Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Honourable Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about threatened species and particularly Threatened Species Day.
Last Sunday, 7 September, was National Threatened Species Day. This is a very Tasmanian day, not least because it marks the 1936 passing of the last thylacine in the Beaumaris Zoo, just a couple of kilometres from here. It’s a reminder that policy drives extinction. It was active policy by the Tasmanian government of the day that drove the thylacine to extinction. As a result, we now have a day, 7 September every year, to remember threatened species and advocate for additional work to protect them. It is critically important because species have never been under greater pressure.
A little personal reflection: I was also absolutely stoked on the weekend to witness the arrival of the first swift parrots in my neck of the woods. I saw a couple of pairs of swift parrots in the flowering blue gums of Taroona. There are only 500 of these left on the planet. It is a real privilege to see and hear these birds. You don’t often see them; you more often hear them. I did get a good look at a few of them, and it’s great to see them arriving back here. Of course, swift parrots are one of 600 threatened species here in Tasmania. There are 400‑odd plants and almost 200 animals. It’s really important that we take action to protect them.
Our migratory parrot species are under particular risk. We all know about the orange bellied parrot, the millions of dollars we now spend on the recovery plan for the orange bellied parrot, largely around captive breeding and release, and also nurturing the wild pairs that do make it back here. Recently, tragically, the blue winged parrot has been listed as an endangered species here in Tasmania. Habitat loss is a driver of that. Habitat loss is a driver of the decline of both those species, less so here in Tasmania, but certainly on the mainland where they over‑winter.
When it comes to the swift parrot, it is absolutely central to our responsibility to protect this species, because without Tasmanian forests, native forests, flowering blue gums, black gums and others, and nesting habitat, this species literally has nowhere to go in the summer. It is absolutely critical we protect their habitat. It is utterly unconscionable that Forestry Tasmania still has 8000‑odd hectares of swift parrot habitat in its logging area. That needs to change.
There are other policy decisions that are driving species to extinction, plant species included. It’s sometimes government decisions and even the Parks agency. The Parks agency, for example, has wanted to build a car park and visitor centre on the outskirts of Coles Bay, on really important habitat for threatened plant species, really important spaces for plant species and critically important. It is an absolute perversity for our Parks service to be proposing these kinds of developments on those kinds of properties.
In the marine environment, whether it is the Maugean skate or the red handfish, they are threatened by not only climate change and warming waters waters and the climate catastrophe that we’ve seen happen in South Australia over the last year, but of course salmon expansion and farming itself. We know the impacts. The science is clear around the Maugean skate. The experts have identified that getting fish farms out of Macquarie Harbour is one of the first and best things we can do to deal with saving the Maugean skate.
Of course, I wanted to use this moment to talk about the State of the Environment Report in this first Adjournment of the 52nd Parliament, because we’ve had the first one in 15 years. 2009 was the last one we had, and the government was dragged kicking and screaming to deliver this one, nine years overdue. It missed two legislated deadlines. The Tasmanian Planning Commission ran the process, and it was a really welcome input from experts, but it is really worrying. It is really disturbing that of the 29 indicators, 55 per cent are deteriorating; 21 per cent are stable; 27 per cent are improving; and 17 per cent are unknown.
It’s a really shocking indictment on the policy of government over successive governments, not only policy, but also funding. The report makes a number of different recommendations, including developing a long‑term vision for protecting Tasmania’s environment, but when it comes to species, a couple of really specific recommendations around increasing marine protected areas and increasing the terrestrial reserve estate. These are utterly critical for a species. Sadly, the government’s response to both of those issues has only noted the marine issue, and flagged that it’s really only interested in private land conservation on land.
The House adjourned at 7.13 p.m.
