Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment Regulations 2011 (No. 1), as contained in the Select Legislative Instrument 2011 No. 191, and made under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, be disallowed.

I appreciate the opportunity to debate this motion today. The motion of disallowance I have moved and which will be seconded by the member for McMillan is all about respecting the mandate given to the Victorian coalition government at the last state election. It is about respecting the mountain cattlemen and their families for the more than 150 years of active management of the high country.

Mr Mitchell interjecting—

Already the member for McEwen is interjecting. I ask the member for McEwen to listen for a few moments to what I am about to say and to show a little bit of respect for the mountain cattlemen.

Peter Slipper (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Gippsland will return to the motion and the honourable member opposite will desist.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is also about respecting the role the cattlemen can play in the future of sustainable environmental management through grazing and prescribed burns and about respecting the heritage of regional communities on both sides of the Great Dividing Range in Victoria. Given the huge deficit of trust that exists between this government and the Australian people, now would be a very good time to start showing some respect in this place for these people.

The Victorian government took a clear policy to the state election in 2010 that it would reintroduce cattle grazing to the Alpine National Park. The only thing the Victorian government has been guilty of is honouring that promise—the promise they made to the Victorian people that they would reintroduce cattle grazing to the Alpine National Park. There was strong support given to coalition candidates on both sides of the Great Dividing Range on this issue. It was a significant issue in the seat of Gippsland East, where I was involved in campaigning because it interacts with my own seat of Gippsland. I am not going to overstate the importance of the issue but it was a significant issue. It was certainly one that was raised in community debates and in various forums during the campaign process. The mountain cattlemen themselves invested heavily in that election campaign. I understand they made donations to the Liberal Party and to the Nationals in that election campaign in the order of $20,000. I could be corrected on that. So the mountain cattlemen themselves thought this was important enough to support candidates in that campaign and to support the issue.

Mr Mitchell interjecting—

The member for McEwen cannot help himself on this issue. He is talking about cash for comment. What he does not understand is this has been a long-held belief in the coalition parties in Victoria. It is not about cash for comment, member for McEwen; it is all about making sure that people who want their voice heard in this place have the chance to have their voice heard, and that is why today is very important. It is a very good opportunity for the people of Gippsland East and other state seats to have their voice heard in this place.

You would think that the Australian Labor Party would learn some lessons from the past on the issue of cattle grazing in the Alpine National Park because this issue has a very dark and murky political background for the Australian Labor Party. It goes back to 2005 when the former Bracks government first banned the cattlemen from the high country. On that occasion we had the memorable scenes of mountain cattlemen and other supporters of their cause marching through the main streets of Melbourne. They were marching up Bourke Street on their horses, wearing their Driza-Bones, bringing the issue to the state parliament of Victoria. They brought attention on the steps of parliament in Spring Street to what they thought was a great injustice. That caused an immediate political backlash to the state Labor government at the 2006 state election. The Victorian Labor Party lost the seat of Morwell, which is in the Gippsland area, and lost the seat of Narracan, also in the Gippsland area. Again, I am not saying this was the only reason they lost those seats but it was a pivotal issue in the campaign. When you consider that the member for Narracan was the chairman of the committee which recommended that cattlemen get kicked out of the high country in the first place, you can understand the point that I am making.

The Australian Labor Party has already paid a political price for its attitude to the cattlemen in Victoria. I can tell you now, it will pay an even heavier political price in the future if it continues to go down this track of showing no respect for the mandate given to the Victorian government by the voters of Victoria. The people have spoken clearly on this issue and their voice needs to be heard in this place. I acknowledge it is not a unanimous view but there is a strong majority in the directly affected communities that have given the Victorian government a mandate for its policy, and I believe it should be respected.

I recognise that this is not an issue which is necessarily at the front of mind for all other members of parliament. There are 150 seats around Australia and there are probably only a handful of seats which are directly affected by this issue. But where this issue has been tested in the court of public opinion, where the contest of ideas has taken place on the ground, overwhelmingly the position adopted by the Australian Labor Party and the Greens has been rejected by the people in those communities. In those areas where people are most directly affected and have the most information about how this issue plays out in a community and a political sense, they have rejected the Australian Labor Party and the Greens. You only need to travel around regional Victoria on any given day to see vehicles with yellow and green stickers on the back of them that read 'Mountain cattlemen care for the high country'. That slogan has been around for more than 20 years. It is a strongly held view in the communities that are directly affected by this issue

The contention that I am putting to the House today is that the Victorian government has every right to commission a trial into the strategic use of cattle grazing to reduce the impact of bushfires. This is a region that has been devastated by bushfires in the past; there is no doubt it will be affected again in the future. We have an obligation as members of parliament, both in this place and in state jurisdictions, to do everything we can to reduce the impact of fires on lives, property and the natural environment. I consider this issue to be another example of the grand hypocrisy of the Greens on natural resource management issues. The Greens leader travels around Australia campaigning for territory rights because it might assist in his campaigns to install gay marriage and euthanasia, but he is happy to trample on state government rights on this natural resource management issue.

We should be used to that level of hypocrisy, because the Greens have proposed a bill previously in this place targeted squarely at removing the rights of the Victorian government to take action to assess the strategic use of cattle grazing as a tool to reduce bushfire risk in Victoria's high country. The thing that most offends the people who live in these communities and that most offends me is that when the Greens put out these motions from the leafy suburbs of Melbourne they do not talk about the thousands of brumbies, the introduced wild species like deer, the wild dogs or the noxious weeds that are in the Alpine National Park and that should be targeted by any bills or motions the Greens would like to propose to assist the environment in the Alpine region. The Greens do not even seem to understand that the scorching bushfires in areas which have not been grazed and which have not benefited from prescribed burning are more devastating to wildlife than anything the mountain cattlemen have ever done in more than 150 years in the alpine regions.

