Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Murray for bringing forward this motion. I just had the pleasure this morning to speak about a motion from the member for Hunter on soils and I think there is a continuation here that is very relevant. Soils are the lifeblood of our nation. Healthy and productive soils sustain everything we do. They sustain life on earth and the biodiversity that exists. It is more obvious to us above the ground but less so below the ground. It is indeed something that is significant.

I note also that in the motion, which I am supporting, the member for Murray calls on the government to designate a national day of farming. I applaud her on those efforts. It gives me an opportunity to reflect on what is a really important sector within my rural, regional electorate and on the farmers that add so much to not only the economy of this country, or the state of Tasmania in my case, but also their local communities. They are often employers. They are members of sports clubs and service clubs. They are the people that sustain communities. When times are good, we know that farmers spend money in their local communities, so the notion that, when farmers are making a dollar, the country is making a dollar is very true.

I think particularly of the Midlands, which I must say are very, very dry at the moment. If we think of Tasmania, with 12 per cent of the nation's rain falling on two per cent of the landmass, it is falling in all the wrong places at the moment. The east coast of Tassie is as dry as I have ever seen it. It is the driest October on record in some places. Tom Clarke, from Campbell Town, told me the other day that it is the driest October he has seen in 28 years. The country is certainly showing it.

These people are stewards of the first order—and I am thinking particularly about the Midlands of Tasmania, which is recognised as a biodiversity hot spot. Later I will touch on the 20 Million Trees Program, which is being undertaken in that part of my state. These people have for generations looked after the land on which they have farmed, in some cases since European settlement. Native grasses are threatened all around the world. Many Australian grass species have been retained in the Midlands of Tasmania because of the wool and sheep industry. It is actually because these people have managed the grazing of livestock in these areas that we still have the native grasses, which are so threatened all around Australia and, indeed, all around the world. These people are the ultimate stewards. I want to pay particular credit to those many families who, over generations, have managed those grasses in the Midlands of Tasmania in such a way as to retain them to this day.

The 20 Million Trees Program is a wonderful initiative. I am proud to say that I have two projects in my electorate, which are really about landscape connectivity. With so much of the money that we put into environmental projects a piecemeal type of approach is taken, whereas in Tasmania we have two projects that are linking the Central Highlands with the eastern highlands through corridors. I think the tragedy that is seeing plants and/or animals going onto endangered or threatened species lists is that we have not found better ways of reaching our objective here. We just cannot keep doing what we are doing. So I see in this project, which has been initiated through Greening Australia, Sebastian Burgess in particular, but also with the cooperation of so many individual farmers, that we have a fantastic opportunity to create a landscape outcome that will do more to make sure that we stop species decline and biodiversity is maintained within this very fragile area of Tasmania. I congratulate not only the Minister for the Environment and Greening Australia but also the landholders involved in what is a fantastic initiative in my electorate of Lyons.

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