Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the relatively short time it has been in power, the Victorian coalition government has lost no time in opening up the environment for exploitation. It reintroduced cattle grazing into Victoria's National Heritage listed Alpine National Park under the guise of 'scientific grazing' for the alleged purpose of seeing if cattle grazing could be a fire management tool. It also extended the season for recreational shooting of native waterbirds to a 12-week period, with bag limits of up to ten birds per day per person, meaning an individual could shoot up to 840 ducks per season. Both decisions were made in the face of overwhelming community opposition and contrary to the weight of scientific evidence. They also impact on areas of Commonwealth jurisdiction.

With regard to so-called scientific grazing, I note that the $50 million Victorian bushfires royal commission did not recommend it as a fuel reduction or fire management tool, or for further research. According to the Ecological Society of Australia, 'there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that grazing in alpine and subalpine zones plays any role in mitigating the effects of wildfire', while on the other hand, 'grazing by livestock in the subalpine and alpine zones represents a significant threat to water, soil, nature conservation and biodiversity values'. In March the federal minister for the environment ordered the removal of cattle from the national park, as the Victorian government had failed to seek the necessary federal approval. I understand that the cattle were, accordingly, removed by the 8 April deadline; however, the Victorian minister for the environment, Ryan Smith, has recently claimed that the trial will continue. The Victorian National Parks Association has likened the project to 'a domestic version of Japanese whaling, in that it uses the guise of science to justify what is essentially a politically motivated decision that undermines the integrity of Australia's world-class system of national parks'. As the VNPA has rightly said, 'It's a park not a paddock'.

WA banned recreational duck hunting in 1990, New South Wales banned it in 1995 and Queensland banned it in 2005. Surveys show that 87 per cent of Victorians support a ban on recreational duck shooting. Aerial surveys by respected scientist Professor Richard Kingsford have shown that waterbird numbers have fallen by 82 per cent across eastern Australia in the past 25 years, yet the Baillieu government has seen fit to approve and expand this obscene activity this year. The Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment's website even trumpeted the news with a headline that I am sure they imagined was funny: 'Duck! It's hunting season.' An editorial in the Age in January this year entitled 'State takes two steps back on conservation' comments:

... hunting flocks of wildfowl with a shotgun is unavoidably cruel and rare species are killed. Studies show that for every duck retrieved, a wounded bird flies off, often suffering a lingering death.

Dr Graeme Hamilton, CEO of Birds Australia, has said:

The level of mortality and wounding of these native birds for the amusement of a handful of shooters cannot be justified in a modern society. Young, inexperienced ducks will bear the brunt of the onslaught, which could be disastrous for the overall waterfowl population for years to come ... Our wildlife should not be sacrificed for political purposes. Victoria's Recreational Duck Shooting Season should be abandoned once and for all.

The campaign director of the Coalition Against Duck Shooting, Laurie Levy, has noted:

... the Commonwealth is a signatory to the international RAMSAR Treaty giving it direct responsibility for significant areas of Australia’s wetlands known as RAMSAR Sites, being ‘Wetlands of International Importance, especially as Waterfowl Habitat’.

Given community concern over the ethics of duck shooting, combined with declining bird numbers, diminishing wetlands from drought and climate change, as well as inconsistent policies of the States/Territory governments on duck shooting, there is an urgent need for the Federal government to develop a national approach to the issue.

In 2008 136 organisations, including the WWF, Birds Australia, Animals Australia, RSPCA Australia, Voiceless, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Wilderness Society and Bird Observation and Conservation Australia, issued a joint common position statement highlighting the unsustainable and cruel nature of the recreational shooting of native waterbirds and calling for, inter alia, a permanent ban on recreational duck shooting on Commonwealth controlled land and on all Ramsar sites throughout Australia. This is a matter firmly within federal jurisdiction, and I will certainly be advocating for it to be implemented.

Finally, I would like to quote from an email to Premier Baillieu from a concerned Australian, Nathan Cooper, who eloquently puts the case for an end to recreational duck hunting. He says:

I believe society has transcended hunting as a sport and the great majority support measures of conservation and animal protection over cruel sport. While many rural Australians like myself allocate resources to improving biodiversity for wildlife on our properties, it is disappointing to see outdated political decisions working in antithesis to these efforts.