Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to alert this chamber and the House to the concerns in my electorate for the future of Landcare. Landcare is a 20-year-old community driven program with an international reputation for real and measurable environmental restoration. In fact, I was secretary of my local Landcare branch more years ago than I care to remember when Landcare was just starting off and it went through a long series of teething and education issues. We have, I think, developed in rural Australia one of the best programs there is that helps farmers manage their land in a sustainable way with a view both to the environment and to their own profitability. So I am concerned that, with the new Rudd government, we are going to be throwing a lot away with the cuts that we are now seeing to the Landcare program.

Landcare mobilised hundreds of thousands of ordinary Australians to work for the environment. It was just a concept no-one had ever considered when it came about. Groups of farmers would get together and talk about what they could do for their entire mini-ecosystem and region and, as time went on, the groups got larger and larger and people got much more of a regional perspective with their Landcare activities. This was something new. This was quite innovative. But now it is accepted and there are so many really, really good examples of what it has achieved.

The last budget slashed the budget for Landcare by over 20 per cent and there were no forward estimates published by the program beyond 2008-09. Nine years ago catchment management agencies were developed across all states to deliver and monitor the coalition’s Natural Heritage Trust, NHT, and national action plan for salinity and water projects on the ground. I know that Minister Garrett has replaced a lot of our NHT and NAP funding with a program called Caring for Our Country, but it has involved cuts to catchment management bodies of 40 per cent. The recent Audit Office review of CMAs identifies that, without additional funding, some of these bodies would go to the wall. I do not want to see that happen and I honestly do not believe that the Rudd government wants to see that happen.

We have unique and special environmental needs along the Murray. The role of the Landcare facilitators is under threat and I have received correspondence from Landcare groups telling me how they will lose their facilitators. They are absolutely essential. It is terrific for a catchment management authority to develop programs to link in with the latest science to understand farming practices, but if you do not have any extension activities, if you do not get out there and show farmers and have field days on farms and talk to farmers—this is the work of extension and I am a great supporter of it—the work you are doing in your little hub in the office in town is really quite wasted. Of course the cuts to the CMAs are going to mean that the volume of incentives shrinks quite dramatically and farmers stressed by the drought are going to have to dip into their own pockets. That is not a bad thing—I am not saying that farmers should not pay—but the balance was just right. There was enough incentive and enough farmer contribution, often in labour effort and management, to make this program work.

I have received correspondence from the Corowa and District Landcare group from Bronwyn Thomas. She reminds us of the significant environmental work that group has undertaken since it was established in 1996. It is currently the most active Landcare group in the catchment. They have employed a Landcare officer. They have worked throughout the shire. With their coordinator they have managed 18 projects supported through almost $580,000 of government funding and $650,000 of community and in-kind support. It is all under threat. The Green Gully Landcare Association wrote—and these organisations have all written to Minister Garrett—‘We are seeking assistance in having our funding within our land and water management plans reinstated.’ That is from the Green Gully Landcare Association. Of course it is reflected by the Murray Valley Community Action Group which talks about those same land and water management plans in the vital irrigation districts of the Murray.

The Rangeland Management Action Plan, which is in Western New South Wales, has said:

How are people in remote and rural communities meant to keep going to be able to access funding under Landcare without a coordinator? What are we to tell our staff in terms of job security as June 2008 comes up? What are we to tell landholders in planning for projects with the uncertainty of Landcare? If Landcare is such a critical element of Caring for Our Country, how can it be achieved without a local coordinator?

I appreciate that ministers like to start again and create whole new priorities, but the work has been done, Minister Garrett. It is all there on the table through lots of hard tough years. Please support our Landcare coordinators. Please consider reinstating the funding so that we can keep going with our valuable extension work.