Dr WOODRUFF question to PREMIER, Mr ROCKLIFF
This week your Environment minister talked up the private sector’s role in protecting critical swift parrot habitat, an important action identified in the new National Recovery Plan for the Swift Parrot. The recovery plan identifies native forest logging as a key risk to the future of the species. It proposes new formal reserves like national parks to protect its habitat. Yesterday’s State of the Environment Report also identified the impact of forestry on threatened fauna and terrestrial native birds and also recommended expanding the formal reserve network. With the State of the Environment Report highlighting the dire consequences of government inaction, apathy and anti‑science decisions, will you commit to ending native forest logging and burning of critical habitat on public lands and protect that land in new formal reserves?
ANSWER
Honourable Speaker, I thank the member for her question. No, I will not commit to that. The swift parrot recovery is a priority for the Tasmanian government, accepting the State of the Environment Report, and as I said, we will be doing our due diligence over the next while. We have committed $1 million over four years to support swift parrot conservation and a further $8 million over four years in our 2030 Strong Plan for Tasmania’s Threatened Species Fund, which will help species such as the swift parrot. We are working collaboratively on planning tools and activities that protect and restore the species’ habitat and identify and mitigate threats.
We are also committed to a national approach when it comes to these matters across jurisdictions to manage threats to swift parrots throughout their range. The new National Recovery Plan for the Swift Parrot that the Tasmanian government has agreed to jointly with Victoria, Queensland and the Commonwealth was released at the end of April this year and will be an important resource to guide coordinated future activity and to improve the population trajectory of the species. I commend the minister – who is in the Chamber – for the announcement the other day as well. It is also about balance and ensuring we get the natural resource management right.
Members interjecting.
The SPEAKER – Leader and Deputy Leader of the Greens, the Premier has answered this question so interjections are inappropriate.
Mr ROCKLIFF – It is about getting the balance right. It is about ensuring we can have continuous improvement in our resource-based industries, which we have. I can point to our farmers, our marine farmers, aquaculture, our forestry industry, our mining industry, where there has been enormous continuous improvement over the course of many decades, and that will continue, as you would expect it to do.
It is about supporting and protecting the environment, valuing our natural resources and our natural environment, and it enhances and builds on our strong reputation as a clean and natural brand, but also our strong reputation which brings people to Tasmania. We are mindful, of course, of the State of the Environment Report, based on continuous improvement when it comes to our natural resource management and there will be a response in due course.
SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION
Dr WOODRUFF – A supplementary question, Speaker?
The SPEAKER – I will hear the supplementary question.
Dr WOODRUFF – From the Premier’s comments about the industries that the government supports, can the Premier confirm if there are any environmental harms that would stop the productivity of industry?
The SPEAKER – The time for asking the supplementary has expired. Had the Premier just said ‘no’ and sat down, there would be no basis for a supplementary but I do believe it comes out of the answer. We use the federal rules in the absence of there being a framework for the new supplementary question model, and that is that if the Premier answers and there is a question that comes out of that answer, that would be an appropriate supplementary. Had you just said ‘no’ and sat down, there would not have been one. Premier, I will call you briefly to answer the question on the boundaries as to where you would seek to intervene, which I think probably you have covered a little bit.
Mr ROCKLIFF – I thank the member for the supplementary. I believe I have answered it with a balance and continuous improvement that all our resource-based industries have undergone very diligently over the last number of decades.
Dr Woodruff – Where is that?
The SPEAKER – Leader of the Greens.
Mr ROCKLIFF – When I think of the improvements in the north-west coast to industry, where we used to drive past Tioxide on the left going to Burnie and on the right was the ‘Red Sea’. I cannot even believe that happened back in the 1940s or 50s, whenever it was, but it did. It is about continuous improvement.
Mr Bayley – The industry is not there anymore.
The SPEAKER – The Premier will not invite interjections and the Deputy Leader of the Greens will not –
Members interjecting.
The SPEAKER – If the Leader of the Greens wants to be here at the end of the MPI today she probably needs to cease the consistent interjecting we have had.
Mr ROCKLIFF – It is about industry working with its natural resources, supporting the environment and sustainability of industry and natural resources.
The SPEAKER – The Premier’s time for answering the supplementary has expired.
