Ms BADGER (Lyons) – Deputy Speaker, there is an impending decision on the future of one of Tasmania’s most magnificent natural and richest cultural landscapes, Takayna. Any day, the federal Environment minister, Murray Watt, is expected to hand down his decision on MMG’s proposed toxic tailing dam at McKimmie Creek – 285 hectares of Takayna’s ancient forest will be destroyed for the toxic dam. Critical habitat will be desecrated for the Tasmanian masked owl, the endangered azure kingfisher, Tasmanian devils and other animals that have found nowhere else on this planet outside of Tasmania, all in the clasp of a climate biodiversity crisis. No serious environment minister could approve such senseless destruction. It would be ecocide.
Flooding masked owl breeding territory with toxic waste can be avoided. There are alternatives to the McKimmie Creek site. Outside Takayna near the Bluestone Mines Renison [checked] tin mine, a much bigger dam is being built and that could take all MMG’s waste. MMG should have already built an onsite paste fill plant that would be consistent with global best practice tailing dams management for underground mines. An onsite paste fill plant would benefit the long-term future of the Rosebery mine and reduce environmental impacts. It is not as though MMG cannot afford the alternative plans. After all, our state would require a 40 per cent increase in mining royalties to come into line with other states across the country. For 19 years MMG has been contemplating a paste fill plant for Rosebery and it is time that they got on with it.
There is absolutely no sensible rationale for minister Watt to approve the demolition of this extraordinary patch of Takayna when there are better achievable alternatives to the proposed toxic tailings dam.
Takayna is under further pressure from mining with the exploration lease over the Meredith Range, EPA 1266 on the Mining Resources Tasmania website, for interested companies to apply. The Meredith Range has a stand of some of the oldest Huon pines on the planet. These already came under threat in the summer’s fires. With all the resources deployed to save them, why again threaten them with mining? They should be protected from all threats.
Takayna holds cultural significance to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community. It holds rich tourism opportunities for the west and north-west and it is a place of infinite inspiration. It is environmentally irreplaceable. It is beyond time that the Tarkine was protected in perpetuity as a national park and awarded overdue World Heritage recognition.
Last week I had the privilege of visiting a Sentinel in the Styx Valley. I walked around towering eucalypts, by lichen lace myrtles under ancient ferns and by streams. I listened to birds including a wedge-tailed eagle and pardalotes. This was in TN62G, which is imminently threatened by logging, testament by the various police who visited with Forestry Tasmania and a similar cavalry showed up there today, not to arrest anyone, not to move anyone on, just to scope out peaceful protesters. A TN62G is a classic example of why Matt Kean’s advice calling for a cease of old-growth logging and not native forest logging is out of touch with the reality of climate change. TN62G does not meet old-growth thresholds, but it is an ancient ecosystem sequestering carbon, providing habitat and filtering water. Evidence of this forest’s age was the size of the giant tangled ferns. I am sure many people in this place have seen the ABC coverage recently of the fern trade in Tasmania.
What the frankly frightening National Climate Risk assessment clearly articulated is the role of Australia, and indeed Tasmania’s natural environments, in stabilising the global carbon cycle. But carbon sinks, like forests, are under threat from climate change, from repeat extreme fires, lost wildlife habitat and carbon storage. Why are we knowingly accelerating that destruction by continuing native forest logging. If we are going to mitigate the worst of global warming and just slow biodiversity loss, it is pretty simple. The science is clear. We must end native forest logging, and this government can make that decision right now. It can transition forestry workers into other employment now. Why has it even been considering renegotiating 2027 contracts when we know what the risks are going to be. It is pretty clear in the national risk assessment report on the risks to industry as well. Let us be fair to the workers and transition them now.
We can’t stop the risk of further accelerating global warming by continuing logging and burning our precious few remaining carbon sequestering forests. Now the science is unequivocally clear. How many more reports and reviews are we going to wait for before we make the inevitable decision? The time is now. We must save Tasmania’s forests. We owe it to everyone else in this country and indeed the world.