To put it very simply, regional Australians have had a gutful of city based Greens telling them how to live their lives. Now we have a Sydney based minister for the environment who simply joins in the chorus and sings the same songs as the Australian Greens. The Greens have never created a job in regional Australia and they are a direct threat to a host of our traditional industries, including the cattlemen, the broader agricultural sector, commercial fishing, mining and power generation and recreational angling. The action taken by this minister to override the Victorian government on this issue demonstrates this government's complete lack of respect for regional Australians. I am sure that we will hear today all the usual lines from the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. He will say that a national park is not a farm and that only a select few graziers get to use the high country runs. We have heard all the lines before; I look forward to them being rolled out again today. To that I say in advance to the minister: a national park is not meant to be a weed infested wasteland either. It is not meant to be scorched every few years because we have failed to reduce the fuel load. A national park is not meant to be full of feral species in uncontrolled numbers. The minister failed to mention those issues when he first started attacking mountain cattlemen. I concede that in more recent times the minister has raised those issues. I think he has realised the folly of his ways from those early days when he first ran his campaign against the mountain cattlemen and now he does talk more about the weeds and other feral species. But I urge the minister to concentrate on those issues, because they are doing far more damage and are of much greater environmental significance to the alpine region than anything that mountain cattlemen have done in the past or will do in the future. If the minister wanted to do something that was actually important for the Alpine National Park, and the Victorian high country more generally, he could really focus his efforts in that area. I urge all members in this place not to vilify the mountain cattlemen and their families.

The minister and I get along quite well, and I do not mind if he attacks me. I do not mind if he criticises my party and me, if he gives me heaps. I just urge him to show a great deal of respect to the people that are represented in this debate today. I urge him to show some respect for the cattlemen, because every time a member in this place attacks the cattlemen it is very personal for these people and their families. When anyone in this place says to these people, 'You are wrong,' they are actually saying their fathers were wrong, their grandfathers were wrong and even, sometimes, their great-grandfathers were wrong. You are denying their whole cultural heritage. So by all means, Minister, give me your best shot, and I am sure you will—you need no encouragement; you have needed no encouragement in the past—but I urge you to respect the families and their culture and their heritage, because they are very proud of that heritage. They believe that they have done a great job in the alpine region, that they are part of the solution for the future and that they should not be thrown out like yesterday's newspaper.

We are talking about a state government trial of cattle grazing involving just 400 cattle in a 26,000-hectare national park. The point that must be remembered throughout this whole debate is that the cattlemen have run cattle in that region for more than 150 years. It was only after the cattle had been there for more than 150 years that it was deemed to be in such pristine condition that it was worthy of becoming a national park in the first place. In the mid-1980s the wise heads of the day decided that this region was so pristine and so magnificent that, even after 150 years of mountain cattlemen using the territory, it was so good they could make it a national park. That to me is the core of the issue. There was not a level of environmental damage that warranted any other action being taken by the governments of the day. They believed on merit that the alpine region was in such good condition that it should become a national park. I contend that the minister himself did more damage to the region when he rushed up the hill on a wet day in his four-wheel-drive to get his photo taken in front of a deer wallow. I contend that he did more damage then than the mountain cattlemen would do under this trial of 400 cattle spread across 26,000 hectares of national park.

There is generations of knowledge about practical environmental management in the hands of the mountain cattlemen and their families. This is knowledge that you cannot learn in a book; it is knowledge that has been passed down from one generation to the next. I believe it deserves to be respected and passed on to future generations. I believe that grazing can actually help to reduce the fuel load in the alpine region, particularly if it is used in a strategic manner in conjunction with other fuel mitigation efforts.

In the past, the mountain cattlemen have not just relied on grazing as their approach to reducing the impact of bushfires; they have also been heavily involved in prescribed burning. I think we have lost our way in relation to prescribed burning in Victoria and in many other parts of Australia over the last several decades. We have seen in more recent times a government in Victoria that is more committed to reducing the fuel load. Part of the reason for the devastation of the Black Saturday bushfires is that we did not do the prescribed burning that we needed to do in the decades leading up to it. We had a massive amount of fuel build up in many parts of Victoria, and that led to the devastation. We need three things for a fire. We need hot and windy conditions, and we are always going to get that in Victoria because it is a fire prone area. We need a point of ignition, and we are always going to have that—whether it is a lightning strike or some idiot with a match, that is going to happen. We need a fuel load, and there is always going to be fuel. The only part of that fire matrix we can actually affect is the fuel load. We are always going to have hot, windy days and we are always going to have a point of ignition. But we can reduce the fuel load and reduce the intensity of those bushfires when they occur—and they will occur again.

This is all about using cattle in a strategic way to reduce the impact of future bushfires. Those opposite will say it does not work. But, as I have told the House previously, even the ACT Labor government agrees to the approach of using cattle in a strategic way to reduce the impact of bushfires. This year the ACT government intends to graze more than 7,000 hectares across 76 sites to protect ACT residents from bushfires. Let me say that again. The ACT government believes cattle grazing does play a worthwhile role in reducing the fuel load in the ACT to protect property and lives around the ACT, so they are going to use cattle across 7,000 hectares at 76 different sites to protect ACT residents. But we are not allowed to use cattle to protect lives and property in the natural environment of the high country because this minister and this government are directly overriding the Victorian state government and they are directly overriding the clear mandate that government received from the Victorian people.

I do not expect those opposite us in the chamber today to change their mind. It is no surprise to me at all that they will vote against this disallowance motion and do the bidding of the Australian Greens—and they will pay an electoral price for that in the future. The reason I do not expect them to change their mind is that more than 40 of the members opposite actually rely on Greens preferences for their political survival. They need Greens preferences to win their seats, so they will do whatever is necessary to protect their political careers. But I appeal to the crossbenchers to think very seriously about this issue and give due respect to the mountain cattlemen and their cause. I repeat that, for more than 150 years, the mountain cattlemen have been allowed to run their cattle in the high country and they have actively worked to protect and enhance the environment. They are not the problem; they are part of the solution. The heritage, the culture and the knowledge of the mountain cattlemen, which has been built up over more than 150 years, is an asset to our community and they should be respected, not vilified, by the Labor Party and the Greens in this place. I thank the House for the opportunity to raise this important issue and I again urge the crossbenchers to think very seriously about what we are talking about today in relation to the future of the alpine region and the practical land management skills that have been applied for more than 150 years.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. On Sunday morning my radio is sometimes still on ABC. Macca was on, and they had a school from the high country reciting a poem. The poem was, 'There was movement at the station for the word had got around that the colt from old Regret had got away.' So the kids say, 'We all went around and rounded him up.' That was their poem. I found myself, fortuitously, filling in for my friend and colleague the member for Gippsland at the high country cattlemen's muster at Merrijig in January. It was a pleasure to be at Merrijig and I must admit I was consumed by the points they put to us that day. I have supported minority positions in this place on many occasions before, even against my own party's position when in government. At Merrijig I found myself surrounded by this minority of Australian people and I thought very carefully about why I would support this disallowance motion. It is not something I am here to support just because Darren Chester is my mate; I am here to support the feelings those people communicated to me that day. They gave me all the information about what the park has been like over its 150 years of heritage.

