Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Hansard source

You did. And I have read some of the media clippings in Ipswich about the extent to which Mr Newman disagreed with Mr Neumann. I have seen that in print there.

What a threatened species listing means at the category of vulnerable is a few things. First of all it means that a plan needs to be put in place to try to get the numbers to recover—a recovery plan is to be put in place. We work very closely with the states on that. Certainly New South Wales, as far as I understand, is being completely cooperative in playing that role and they welcomed the decision when I took it. It also means that for development proposals the koala, if we are dealing with koala habitat, now needs to be taken into account. On the simplicity of the question: does that add an extra layer of bureaucracy? Yes, it does. But, let's face it; if we are not going to use threatened species legislation to protect the koala we may as well give up. Occasionally for anyone who holds this job, some species that no-one has ever heard of will be used as a way of trying to ridicule environmental protection. You always get that. There are not too many people in Australia who have not heard of the koala, and there are not too many people in Australia who will not be seriously alarmed at the decline in numbers.

In the state of the member for Blair, since 1990—so this is a fair way into your process of land clearing—we are talking about a further 40 per cent decline in the numbers. The rate of decline has been extraordinary, and with that in mind I think it is not merely good policy but the very purpose of threatened species policy to make sure that the appropriate plans and protocols are put in place.

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