Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I stand before the House today to speak on this important motion. I thank the member for Leichhardt for bringing it before the House to, firstly, celebrate World Ranger Day. This is the 12th year in which we have celebrated World Ranger Day, and it is important that the House notes that 12th anniversary now.

At the outset I would also like to pay tribute to those rangers across the globe who have lost their lives while at work. This is, in some countries, very dangerous work. On average, globally, one ranger is killed on duty every three to four days. This can be a dangerous place for those who confront the evils of poaching in many continents. Two-thirds of the rangers who have been killed at work died at the hands of poachers—that's an important acknowledgment up-front.

I want to spend this limited amount of time today focusing on the Australian context and the work of the Indigenous ranger program here. The program, as it is in Australia, is important in that it is a very critical way of enabling First Nations people in Australia to look after country in the sense that it's delivering economic, social, cultural and environmental outcomes.

I had the enormous honour, in the break just gone, to visit the Kanyirninpa Jukurrpa rangers group around the Jigalong community. This is part of the Martu rangers program looking after a huge Indigenous protected area in the Western Desert region of Western Australia. They are doing some very important work in trying to ensure the continuation of a rock wallaby which is now a threatened species in their area. They have been doing a terrific job around breeding those rock wallabies and moving them into areas where they can thrive. They have been doing important work around feral camels, which continue to unleash great destruction at waterholes throughout the desert. These camels are roaming across 3.3 million square kilometres of desert in Australia. It is a vast amount of land and there is a huge job to be undertaken.

The KJ rangers were also instrumental in working on a range of fire management programs. This, of course, is helping to restore diversity in the landscape whilst also reducing the impact of the very broad-scale lightning-driven fires that would otherwise occur in the country. Another project I was really taken by was the helicopter and on-ground mapping of water holes in the Martu desert area. If you got to see a map of that desert area and where these waterholes are located, you would be astonished. The number of water holes is incredible, but it is only known to a culturally trained person.

That brings me to the point that I would like to emphasise in the speech today. Labor has long supported this program. We went into the election saying we wanted to double the number of Indigenous ranger programs because it is one of the few sources—indeed, in many communities it is the only source—of purposeful, meaningful work for people in those remote communities. One criticism I have been made aware of during visits to these communities is that there is now so much emphasis on the land management and conservation aspects of the work for Indigenous rangers that less and less time is being made available for our rangers to concentrate on cultural obligations and cultural practices that must take place in order to maintain a healthy country and healthy people living on that country. The government should really pay some attention to that.

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