For those who are listening to this address, I want to explain that I am trying to woo the minister to my point of view and I am trying to do it in a practical way. I hear the message that this is a political position taken by the government and the Greens, through the member for Melbourne, who is sitting in the chamber. I fully acknowledge that I too have done checks on the number of members of this parliament who are here on Greens preferences. Nearly half of the Labor Party members here are in marginal seats on Greens preferences. I have looked at all those figures too, and I understand where they are coming from.

So we bring forward an issue of practicality and relevance to a minority group of people in Australia that is part of our national heritage. We have not got a lot to hang our hat on in this country. It is mostly English heritage that we were taught at school; those were our early lessons. But what consumed me that day at Merrijig was that here was our own living history. Forget about the feral animals, the wild dogs, the blackberries that have gone berserk and the parts of the park that you can no longer get into—and that is across this nation. It is a disgrace the way we have nominated these places as national parks and then governments of all persuasions have not looked after them as they should have—and that is not just in Victoria but elsewhere too. Having said that, I recognise that we have something so precious in our living heritage as the rich history of these mountain cattlemen and their families and the amazing stories that surround them of battling against all odds as part of our nation's growth and history for 140 years. Can you imagine any country in the world turning their backs on the heritage such as we have, which is a gift? Can you imagine the Americans turning their back on this? No. But we as a nation are so consumed by the politics of the day, and we know politicians hate short-term pain that may lead to long-term gain. They hate it. They do not like any sort of political pain whatsoever.

But why can't somebody stand up in this place and say, 'This is a minority of people who have a grand heritage in this country and who we should all speak about with some pride and reverence'? At the same time, we are prepared to say no. Because of the green influence in our capital cities and the green influence of the members of parliament that sit in here, we are prepared to throw these people out of the high country. The message that I received was that parts that were pristine are no longer pristine. Parts that were of great value for our community to go and enjoy are no longer available for our community because they are a mess, inaccessible and covered in blackberries, and what was beautiful is no longer beautiful.

Have I been up there? No. Do I know about it from friends? Yes. Did I drive the wrong way home? Yes, and I would not recommend that trip to anybody, but I thought it was a good idea at the time. I have a view about this that I have thought about very carefully because I am in a marginal seat and I risk green support, even though there are not many in the House as green as we are in rural seats. Our land is particularly important to us. Our farmers and those who work the land are particularly important to us. There is not a day that goes by when we do not talk about them, think about them, work with them and, hopefully, bring their issues to this parliament. I am one who cannot walk away from the living heritage that is outlined in the story of the mountain cattlemen and their families, and especially their women. The stories over that 100 years of the valour of the women who were connected to these families are just amazing, as are the stories of the brilliant people who have come through the generations to make great contributions to this nation.

To those who say, 'You cannot put cattle into a national park,' I say that the Victorian state government went to the Victorian people and bravely said, 'If we are re-elected, we are going to do a trial in the national parks by putting very few cattle back into the high country.' To me, that was grabbing hold of that heritage and saying, 'It is important to us; it is important enough for us to continue it.'

I am taking a different tack in trying to convince the minister to support this motion. The different tack is that it is all about our living heritage. It is all about people we care about and it is about a minority group of people, being the mountain cattlemen, who have no effect on any seat whether they change from one way to another. There is nothing for the minister to lose in attacking the mountain cattlemen. But in attacking the mountain cattlemen he is attacking our living heritage and what is important in this nation—the values that the mountain cattlemen have and the way they protected the land.

There is a criterion we should all have, and that is what is of long-term benefit to the nation. I have heard a lot about what is to the long-term benefit of the nation on a whole lot of issues. I have heard members of parliament, particularly those on the crossbench, say: 'No. I am prepared to go down this track whether it is politically difficult for me or not because I believe in the long-term interests of the Australian people.' That phrase has been used and bandied about so many times recently it has just about become the default. But I still believe in it. I still believe that this parliament should be governing for the Australian people and what is in their best interests today, tomorrow, next week, next year and in 20 years time. To have a vision for who we are and what we are on about we must never forget where we came from. Who are we? What made us up? Why are we like the way we are? Why are we reactionary in so many ways? It is because of our heritage. It is because of who we are.

I am only fourth generation. My great-grandfather was kicked out of England by his family. I know why I have some of the reactions I have today to some of the leadership I deal with.

An opposition member: The English knew what they were doing.

Yes! I am glad they threw him out. He did not want to join their business; he wanted to be a coach builder and the family did not think that coach building had a future at that stage.

An opposition member: Is this relevant?

Actually, it is very relevant because it goes back to the point that I was making about our living heritage and how important it is. We go on about our Indigenous community. We go on about the people who came on tall ships. We go on about the waves of generations of people that came here. But we are discounting our living heritage in these mountain cattlemen and saying that they are a minority and do not count. That is my only point to you today, Minister. Whilst you may have your criteria for what you have to perform under the law, there should be a reasonable consideration for the value of our living heritage: what has gone on in the past, what these people mean to us and what they will mean to future generations when their stories are told—because the stories about our history in this small part of Australia will be told over and over again.

