Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am speaking against the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Public Health and Safety) Amendment Bill 2010, as I believe it to be unnecessary. I understand that the member for Cowper has been concerned for some time about the fruit bats around his area, in particular in Maclean, and that he had asked for some assistance from the state government of New South Wales to move this particular colony somewhere else—to relocate and reorganise them in some other way. And I can see why he is worried, why he wants the change, why this issue would have become an issue within his electorate and why people would be concerned. Bats can be a bit intrusive into one’s life in northern New South Wales and in Queensland. They can really affect your lifestyle.

However, I understand that this bill is not needed, as the minister’s delegate decided on 28 October 2010 that New South Wales could proceed with dispersal of grey headed flying foxes from the Maclean High School without further assessment if it was undertaken in a particular manner. The decision includes conditions to ensure that there is no significant impact on the species.

I am aware that fruit bats can become a problem in residential areas. I believe that the Maclean High School grounds are close to the Maclean Rainforest Reserve, which is an area regularly used as a maternity camp and transit stop for migrating grey headed and black flying foxes. These colonies can at times number up to 20,000 individuals. So I can see the difficulties. However, this is a typical example of natural wildlife coming into conflict with human habitation. Settling here has obviously been the pattern of the fruit bats for thousands of years. We come along in the last shower, to put it one way, and build a school close by and expect the fruit bats to respect that. That is not possible; life does not work like that.

It makes me wonder sometimes how much work has been done on the environmental impact, from all sides, of city and suburban developments in some of these areas. These would need to be done to ensure a safe and healthy environment for our children. There are issues here. Obviously, someone messed up in the planning some time ago. These animals have obviously been around for some time. The reserve in the middle of this area is probably the only area that fits in with the migration of these fruit bats as they travel to and fro.

There are probably four solutions to this problem: move the school out of the range of the fruit bats’ natural habitat; move the bats, but they will probably return at some point in the future; move the reserve—cut it down—and replant it in a similar place somewhere else, although I do not know how practical that is; or work out ways to coexist, like not growing fruit trees in gardens around the urban area and using other ways to remove the food sources of the fruit bats so that they shift and move on. We have seen what happens on occasions when nature runs into conflict with humans in other areas. We see that when we travel at different times of the year on our roads, with wildlife coming into conflict with our transport systems. Then there is farming and, in my state of Tasmania, forestry. Wildlife can come into contact with our lifestyles, our transport systems and our economic processes. We have to find ways to live together. We need to look after this.

Up until recently, the fruit bats had been winning. However, I understand that the bats are not present this school year and there may be an option to sort out a strategy coming into winter when the bats are absent or without young. I wish people well on that. I hope that the problem can be solved. (Time expired)

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