past with a sense of solace that some landowners take very seriously their custodianship and responsibility to protect and repair. We could have this approach replicated across the island because business as usual is not working. We have to get serious about not only protecting our carbon stores, but drawing down carbon out of the atmosphere. Countries all over the world are going to have to do this and do it at pace.
I have plenty of problems with the Chinese government, but once they make their mind up about something, it gets done. And there have been vast areas of forest created in China that have had a measurable and positive effect on the climate. The problem is because we are so addicted to fossil fuels, we now have the Amazon burning like it never has before. The Congo is burning. The Siberian forests are burning. The task we have is doubly or triply as hard. It might feel like we are just a little island – what can we do?
Well, we have got an extraordinary carbon store here on this island and we have a capacity to increase its size. You do not do that by felling native forest. You cannot. It is completely counterintuitive and unscientific to think you can improve your emissions profile by continuing to allow for native forest logging. Forestry Tasmania never tells the truth about the emissions that come from native forest logging; there is your first emissions loss and then the massive burning of what is left on the forest floor. But we see it here. We see it here each autumn when those clear blue skies are tainted by the forestry burns in the south of the state that are coming up from the southern forests and the Derwent Valley, massively carbon-emitting. I understand that the logging on private land is not anywhere near the same scale, but it is still significant.
As I was saying, the EDO believes the changes in this bill are inconsistent with the United Nations recognition of a human right to a healthy environment. Last year, the EDO says the United Nations recognised that access to a safe and healthy environment is a human right. Australia voted in favour of that resolution, which is interesting, because we have not yet had the courage as a nation or as a state to enact a human rights act and stronger human protections which, in a contemporary sense, if they were best practice, would recognise the human right to a healthy environment. But it is good Australia voted in favour of this resolution. You cannot just cast a vote in an international forum and then come home and continue to practise business as usual. Particularly, I might say, it is the Labor Party on native forest logging that has been the biggest obstacle to modernising the way we approach forestry in this state and in this country; going right back to the Keating government, the regional forest agreements, which have done nothing to protect native species. In fact, they have driven them closer to extinction by providing a carve-out for native forest logging in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – shamefully, a carve-out.
The submission from BirdLife Tasmania similarly raises concerns about habitat fragmentation. BirdLife Australia and BirdLife Tasmania hold serious concerns that the proposed legislative changes in the draft bill could lead to significant incremental and cumulative environmental impacts on native bird habitat and reduced opportunities for public scrutiny. Birdlife says: [tbc 11.52]
We are concerned that the proposed amendments may inadvertently facilitate greater incremental and cumulative negative environmental impacts, including the minor boundary extension proposed…
By the draft bill. It was a 50 hectare extension, which has now been bumped down to 40. It may seem trivial, but when viewed together, it is a clear example of the death by a thousand cuts of remnant native habitat.
Threatened connectivity across landscapes and habitat buffers that currently exist between remnant vegetation and operational private timber reserves, with impacts on a scale extending beyond 100 metres of reserve boundaries. Retaining remnant native forests and connectivity for biodiversity remains a conservation priority.
It certainly should.
Ms Rattray – Did that go to everyone, member? I have just looked and I did not receive that.
Ms O’CONNOR – The submission?
Ms Rattray – It went to the department.
Ms O’CONNOR – It went to Private Forests Tasmania on 11 July last year.
Mrs Hiscutt – I can inform members it was taken into consideration with the development of this bill.
Ms O’CONNOR – Yes, I can see that because initially, the boundary extension was limited to 50 hectares and now it is 40, but the core fragmentation concerns remain. BirdLife Tasmania is also very concerned about restricting the right to object to prescribed persons, which means that there is no potential for objection from anyone concerned or affected in a broader landscape context. It also talks about a concern about Private Forests Tasmania’s capacity to examine matters relating to the conservation of native birds in their habitat by removing – and I am not sure how the government responded to this – the explicit reference to flora, fauna, and landforms and care of the environment on private forest lands. The recommendations from BirdLife are:
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That objections to private timber reserves can be made by any member of the public and not only prescribed persons.
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That the draft bill is amended to include a limit on the number of occasions an operator can make a minor boundary extension, (and that recommendation was not accepted by government) and that it retains 6(1)(j) of the Private Forests Act 1994.