We are not asking for a lot. There are thousands and thousands of hectares there. The cattle go up for a short time each year and are then taken out again. It is not a big ask to put the cattle back into the high country. So I say to the minister: if I could have my way, I would have the cattle back in the high country again on behalf of the minority that care about the country. It is not a big ask that the nation preserve our heritage and give back to the mountain cattlemen a small area of our great nation.

I was at a diabetes breakfast this morning, and there was a map of the world there with Australia cast out in red. I looked at the nation this morning from a different perspective, not with regard to diabetes but in terms of how big it is and how big the oceans around it are. We are only asking that the mountain cattlemen be given back some of their land rights. When I was in local government they called it 'prior-use rights'. The guy next door to me in Pakenham, where I live, carts metal and clay out of his place. He had a complaint. He came to me and said, 'Russell, you have to sign this document to say that I actually enjoy prior-use rights.'

Today, I am arguing only that these people have had their prior-use rights taken from them, that this should be redressed and that they should be returned to the high country. It is not a big ask. This is a tiny bit of the nation. I have been to Western Australia. I have seen the feral goats over there, covering the nation. I have seen the camels that are making a terrible mess. I have seen the horses that are making a terrible mess. I have seen things going wrong right across my nation with regard to these issues.

So my plea and my care for the cattlemen are not political—they are not based on a political decision. I make my plea because I believe I am in the right. So I am standing here and pleading with this parliament to agree to this disallowance motion put forward by my friend and colleague the member for Gippsland. He also has put it forward in a genuine spirit of goodwill. I am not here just to ruffle feathers. I am here to ask and plead on behalf of a minority. That minority deserves a go, deserves an opportunity and deserves to see in the years to come that our living heritage is preserved. I ask all those in this place to consider very carefully how they vote on this motion because they are voting on the heart and soul of the nation.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will begin on a point that has been raised by the member for McMillan and the member for Gippsland, both of whom I get along well with and have a high regard for. They have both said a number of things I disagree with, but there is one thing I want to take head-on from the beginning. My gripe is not with the mountain cattlemen—they are not the people I believe deserve to be publicly denigrated—but with the Victorian government. It is the behaviour of the Victorian government on this matter that I believe is worthy of every single criticism we have levelled at it over this decision. Make no mistake—

John Forrest (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is the same thing.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Interjectors get thrown out before the vote—that would be terrific! Issues have been raised about who is behind this, what the reason is and what the real motivation is, as though somehow there are people pushing Labor to adopt this view. Getting the cattle out of Alpine National Park was a Labor reform led by a Labor deputy premier when he was Minister for Environment—John Thwaites. It was done by a Labor government and is a Labor reform of which we are proud. We do not need anyone to tell us—and I will let other parties speak for themselves—that national parks deserve to be treated differently.

Let us not allow this argument to get caught up in the pretence that no grazing occurs in the high country. In all the areas where there is state forest, alpine grazing continues to occur, and it occurs without any objection at all. But we draw a line and have a different view when a national park is involved. People then want to raise the non-environmental uses of national parks—the different tourism ventures and things like that. I have no problem with things happening inside national parks that are directly aimed at people enjoying a national park and enjoying nature. I just do not have the same view on that level of enjoyment being offered to cattle. I think national parks have a role as places people can go to enjoy nature and see things in the most natural environment possible. Families can go there for their picnics, people can go for walks there and people can enjoy and love one of the most special parts of our nation.

That is why you do not find the same objections being made to alpine grazing in state forests. It is also why I have no truck at all with the argument that somehow this is a states rights issue. If they are meant to be entirely of state interest, then why on earth call them national parks? We are the government of the nation here. This is a parliament of the nation. If states do not believe national parks are of national significance, then they should not call them national parks—call them state forests or call them something else. But the moment there is an acknowledgment from the states that this deserves to be treated and publicly acknowledged as of significance to the nation then the national parliament and the national government have a role in looking at whether the principles are being applied appropriately in the management of national parks.

The examples that were given by the member for Gippsland, within the Australian Capital Territory, were not examples of national parks. You will find examples within national parks, when they are first declared, of activities that I would not regard as ideal. And there are pre-existing uses that occur in national parks. It even happens with forestry sometimes, when a final rotation of different coups goes through and then the regrowth is allowed to remain there for conservation purposes. These sorts of non-ideal uses of national parks happen all the time, but the one principle that has always been there—until the Victorian government broke it—is that in a national park you do not take backward steps. Once you have achieved a better environmental outcome within a national park, you draw a line. You do not see it as a resource to be used. You do not see it as a resource to be dug up, shot down or grazed over the top of. You see it as a national park so that the citizens of this nation can have somewhere to go and enjoy nature. That is what it is for. It is so significant that, even though it has been done at the state level time and again, state jurisdictions want the federal parliament to put the word 'national' in the title because they believe, and they are right to believe, that it is of significance to the whole nation.

The Victorian government's implementation of this—the principle is wrong and the motivation is wrong—has been a bumbling farce. On the principle of no backward steps in national parks, there is a difference between access for people and access for cattle. There are some people and some environmentalists—maybe some people within this chamber—who have a different view to me and who would take a much tougher line on the enjoyment by people and the access to tourism facilities and things like that within national parks. I do not draw that line. I have always been positive about opportunities for people to enjoy these places. But I do not see national parks as opportunities for commercial ventures which have nothing whatsoever to do with the enjoyment of the national park for anyone other than the grazier or the owner of the business.

The member for McMillan, though, raised an important matter of principle: how do we weigh up the heritage issues? You would think that this parliament was being asked to make a decision as to whether grazing cattle will now have to leave the Alpine National Park. The truth is that alpine grazing finished some years ago. This is about a reintroduction; this is about a backward step. The heritage issues have already been consigned to the past. We happily celebrate the heritage of the First Fleet. It does not mean that if we want to travel back and forth to London we have to get on board a square rigger! When we celebrate and acknowledge heritage, it does not mean that how things were done in the past must be the way forward for ever. There is alpine grazing, but it is not within the national park, nor should it be. There is an important principle here about how we deal with our national parks.

