Ms BADGER (Lyons) – Honourable Speaker, I thank my fellow member for Lyons, Mr Di Falco, for bringing this on. I believe this is your first private member’s time, so well done on bringing something that is close to your heart and, indeed, close to everybody’s heart in this Chamber. I believe everybody concurs that we have to do more to control the invasive deer population in Tasmania. What the minister said is correct: this government has done a lot in terms of investing in various programs on controlling invasive deer. However, obviously, there is more we need to do.
Something of note this government has achieved, which it hasn’t done on other programs, is achieve the social buy‑in for the deer program. It has worked across a variety of sectors, from professional and recreational hunters through to your land managers, the Tasmanian Land Conservancy, big farm owners through the Midlands, the Invasive Species Council, the Bob Brown Foundation. The government found a middle ground that everybody was happy to continue working forward.
There is still much more the state government has to do and an awful lot more the federal government has to do in terms of helping fund the programs in the Tasmanian Wild Fallow Deer Management Plan, but also particularly in the World Heritage Area. That is not exclusively a state responsibility. The Australian Government is the state body, under UNESCO, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), to be protecting the cultural and heritage values of that land.
That social buy‑in achieved in the past few years by the Liberal government – and that’s a statement you’d rarely hear from me, is incredibly important and not something that is easy to build. However, it is something that is very easy to erode if you do not bring everybody in the community along with you when making changes and decisions, and having debates on something that has such a significant buy‑in.
I acknowledge in the motion that Mr Di Falco has put forward that, in terms of 2(a), the economic income hunting generates for Tasmania, that figure there is not exclusive for deer hunting. That’s more broadly recreational activities as well. I’m not 100 per cent sure what 2(b) is attempting to say. I believe there might be more than several regional Tasmanians relying on harvest meat, but I get the point that people do rely on it for their families.
In terms of how we are dealing with deer and comparing volunteer recreational hunters to the professionals, there was a study in Australia that compared ground‑based volunteer hunters to contract shooters. It found that the contracted shooters killed four times more Sambar deer per hour than volunteers did, noting that is not a Tasmanian‑based study. In the Gum Lagoon Conservation Park in South Australia, 65 recreational hunters over four days were only able to kill 44 deer. One professional shooter in a helicopter was able to kill 182 deer in four hours. A study in New Zealand found that environmental recovery times were up to twice as long when recreational hunting was used to control deer versus the aerial shooting. In Tasmania, a single professional shooter was able to cull as many wallabies as four recreational shooters. That’s the facts, that’s the science on the matter. That is what we have seen has happened elsewhere.
There is a role for recreational hunting in management, and it is as an assistant to the broader control programs we have. It is noted from various organisations that recreational hunting does support those programs. In smaller and inaccessible areas, we still need skilled recreational hunters to help on the ground, but we need the professional shooters, we need concentrated programs. That is what we need to be putting investment into in this state.
In the motion, 3(b) says:
To support recreational hunters as the primary method for deer management.
There is no precedent for that anywhere. The studies aren’t there to support that, so we can’t support the motion for that reason.
I note that Mr Di Falco has removed in his amendment 3(c), which was to maintain the deer status as partially protected. I congratulate Mr Di Falco for removing that because we know we had to. That was a recommendation in the Tasmanian State of the Environment report. It is important not just for the natural values. I have spoken about the TWWH, and the same applies for the national parks in terms of the damage we are seeing, not just in the Walls of Jerusalem and the Central Highlands area but also on the east coast. We are seeing increasing issues in the Douglas Apsley National Park, and we need a program set up there to help mitigate those issues.
I note the Seymour community group which had been restoring the wetlands down there, a restoration project that was volunteer‑run. They did such a good job that the area had been reclassified and protected as a conservation area 18 to 24 months ago. That area was trampled and partially destroyed by invasive deer.
What is incredibly concerning is 3(a):
To expand Sustainable Timber Tasmania land access to recreational hunting.
It is not lost on anyone here that the zone some of the Sustainable Timbers Tasmania land is in is problematic. There are big deer populations there. However, as the science and the studies from everywhere else show, just permitting more access for recreational hunting isn’t going to solve the issue. Where is the program for those areas? Where can we upscale it?
Sustainable Timbers has professional shooters. They employ people to do that kind of thing. What does opening that area up to recreational hunting mean? How does that impinge on the programs Sustainable Timbers already has in place? Also, what land specifically for Sustainable Timbers? It isn’t mentioned in this motion, and it’s not as simple as just saying open it up, because some of that area is for recreation, it is for bushwalking.
If we negotiated this motion last week holistically and in good faith, we wouldn’t be in this situation today where the community is scared. We are losing that social buy‑in that the government has brought because people are not sure what is happening and what it means. I will read part of an email from Janet Gatehouse, the Mayor of Sorell, a municipality in Lyons. I don’t have the original email on me, so I’m not sure if she has written this in her capacity as Mayor or if it is personal.
Mr Bayley – Professionally.
Ms BADGER – Professionally, as Mayor, thank you, Mr Bayley. She says:
The science is clear: recreational hunting does not remove enough deer to see meaningful reductions in populations. To reduce deer populations, more than 35-40 per cent of animals must be removed each year. Recreational hunting typically does not achieve these rates the landscape scale. Professional, coordinated and targeted control programs have proven to be far more effective and humane. Policies that prioritise hunting have failed to stem population growth and have allowed deer to spread into high‑conservation areas, including the Wilderness World Heritage Area.
She goes on:
Tasmania needs a well‑resourced, coordinated professional program with clear population targets, removal of legal protection of feral deer and strong leadership to protect farms, native species and regional communities.
She said:
Please stand with the science, primary industries, local communities and conservation experts by opposing this motion. [tbc]
That is what the Greens are going to have to do because it is not bringing the community along with us. We have to bring everybody along. This has raised the fear that, by stealth, it is going to open up public land for recreational hunting. If we want to have that conversation, it has to be with the community. There has to be community consultation. That all has to happen first. This is more about promoting hunting than it is about the removal of deer.
We need to consider carefully about that social buy‑in because, as I said, there isn’t any other issue, to be honest, on which this government has managed to achieve that. We should not be willing to erode that for something that isn’t fully scientifically based. It has had landholders reaching out to members today. It has had environmental groups reaching out. It has had mayors reaching out, and not just in that open letter either. Other mayors across the state, people who are recreational hunters themselves that have a stake in this, say it’s simply not enough.
I believe we can work collaboratively, and I acknowledge Mr Pearce’s work thus far. He is new in the role. He has been incredibly genuine. His office has been open if we want to collaborate on different things, and also if we want information. I think into the future there is an opportunity for all members to work collaboratively and to bring our communities along with us so that we can get a good outcome, get on top of invasive deer and protect what is special to Tasmania.
