Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I thank my friend the member for Gippsland for recognising the importance and role of a Labor initiative, namely Landcare. Like the members for Gippsland and New England, I live in a beautiful place—a place that has rugged coastlines, beautiful beaches, rolling hills, free-running freshwater rivers, mountains, farmland, forests and so on.

As a nation, we value our landscapes and indeed our environment, as the member for Gippsland alluded to, probably slowly at first but more so lately. In 1989, this was recognised by the Hawke Labor government and Landcare as a movement was initiated. This influence has been recently recognised in the naming of a medal for encouraging Australians to adopt sustainable and productive agricultural practices, the newly named Hawke medal.

In fact, I will be meeting the inaugural Hawke medallist, Lynne Strong, a dairy farmer in New South Wales from Clover Hill Dairies at Jamberoo and advocate for sustainable food production. Lynne is a past winner of the Primary Producer Award, runs the Art4Agriculture program in schools, which includes the Archibull Prize and Young Farming Champions, and works as a mentor to young food producers. Lynne was also the runner-up in the 2011 Rabobank Farm Industry Leader of the Year award and a Eureka Prize finalist. Whilst I am recognising Lynne, I would also like to acknowledge and congratulate the Young Eco Champion, Megan Rowlatt, who is the 2012 National Young Landcarer of the Year.

What is Landcare? When you look at it, Landcare means different things to different people, as the member for Gippsland suggested. For some people it is about being part of a community group volunteering their time to clean up, protect and improve the condition of our coasts, bush, rivers and land. Around Australia there are about 6,000 of these organisations, such as my local Landcare group, which recently cleaned up our local waterways. To others it is about an ethos to care for the land. This ethos crosses boundaries, from farmers, as the member for Gippsland rightly pointed out, to land managers, volunteers and Indigenous Australians. You could be from a city, a regional town, a farm or, indeed, the outback. But I think it goes deeper than just an ethos or just taking part. It is about all of these things—government, non-government, communities and business—pulling together to make sure our decisions, plans and actions are made with a view of the current and future health and prosperity of Australia.

We can show that Landcare has become part of Australia. According to a recent survey by the National Landcare Facilitator, over 70 per cent of farmers identified as being part of Landcare, over 90 per cent identified that they practice Landcare on their farms and 30 per cent of farmers identified as being part of a Landcare group. Surveys like this show how Landcare is one of the most enduring and recognisable community movements in Australia. The Australian Landcare movement, ethic or whatever we would like to call it has also spread to other parts of the world, with community groups now operating in over 20 countries.

During National Landcare Week last week, many groups celebrated by attending things such as the National Landcare Conference to share and learn, the National Landcare Awards to celebrate the achievements and contributions of many individuals and groups, such as Lynne Strong, and working bees in local areas, as I mentioned earlier in relation to my own vicinity.

One way the government is supporting Landcare is by funding Landcare facilitators and coordinators in natural resource management regions. Community volunteers and farmers often mention the importance of having regional facilitators that provide assistance, information and, importantly, linkages. The Commonwealth government has provided $33.6 million in funding for a Regional Landcare Facilitator position in each of the 56 natural resource management regions across Australia for four years until June 2013. These Regional Landcare Facilitators assist Landcare and production groups to achieve their strategic goals by helping them plan projects, apply for funding and coordinate training.

Labor has always been a key supporter of Landcare. Our history demonstrates this. Labor recognises the vital role played by the Landcare community in the delivery of on-ground outcomes, the sharing of best practices and the promotion of the Landcare ethic. Since 2008, the government has funded 1,196 competitive grants worth over $119 million through Landcare. This includes the 784 community action grants worth $14 million. Through the first phase of Caring for our Country, the government has provided over $178 million over five years to support Landcare activities. This funding has supported Landcare by raising awareness, encouraging community engagement and providing grants for community groups and farmers. The second phase of Caring for our Country will continue to support Landcare, with over $200 million over five years dedicated to Landcare related activities. This will be drawn from the $702 million that has been allocated for the sustainable agriculture stream of Caring for our Country.

The government recently conducted widespread consultation processes to allow community input into the future program. Consultation sessions were held in all capital cities and several major regional locations. Written feedback was received from over 130 contributors. This feedback is now being incorporated into the design of the new program.

In my region of north-west Tasmania, including the West Coast and King Island, the Landcare movement has had some really good outcomes. One example is the Kindred Landcare Group, which is just up the road from my village of Forth, which started in 1990 as an extension of the Kindred community hall committee. That is a little bit like a lot of Landcare groups, which grew out of community based organisations that were concentrating on enhancing their communities. They have been very successful in raising the awareness of erosion, for example, in vegetable cropping in their area. You might know that the area I live in is very much related to vegetable growing. The group of mainly farmers—again, highlighted by the member for Gippsland—researched and devised ways to limit erosion by managing paddocks differently than they had in the past. These ideas and practices have developed over time from trying to divert water off the paddocks to trying to infiltrate rainfall into the paddocks instead of letting it just run off. The message also spread to the greater region.

What we have now is a new machine called a 'ripper mulcher' which operates across farms. It rips the ground across the paddock's slope with a tine and then fills the ripline with straw to help intercept water and stop channels developing, thereby lessening erosion. It is simple and effective but, again, it would not happen without the practical application and interest of local farmers and the community.

There is another local regional Landcare group from Wynyard which over many years has revegetated and fenced the banks of the beautiful Inglis and Flowerdale rivers, thus improving habitat for native creatures including the endangered giant freshwater crayfish found only in freshwater streams flowing into Bass Strait. Caring for our Country, including Landcare, seeks to achieve:

… an environment that is healthy, better protected, well-managed and resilient and provides essential ecosystem services in a changing climate.

Since 2008 under Caring for our Country the Cradle Coast region, which covers the electorate of Braddon, has been allocated almost $9.5 million. Funding of $490,000 over four years since 2009-10 has been provided for the employment of a regional Landcare facilitator to support Landcare and other community groups across the Cradle Coast region. In addition $1.3 million of competitive grants over five years has been provided for a bunch of community groups. Projects have included eradicating weeds, protecting platypus, shorebirds, penguin habitats et cetera, improving riparian vegetation, stabilising dunes, improving remnant vegetation and improving farm sustainability. The total for all projects over five years is $11.2 million. Of this $900,000 is funded from the Landcare operation.

Despite a campaign by some opposite in the lead-up to the last budget, Labor will continue to invest in this area. The second phase of Caring for our Country with more than $2.2 billion over the five years of 2013-18 to achieve a real and measurable difference to Australia's environment is a commitment by this government to both Caring for our Country and Landcare. I thank all of those that involve themselves in this wonderful movement and I thank the member for Gippsland for introducing this really important topic.

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