It is hard to find an issue where it is easier to criticise the motivation of the Victorian government than this one. I was actually weighing up whether I acknowledge this or not and whether it is taking the low road too much to talk about this stuff, but the member for Gippsland did it for me. Upfront he said, 'This issue is so important that people involved have made donations to the National Party,' as though they have somehow bought into the outcome by making a political donation and therefore their views become more important. There is no way in the world that this government will have a moment of sympathy for anyone who wants to argue that, because you make a donation to a political party, you increase your rights as a citizen to access and use national parks for commercial purposes. You have had the media at different points referring to whether or not this might be the motivation. You have had different members of my own political party asserting that it probably is the motivation. Ten points, the card ought to go up, for the honesty of the member for New England and 10 points for the honesty of this admission from the National Party. If we ever wanted to see an example of a donation and a policy outcome being inextricably linked, we have had not just a speech about it but a confession about it on the floor of the House of Representatives today. This was a cheap deal to provide free agistment for a number of farmers.

Let us not forget that these same individuals, when they left the Alpine National Park, were paid compensation for leaving. They were actually paid compensation for leaving. Did the Victorian government say that that compensation money, if the graziers wanted to come back in, would be returned? Not for a moment. The idea of the Victorian government was: you leave for a few years, you get the compensation for leaving and you make your donation to the National Party, but that is the only money you will lose—paying back to the National Party is enough; you will never have to pay back the taxpayers' funds. That is what has happened here.

That also explains why we have ended up with the bogus fire management argument as the reason. The Victorian government have wanted to claim this is about fire management for one reason only: they needed to circumvent the compensation issue. They needed to design contracts that said, 'This is not for the benefit of the farmer; this is for the benefit of the National Park.' That is why they landed at the fire management issue—for no other reason. They went to the fire management issue as a way of making sure that people who had made their donations to the National Party got to keep their compensation funds and got the benefit anyway. That is what the Victorian government have done. This one is as grubby as it gets.

The scientific argument was shown to be a fraud from the moment the implementation began. If you are going to conduct a scientific study on the impact of alpine grazing, the first thing you would do is let the scientists have a look at the site before the cattle arrive. How are you meant to know what the impact of alpine grazing is unless you do your baseline survey, unless you let the scientists in? The Victorian government was in such a rush to make sure that it could say to the mounted cattlemen that it had delivered it did not even let the scientist who was allegedly in charge of the study know that the cattle were on their way in. As far as science was concerned, no survey could be done. The scientists did not even get half a chance to have a look at the Alpine National Park before the cattle were rushed in so that the donors to the National Party could be made happy. That is the precise order of events. We ended up with members of the Victorian parliament trying to come up with ways of saying why the science was true. We ended up with a member of the Victorian parliament, who I must say has become my favourite member of that parliament, Donna Petrovich, saying:

In many respects we are quite lucky that there are still a few remaining lead cows in those herds that know the areas that are being trialled. If we did not have that, we would have an environmental problem. Those cattle stick to the areas and the tracks, and they teach the other cattle the appropriate way to move through that country.

The best defence the Victorian government can come up with is a mutual workshopping education plan amongst small groups of cattle, where they teach each other and explain which wetlands are safe to trample all over and which wetlands are listed under the EPBC Act as vulnerable! The lead cow gets to show the smaller cows where it is safe to go and where there might be an endangered species! And this is meant to be a scientific trial. This is the best that the Victorian government has been able to come up with.

Up until now, members of the federal coalition have avoided making a public stand on this issue. They have allowed the issue to go through quietly. They have allowed the member for Gippsland to fly the flag and make his own comments. They have just wanted the issue to go away. But, in a classic own goal, in a classic favour that the member for Gippsland has decided to do for his coalition colleagues, today he gets to put every single one of them on the record.

On this side of the House, we are very proud to be on the record defending a Labor reform from the previous Victorian Labor government. We are very proud of our relationship with the cattle farmers—whom I met during the time that I was Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry—who actually pay for land to feed their own cattle, who do not have this special bonus, who do not use this side way of trying to get free agistment through donations to the National Party.

In this own goal, members opposite who have national parks in their electorates—whether it is the Blue Mountains, Mount Buffalo, Diamantina or Ku-ring-gai Chase—draw a line today when they sit in this chamber and put themselves on the record. They decide today, for the first time, whether the view of this parliament is that it is okay to take backward steps inside a national park, whether it is okay within a national park—even though it has been declared, even though it has been determined to be of national significance—to continue to see that area as a resource to be chopped down, dug up or grazed over the top of. No member of parliament gets to avoid that today. On the Labor side, we are really proud to be able to get our names on the record, but there is no shortage of members of the coalition who will not be thanking the member for Gippsland for what he is making them do today.

I made an offer to the three governments that are responsible for the alpine areas—the ACT government, the New South Wales government and the Victorian government—to work together on how to deal with bushfire mitigation and how to deal with other ferals and invasives. Guess which of the three governments has still not responded to me. The Victorian government, because they are not interested in the reasons for weeds and bushfires. There have only been excuses to get around a compensation issue, to look after some donors, in a grubby deal that should end today. (Time expired)

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a lot of respect for the minister at the table, the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, and I am disappointed to hear what he has been saying about national parks. Why am I disappointed? Because his attitude is like the attitude of ministers of the Crown in the Greiner government in 1992, when I warned them that a fire of a magnitude that they would never have seen before was going to occur in the Kosciuszko National Park. I warned my volunteer firefighters, when I was representing that area, not to go into the park under any circumstances, because there was that much fuel in there that, if a lightning strike hit it, it would create a massive problem, not only for their safety but also for biodiversity.

In 2003, as a result of incompetence within the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, that fire happened. It created a massive problem for the park and had a massive impact on its ecology, to the extent that, in some sections of the Kosciuszko, particularly on the Victorian side, the ground is sterilised 15 to 16 feet below the surface, and the soil, if you pick it up in your hands, is like talcum powder. There was more biodiversity destroyed in that fire than has ever been destroyed or threatened by mankind before.

