Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to echo the sentiments of the committee chair, the member for Mallee, in his excellent speech. It is an important topic. One of the key driving forces, besides the referral from the minister for the environment, was the real community agitation we have seen on this issue. It has been particularly noticeable in my local area of Lake Macquarie and the Hunter Valley. I want to acknowledge that the key driving force for this inquiry's establishment was the member for Hunter. So I am glad he is in the chamber. He has been very vocal on the impact this has had on communities in our area, whether it is Singleton up the valley or Blackalls Park right on Lake Macquarie.

It is an issue where we need to acknowledge the key role that flying foxes have in our environment in terms of biodiversity and as a key pollinator for our flora. But we also need to acknowledge the huge negative impact that urban settlements of these animals have on these communities—people not able to go outside, heightened levels of asthma, destruction of cars, issues with kids going to school.

So we need to find a solution, and this report goes some way towards finding that solution by pointing out two key things. Firstly, more research is needed. We do not even have true base levels for the populations of these flying foxes, so we cannot tell whether the populations have rebounded because of their listing as endangered. How can we remove them from those listings if we do not know what the population truly is? Secondly, much more research is needed into mitigation. What are the most effective ways of dealing with this issue before we take the very drastic step of completely moving a flying fox camp?

The round table that the committee held was particularly valuable in driving forth the point that councils need more information. Councils are often very poorly resourced, but they bear the brunt of dealing with this issue, so I think the key recommendation from this report besides more research being needed is to give councils more tools in their armoury for how to deal with this and support local communities so that the knee-jerk response of just destroying the camp is not the first response. It may be part of the response, but it should not be the first response, and councils need to know that there are other options.

I commend this report to the House. I thank the secretariat for their excellent work. I thank everyone who made submissions, and I thank the member for Hunter, again, for really being the driving force in cooperation with the Minister for the Environment and Energy.

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