We sought to amend this bill downstairs. Our forests and climate spokesperson and Leader, Dr Rosalie Woodruff, moved a number of amendments which were not supported. We have amendments to:
- Reduce the maximum percentage that a minor boundary extension can apply to from 10 per cent to five per cent.
- Limit a minor boundary extension to once per private timber reserve.
- Amend the Forest Practices Act 1985 to allow for any person to lodge an objection to the declaration of land as a private timber reserve.
When we move into the committee, we can have further discussions about those amendments. In terms of some of the core facts, when we look at the private forest estate, the information I have is that 20 per cent of terrestrial forests on the island are privately owned. This makes it an extraordinarily precious natural – I do not like using the word resource in relation to forests, or assets. I think they are hard, dry economic terms that do not capture the complexity and the beauty and the significance of our forests, but more than a quarter of the forests on this island are on private land.
Members will be aware that my former honourable colleague from the other place, Mr John Tucker, who I have a lot of time for and do stay in touch with from time to time, is the custodian of one of the most significant parcels of land on the east coast and in the north‑east. It contains a vast complexity of EPBC-listed species and significant habitats. It is a very important habitat for swift parrots. I know that Mr Tucker is now quite resigned to not being able to clear that land. I would not say he is cranky about it in any way.
Ms Rattray – He takes it in his stride?
Ms O’CONNOR – He does. The law is the law. The EPBC Act is the EPBC Act. When I have talked to him about it – and it has been an evolving conversation over a couple of years – in his own funny way, I think Mr Tucker is really proud that his family, his dad, protected that.
Ms Rattray – If we are not verbalising him.
Mrs Hiscutt – Careful that you do not verbalise him.
Ms O’CONNOR – I am sure I have at some level, but I have tried to accurately reflect our conversations about this land.
The thing is, if we are to expect private landowners to sacrifice the capacity to use land because there are laws in place – and rightly so – to prevent environmental degradation or the loss of species, then there has to be some mechanism for compensating, or for the government to purchase significant landscapes like that. We will be moving our amendments in the Committee stage of the bill. I point members to the recently released report called Blueprint to Repair Australia’s Landscapes and it is a national case for a 30‑year investment in a healthy, productive and resilient Australia from the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. There is a good summary of their findings and recommendations, and their vision for what we can do in an article in The Conversation on 24 July this year. I will read from some of it:
The condition of Australia’s environment continues to decline. Many Australians wonder if it’s possible to reverse this depressing trajectory – and our landmark assessment released today shows the answer is yes.
Our report, launched today by the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, demonstrates how repairing Australia’s landscapes is not only achievable and affordable, it’s in the national interest.
Using the best available science and expert advice, we identified 24 actions worth A$7.3 billion each year over 30 years, which could repair much of the past two centuries of degradation.
I will pause there for a moment. The amount of $7.3 billion definitely sounds like a lot of money, and it is, of course. But, we are living in a country where hundreds of millions of dollars over the decades have been donated to the major parties by, for example, fossil fuel interests, which are accelerating the degradation of our landscape and loss of species. As the Wentworth Group points out, this is actually an investment in our future and should not be viewed as a cost. We have got one of the worst – if not the worst, I have not checked lately – rates of species extinction in the world, on a continent, in a country which has native species like no other.
If we allow ourselves to believe, that we cannot, for example, make the koala go extinct, we are deluding ourselves, because through New South Wales right now, and in Queensland, large significant tracts of koala habitat are being cleared with the approval, and sometimes not, of government. It is a bit like when the Tasmanian devil was first in so much trouble through the devil facial tumour disease. An animal that we had all assumed was always going to be part of the Tasmanian landscape and identity was pushed to the point of being critically endangered under the EPBC Act. Thank you, to the scientists and specialists who are helping to pull that species back from the brink. But the koala is in trouble now.
Mrs Hiscutt – Through you, Mr President, I do not want to call a Standing Order 100 on the member. I would like to see them get back to the bill. Can I just consider, because there are no koalas in Tasmania –
Ms O’CONNOR – I am on the bill.
Mrs Hiscutt – I was going to say you might want to consider putting a notice of motion on the notice paper to discuss these things at another time.
Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you, Leader. I am on the bill. I am talking about the exact things that this sort of amendment bill – do you want to make a ruling, Mr President?
Mr PRESIDENT – During second reading. It is broad.
Ms O’CONNOR – That is right.
Mr PRESIDENT – We have had, this week, some quite broad contributions from other members. Keep it related to the bill.
Ms Rattray – About trees.
Ms O’CONNOR – That is right. Thank you for you very wise ruling, Mr President. I will proceed.
Ms Rattray – Through you, Mr President, I did not think my contribution was very broad at all. I thought it was fairly concise.
Mr PRESIDENT – No names, no pack drill. We tend to allow broad second reading contributions.
Ms O’CONNOR – I think that members should hear about the work of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. The more we listen to scientists, the better laws we will make. So, the case for repair put by the Wentworth Group is this: Australia’s population is projected to grow to 37 million by the year 2052. Earth’s population will reach 10 billion in the same period. Global food demand will increase and competition for land will intensify. As a friend of mine’s father always said, in relation to land, they are not making any more of it. The Wentworth Group argues –
Ms Rattray – That was my dad, who said that.
Ms O’CONNOR – Was it? He said it too, yes? The Wentworth Group says climate change makes the environmental repair task more pressing. The Australian continent has already warmed almost 1.5 degrees Celsius since records began. We have experienced shifts in rainfall patterns, droughts, bushfires, flooding and more. Extreme weather is predicted to become even more frequent and severe.
About half of Australia’s land surface has been significantly modified since European settlement and at least 19 ecosystems are collapsing. They are not just in a spot of bother; they are collapsing and these are the ecosystems that we rely on. If your view of the world is anthropomorphic, these are the ecosystems that human beings rely on for survival. These are the ecosystems that our food producers rely on to produce the food that feeds this country and is exported around the world.
It is in our national and economic interest to arrest this catastrophic collapse of ecosystems caused, I might say, by incredible human arrogance where we think we are above it all and we think we can exist on this planet taking whatever we want and unfortunately, as a result of necrocapitalism, we have gone from a society that has created a civilization to when you step back and you have a look at the Earth and what we have done to it looks like an infestation.
So, let us do better. Let us not enact legislation or amendments that accelerate that death by a thousand cuts and that ecosystem collapse we are seeing right across the country and the world. The Wentworth Group observes they are collapsing due to climate change and other pressures all caused by human beings and the capacity of agricultural landscapes to maintain productivity has significantly declined, and they are becoming less able to support native species and ecosystems.
Now, of course, as a consequence, those landscapes are becoming less able to support food production. We are already seeing wine growers from interstate bring grapes that you could grow, for example, in the northern agricultural lands of Victoria and in New South Wales down to Tasmania to start new wine varieties here, because our climate is warming and you can only go so far south.
So if we are serious about arresting the decline of nature and if we are serious about being able to look our kids in the eyes and say we worked in our lives to leave this place better, then we have to be very careful with this sort of legislation where it is just another little snickety-snick, you know, it is just another 10 per cent more of your private land that you can log without objections from your neighbours.
We have to stop this. If you go up to the site where they were going to put the Westbury prison, that beautiful reserve is intact and unique forest habitat that is absolutely full of birds. When you walk through that, the birdsong is very uplifting and it has been extensively scientifically studied by local biologist, Sarah Lloyd, who has received an Order of Australia for her scientific work. When you stand and look around that little forest and listen to the experts in that kind of landscape, it is just a tiny fragment of what was there before. Thank goodness that absolute brain burp of the former Premier, Peter Gutwein, to stick a prison on that site went the way of so many of his ideas. I hope that applies to the stadium as well but, at this stage, the Westbury reserve, which should be part of our formal reserve estate, is safe from the northern prison, which is a very good thing.
It was one little win for nature because, if there is one thing we know, just like the war on women, the war on nature is going very well. The Greens are in here and we know we do not have a monopoly on caring. There are many good people in our parliament who care. We are here to help chart a different course that is to the benefit of all our people and all the life on this island and to our children because when we protect and repair nature, we give young people hope because it is taking an action to arrest decline. It is taking an action that shows the light to a better future. That is what young people need; they need us to give them hope by doing things differently.