History has shown that, when the cattle were grazing in the high country, the fires were lesser than they are today. It is okay to have an ideological view that might be friendly to and appreciative of the Greens—that you and your government are holding very desperately onto government with, Minister—but the reality is that the sort of dogma and nonsense that you are espousing in this chamber today will have a massive impact on the Kosciuszko. You talk about future generations and protecting the biodiversity of places like the Kosciuszko by keeping cattle out. Minister, I say to you what I said to the Greiner government in 1992: you are going in the wrong direction. If you want to save the Kosciuszko for future generations, stop this nonsense about locking people out and letting the weeds and feral animals within proliferate.

I have been up in the Kosciuszko many, many times. In fact, I made a short film about the Kosciuszko and the history of mankind in the Kosciuszko. You go up into the Kosciuszko today and, because of the feral cats and wild dogs there, you cannot hear a bird. There are no birds up there in some sections of the Kosciuszko, because of the incompetence of successive governments, at both the state and federal levels, who do not seem to understand that man can live in harmony with the environment. It has been done for over a century in the Kosciuszko National Park. I can tell you, Minister, it breaks my heart to hear you in this chamber today blame people like the cattlemen of this country, who not only have created history but with their cattle grazing have also done more to protect the national parks than anybody else. The Aborigines used to burn the parks in the past. Why did they burn them? They burnt them to get the sweet grass growing so that the kangaroos would come down and make it easier for them to take the kangaroos for food.

I am passionate about this; I probably sound passionate about it. Let me say to you, Minister: please rethink your direction because, if you do not, not only are you going to threaten the maintenance of biodiversity in the Kosciuszko National Park; you are going to place in danger volunteer firefighters, who are the people who will go in there and fight the fires. It will not be the Greens, or you as a minister, or a politician—it will be volunteers, who give their time freely, who because of the nonsense that you have espoused here today will go in and try to put out what is inevitably going to be another wildfire in the Kosciusko National Park. I say that with a heavy heart, Minister, because I do respect you. I think you are a highly intelligent individual and I am surprised that you have brought this sort of debate into this chamber.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to support my colleagues the members for Gippsland, McMillan and Hume. It grieves me to disagree with the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, because I must say that this minister has been very good to me in my electorate. He has come up and looked at the problems I have had, even environmental problems like the bats. When we had trouble with the bats he promised me that he would try to influence the state ministers to be a bit more amenable to the problems that people had regarding the bats. I might tell you, Minister, it is still a dreadful problem. But that is not what we are talking about today; we are talking about the alpine regions of New South Wales and Victoria.

I think it is perfectly reasonable for the state government of Victoria to ask for a trial and to have a controlled trial. Why should we be worried about doing a trial in a controlled area with a controlled number of cattle? What reasonable person could object to that? I will tell you why people object to it: the risk might be that if the trial proved successful there would be pressure for other parts of the park to be opened up to grazing. So, if you do not want to do anything like that, you knock it on the head. Although the minister crafted a very interesting story about the words 'national parks', the word national was used way back, well before we developed a sense of nationalism in this country. It was a term that was used overseas, in America, and we adopted it here when the states started to put aside special parts of the country for the preservation of the ecology of those areas. I do not think it ever had the context of the federal government imposing its will of protection over it. That might be the case with Heritage areas, but it was not the case with national parks.

Who controls the national parks, when it really gets down to the practicality of it? It is the state governments. It is their environmental departments or their agriculture or primary industry departments. It is their police and emergency workers who have to go into the parks in times of fire and flood. All those sorts of workers, down to SES volunteers, rural firemen and firewomen, are godchildren of the state governments. They are the people who have to effectively carry out the work. It is all well and good for the federal government to use an international convention to bludgeon a state government. That has happened time and time again in this country—total overkill, using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The number of times that international conventions have been used to suppress the intentions of a state government is totally disproportionate.

What do we see across Australia in all states? We get governments from time to time of both political persuasions—but I suspect probably more Labor ones than not—that have the idea to name a national park. Everyone feels all warm and fuzzy and everyone says, 'Oh, good! Isn't that marvellous!' But what do you see a year or two later? You see feral animals running all over them and there are no fuel reduction measures going on. I can remember one in my own area. It cries out to heaven, in much the same way as the member for Hume described parts of the alpine region. There are some beautiful wallum and some other plants—the name escapes me for the minute. There is a magnificent national park which has huge dead craggy trees with huge eagles nests on them. Before I got into parliament I was in charge of tourism in the area. I remember the ranger came to see me in desperation. He asked, 'Is there anything you can do with the Parks and Wildlife people or with the local council?' The ranger, John Byrne—I remember his name well—said, 'We're going to lose that whole park.' All he wanted to do was put some firebreaks through it—a simple thing. No. Even though he was their ranger, Parks and Wildlife would not let him do it, nor would the local council and, as sure as night follows day, we had a bushfire—and what a bobby-dazzler it was! It burnt out 70 per cent of the national park, and those magnificent eagles and all that went with it. Why do we have to demonise all the time grazing that has been going on for 150 years? As two of the speakers before me pointed out, people have got into the park through the activities of the cattlemen and have been able to appreciate that high country. I think it is reasonable for the state government of Victoria to conduct a trial and make its findings publicly known. The minister I think was a bit florid in his description of National Party members before, and I take some offence at that because I pride myself on being a practical conservationist. I do not go around thumping my breast and saying, 'Oh, isn't this dreadful?' or, 'Isn't that dreadful?' I like to do things like getting weed machines into salvinia and water hyacinth, ripping them out of our streams and making them pristine again. Previous ministers of the Howard government helped me do that. In fact, it overflowed into areas outside my electorate. The machines went on to clear lots of streams and dams.

I have spoken to the minister at the table, the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, when he has come to Bundaberg. I want to reopen the mouth of the Elliott River because the mangroves and things are dying. I probably had more Green Corps projects in my electorate under the Howard government than anyone else because I fostered them and I felt they did good work. I had a $2 million or $3 million study into some of the birds that come from Russia down to Queensland during the season. I have done a lot of work on the restoration of beaches through various government programs. I do not see myself standing in front of a tree, in front of a bulldozer. That is not my form of green power. My form of green power is doing practical things for the environment, not only so that people can enjoy it but also so that you remove feral influences from the environment and make it better.

