Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you. That reminds me of a story that Walker Corporation still owes the State of Tasmania nearly three quarters of a million dollars for the Ralphs Bay POSS assessment. Hopefully we are not left with the same over the stadium’s POSS assessment – oh, that’s right, the state is the proponent.
Minister, I want to talk to you about the excellent work that was undertaken by the Tasmanian Planning Commission, and that is the state of the environment report. It is great to have the acting head of the commission here and, on behalf of the Greens, express our gratitude that this report is done. It would be good to understand the level of work that went into this, the process of engaging with government departments, if there is any difficulty in getting any information out of agencies and where to from here?
Mr ELLIS – Thanks, Ms O’Connor. Yes, I was pleased to table the state of the environment report in parliament. It has been a long time coming, and –
Ms O’CONNOR – Yes. Two statutory deadlines missed – you knew I was going to say that, but it’s true.
Mr ELLIS – Well, yes. A couple of months just to make sure that it was as good a document as it could be with some data consolidation and things like that. But yes, I acknowledge that it has been 2009 since the last one was done.
I appreciate the work of the commission. I also acknowledge the important role of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment contributing data and reviewing reports for 17 of the indicators, as well as providing input through the preparation of case studies and other feedback where appropriate. It is an important means of documenting baseline environmental data, trends and risks across Tasmania. It is a significant body of work. With that I will pass to Ms Hynes to give a bit of a sense of that work.
Ms HYNES – Thank you. When the commission receives a direction from the minister to prepare it, and by 30 June this year – and I will come to why we had that two month extension in a moment – we got to work straight away. We initiated a steering committee that was formed by three commissioners that form part of the commission membership. We employed a director, a state of the environment report, and we had other internal staff that assisted with that.
We worked very hard to establish a project plan to work with all government agencies that were relevant – it wasn’t just government agencies, of course. We went broad and wide, and all relevant organisations, including the university. A key part of the process was we contracted a team of six – or six teams, rather, of expert authors. All that information is in volume 2 of the state of the environment report. They were from private consulting firms and the University of Tasmania. They were the ones that investigated those appropriate environmental indicators under those six themes that are identified in the report.
Essentially, we went through a quality assurance process. The expert authors were chosen for their experience and their independence, and the work they have achieved in their professional lives to have that credibility. Part of that work was we leaned on them heavily to review the data and determine what was reliable, what wasn’t and why it wasn’t, and yes, to come up with – yes. I hope I have answered your question, or do you –
Ms O’CONNOR – Yes, you have, thank you. So, minister, on 16 of the 29 indicators in the report, there is evidence of environmental decline and some it is very significant. I understand this is not your sole area of responsibility, but we had a reasonably good exchange this morning over the threat of global heating. You would have read this report by now, minister. What do you think should happen to it from here?
Mr ELLIS – You are right, there are some climate change matters, there are some localised environmental matters as well, and it is important that we work through it. It is a significant document: over 600 pages. We are working through it at a whole‑of‑government level around the response. The Premier and his team in DPAC, as well as strongly supported by the secretary of NRE, to deliver the response to the report and its recommendations.
As you mentioned, there are a couple of matters that relate to me directly in terms of planning and fire management. More broadly, we are working through at a whole‑of‑government level so that we can adequately respond to it and provide the response to the recommendations for the community.
Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you, minister. So over the past decade what the report tells us is that decline has been fairly constant across a range of indicators. You are in Cabinet. Do you understand that business as usual would just continue that environmental decline, and five years from now there will be another state of the environment report that tells us a worse story if we don’t take it seriously now?
Mr ELLIS – There are some matters in the state of the environment report that are strongly within our control as a community in Tasmania to take action on. There are other matters that are broader and relating to global climate change, as you mentioned, as our warming –
Ms O’CONNOR – Yes, I 100 per cent get that, but it is about we can control.
Mr ELLIS – No, absolutely. The Premier has had a strong involvement, for example, with NRM and our natural resource management bodies in Tasmania, and looking for those really practical ways that we can address some of the challenges that we’ve got in managing our natural environment while also getting the balance right when it comes to jobs and the economy, which are important.
Ms O’CONNOR – We clearly haven’t got the balance right, though, have we? If you look at the indicators we just haven’t got the balance right, because the environment is in decline.
Mr ELLIS – As I mentioned, we’re working through the recommendations. We’ll have more of an update to provide to parliament and the community as we go through that. It is a whole-of-government piece of work, but –
Ms O’CONNOR – Back to the question, do you accept, as the report makes clear, that business as usual is not an option?
Mr ELLIS – We’ll continue to work through and we need to get the –
Ms O’CONNOR – You think business as usual is an option?
Mr ELLIS – We need to get the balance right when it comes to jobs and the economy –
Ms O’CONNOR – But we haven’t.
Mr ELLIS – and when it comes to our natural environment. Certainly, if you look at, say, some of the ways – some of the improving practices that we’re seeing in Tasmania in a whole range of different areas, there has been –
Ms O’CONNOR – Not many.
Mr ELLIS – some considerable success, which is encouraging. We also need to be investing in things like renewable energy generation, which I know is an area that we don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye on with some of the projects.
Ms O’CONNOR – I’m sure we’d agree on a lot more than we would disagree, except that putting 100 turbines on an internationally significant bird habitat is really destructive and there are plenty of better places to put turbines. I am disappointed not to hear you say that you accept business as usual is not an option, because it is so clear. If we can’t have government and ministers understanding that basic fact, we’re going to be looking at another state of the environment report in five or 10 years’ time and be totally depressed. We’ve got a short time in this job, Mr Ellis, all of us, and surely you would agree we need to do whatever we can to make the place better while we have the positions that we do.
Mr ELLIS – I appreciate the advice, Ms O’Connor, and –
Ms O’CONNOR – And you’ll ignore it.
Mr ELLIS – Well, no. I’ll just reiterate what I said before: this is an important body of work. It’s considerable analysis and as a government we –
Ms O’CONNOR – Tedious repetition.
Mr ELLIS – Well, you ask the same question, you’ll get the same answer.
Ms O’CONNOR – No, I didn’t get an answer.
Mr ELLIS – As a government we’re – well, we’re considering it, and it’s important that we get it right.
Ms O’CONNOR – Well, you’re not, clearly.