I think a lot of the national parks in this country are very poorly run, and the state governments in many instances do not pull their weight. But when the Victorian government want to run a trial in a controlled area of land with a controlled number of cattle I think it is wrong to demonise them. I support the members for Gippsland, McMillan and Hume in their comments today and I ask the minister to think carefully on this subject.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Greens' position on this is well known. I have introduced a private member's bill into this place that would have the effect of removing cattle from the park, which is now subject, of course, to the result of this vote. Because the minister has acted, we do not need to proceed with that, because we are giving effect to the fundamental principle that this is a park, not a paddock. Our views on this are well known and I am not going to repeat them all, but I do want to spend some time on the issue that—aside from the contribution by the member for McMillan—has been the underlying principle of almost every contribution here in this chamber and of the Victorian government, which is the idea that grazing in a national park with internationally recognised sensitive and endangered areas is somehow going to reduce the fire risk and that somehow a trial is needed to prove that.

After the fires in 2003 in the Bogong High Plains, there was the opportunity to conduct exactly that assessment. After those fires, scientists went in and conducted one of the most comprehensive studies of fire behaviour and its connection with grazing. They looked at over 419 points. They took over 4,000 twig measurements. They did a very comprehensive survey of the impact of those fires in the areas where there had been grazing in the park and those where there had not been. And what did they find? They found that there was no statistically significant difference between the areas where there was grazing and the areas where there was not.

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because the fire was so hot, you goose!

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One would have thought that the conducting of a scientific trial—

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, it is unparliamentary—

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the member for Hume is interjecting outside of his place in this chamber, which is very disorderly. The member for Melbourne has the call.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For those who come in here and say that the basis for this is fire risk and science and we need a trial: if you are going to base your argument on the science, let us look at the science, and the science is in. We have evidence, and I have not heard one member from the opposition talk about the study that was done after 2003, because it does not help their argument but it is what the science says.

We had a thing in Victoria in 2009—which again I have not heard any member from either Victoria or the coalition talk about—called the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission. It had a $40 million budget. It sat for over 155 days. It came up with many recommendations. Not one of them was that we should reintroduce grazing into the park because it would reduce fire risk, despite the fact that the royal commission looked at these areas and looked at all of these issues and despite the fact that I suspect that some people probably made submissions to it to that effect.

But let us take this argument even further. Let us assume that you are prepared to ignore the fact that there has been a case study of this after 2003 and ample scientific evidence. Let us ignore the fact that we have had a royal commission looking at fires in Victoria. Let us just take the argument on face value that you want to have a controlled trial. If that is right, why did the scientist who is supposedly conducting this trial first find out about it after the Baillieu government introduced the cattle into the park? He found out about it when he read it in the paper. If you really wanted to conduct a trial, wouldn't you appoint the scientist and then go and get them to investigate the area, work out their methodology, conduct their initial research, establish the baseline situation and then set out how you would conduct a trial?

No, that is not what happened here. What happened here was that the Baillieu government, within five minutes of being elected, put the cattle back into the park and then thought: 'Well, we need a bit of a fig leaf for this. Let's go and talk to a scientist. Let's go and arrange a scientist to get involved.' And the scientist did not even know that the cattle had been introduced. It is a fig leaf of a justification. It has been pulled away, and the sight behind it is not pretty. The Victorian government is misusing science to deliver on a very blatant political deal. The minister's actions are to be commended and the regulation should stand.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Initially I was not going to speak on the motion moved by the member for Gippsland to disallow the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment Regulations 2011 (No. 1), but I have been quite interested to hear what a number of speakers have actually said and, in particular, what the member for Hume has said because I was in that parliament in 1992 when a number of those issues were raised. Enough time has passed to show that on some of the issues that were raised back then—and I would like to think I was one of those that raised those issues at that time—mistakes were made in land management. Even though this debate is about whether or not a cow should be allowed in a national park and whether or not the cow can actually have some impact on fires and biodiversity, I think the broader debate that does need to be had is the one about land use since Aboriginals—and the member for Hume touched on this. We have a landscape that has been based largely on interference by humans—those humans being, of course, Aboriginals. I think most of us would be aware of the Aboriginals' checker plate type of burning arrangements—which is what I think the member for Hume was talking about—to attract kangaroo and other animal activity for hunting purposes and also to preserve their own lives so that massive bushfires would not take place. As to whether the cow actually replaces the Aboriginal in these areas that we are talking about, I am not qualified to say, but I think we should have a very close look at it in considering our broader land management issues.

The member for Hume would remember all that. And we still have a time bomb ticking in the Blue Mountains, given the warning signals that have gone out. The groundcover and debris loads in parts of the Blue Mountains will eventually lead to absolute destruction of some of those areas, including the communities that live in them. All of us who sit in this place have heard, 'Let it return to nature; let nature take its course.' The nature that we are talking about has been created by humans—the Aboriginal people. Even though we neglect them in many ways, perhaps, before it is too late, we should consult with these people on how to manage some of these systems, because the very biodiversity that we are talking about has essentially been created by them. I have got such areas in my electorate, the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park. There have been debates, just as we had in the nineties in the New South Wales parliament—and I am sure they were carried out in other states as well—and arguments about lantana and blackberry control, as have been mentioned by various members today, and about what occurs as to the biodiversity and the weed and feral animal issues when you remove humans from that environment. Some suggest that if you leave it long enough it will all return to the way it was. It was a managed system in some sense and we are doing our best to take Aboriginals out of the landscape rather than putting them back into it. We cannot return it to the way it was, so in some sense this city based view that you do nothing—that is, let nature take its course—has a misguided objective.

The other instance that I would raise—and I know this might be a little bit outside the debate but I think it is pertinent to the wider land management debate—is the absolute desecration that is taking place in Central Australia as I speak. Because the majority of people do not go there—although I do; that is where I go on holidays, and it is magnificent country—they do not see the impact of feral camels and the climate change issues that are happening in some areas where in recent decades there has been more rain than in the past. That situation will not last forever. But there has been a massive explosion in camel numbers with massive destruction. I have had the pleasure of going up and down the Canning Stock Route a number of times and along many of the old desert tracks and whatever that are out there, and the destruction of natural waterholes and natural vegetation is just appalling. So I, here and now, make the plea that something has to be done. I know there are issues before the current government in terms of carbon farming initiatives and methane, so it could be by that or by direct bounty or vermin control.

There has been a lot of preoccupation with this particular issue before us as to whether a cow is going to create the future or desecrate the future, but I think there are other issues out there that should be looked at much more closely. I think the city should start to pay some attention, because a lot of this is about politics. Whether it be National Party donations or the green vote, it is about politics rather than land management. From time to time the landowners who are park neighbours and whose land is plagued by a whole range of other things—the feral animals and weeds that come out of some of these areas—get a little bit burnt up about the way that politicians respond to some of the national park management issues.

Last night I happened to run into a great Australian. I refer to Keith Payne, whom I had met before and I think most people would know by name, so I do not have to describe who he is. He had flown into Canberra yesterday from Western Australia via Alice Springs, and I met him last night. I had not realised that he has been very involved with Aboriginal communities in feral animal control, particularly camels, and they had been out yesterday and had shot 457 camels. Keith made the plea, and I agree wholeheartedly with him, that we have to do something about this issue. Although people on this side of the chamber will probably disagree, I think carbon farming initiatives are probably the vehicle that should be used. But whether it is the carbon farming initiatives or something else we have to inject some funds into solving this problem. When that country dries up again, that is when the politics will kick in. If you have been in Docker River when it is dry and seen a mob of camels go through town, you will know that it is not a pleasant sight, because they take the toilet bowls with them. That is when the politics and the expense of repairing some of these desecrations will occur.

I will be supporting the member for Gippsland's motion, not that I am a scientist in terms of this issue but because there are two broader issues that are crying out to be addressed here. The member for Melbourne is quite right: the Victorians spent a lot of money recently on a royal commission looking into fires. Fire management post Aboriginal occupation has to be examined. Some people think that everything is just going to return to nature. It cannot. It would take thousands of years to get back to something that, possibly, looked like what was there before the fire-stick technology brought in by the Aboriginal people. They did not do that just to preserve the biodiversity; they did that to preserve themselves.

We have all got some pristine and magnificent areas in our electorates. We have to make sure there is some degree of management in those systems to prevent the loss of life and the loss of that very diversity that we are all talking about saving.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities against the motion moved by the member for Gippsland to disallow the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment Regulations 2011 (No. 1). I do so because, from what we have heard today, the facts seem to be far from the romantic view that those opposite are trying to put forward about cattle grazing. I was involved in the Victorian task force that ended the licences for cattle in the Alpine national parks. I actually spent time up there—days and weeks—with the cattlemen, with people whom I really admire, with people like Simon Turner and Harry Ryder, cattle producers, who are really good blokes. This is the thing that seems to be getting lost in the mystic romance put across by those on the other side.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's called heritage.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Riverina yaps in and says, 'It's called heritage.' Mate, when was the last time you had a bushranger in Wagga Wagga, apart from you? We do not have that anymore. We have got to be serious about this. This is purely about cattle farmers. They are beef producers; they are not some romantic, mystic people that sit around the camp fire and sing. I have been through this before because I have sat in the chamber with some people who have been directly related to mountain cattlemen.

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You don't think history is relevant in this country?

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

History is very relevant—you are still sitting there; I consider you relevant.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Members on my left will cease interjecting.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We went through this whole thing. At the end of the day we are talking about cattle farmers. That is what they are and that is what they do, and they do it pretty well.

What this is about for the Nationals is protecting eight family farms. Now, thanks to the member for Gippsland admitting it, we find out that these are people who have contributed to National Party campaigns. The Nationals sit there and say, 'We've got to protect farmers.' Why would you protect eight farmers at the cost of everyone else? During the 12 years of drought in Victoria, where people were paying an absolute fortune—hundreds of dollars a week—to get agistment to keep their cattle farms going, to keep themselves in business and to keep themselves going, eight families, including those directly related to the Victorian Premier, were allowed to agist their cattle on public land for $5 a season, for 16 to 20 weeks. While everyone else was going out the back door, going broke in the middle of a drought, a select handful of people on hereditary licences were virtually given a taxpayer funded agistment, and it was wrong. It was wrong then and it is wrong now.

The Victorian task force I was on travelled everywhere, from Wonnangatta Station right up through the Bogong High Plains, right through Victoria's high country. We went and had a look at things. I am sure the minister will agree: I am probably not the greenest person in this place; I am probably the brownest one on our side. When I first became a member of that task force, I said, 'What are we doing this for?' By the end of the four or five weeks we spent up there, it was clear as day that some of the issues caused by cattle in the high country were such that we could not morally stand by and let them happen.

We spent days walking through the high country. There were places up there with sphagnum moss in the bogs. We came across two bogs that were not affected by cattle. Cattle are pretty heavy. They have got small feet and they punch a hole straight through the moss. This moss is used to filter the water that goes into our rivers—the water that we use to drink and to live off. When the snow melts and it rushes, the moss that is punctured gets pushed away. It takes many, many years for it to grow. It acts like a sponge to filter the water. The name of the grass in the bogs escapes me, but every person we met—the environmentalists, the cattlemen—all said the same thing: this particular grass that grows in the bog is like chocolate to cattle. They love it. They cannot get enough of it. So they are prepared to go through the bog to get to this grass. In doing so, they wreck the bog, which then wrecks the filter system for the waters that flow into our rivers. As I said, we saw only two that were not affected by cattle. I actually kept the photos because I had never seen a pristine one before. It is something that I still keep, because it is an amazing sight. They are beautiful places that should be enjoyed by more people, not locked up for access by a small number of people.

We also looked at environmental issues. We looked at the native grasses, the introduced grasses, the weeds and pests. Guess how the weeds got up there?

Most of the weeds in the cattle grazing area have got up there because they are driven up there and dropped off. We are not talking about the men from Snowy River who herd their cattle up there on horseback over five days; the grasses that are eaten elsewhere are taken up the mountains when the cattle do their droppings. By the way, this is how the Victorian government does scientific experiments to know what the impact is—they are out there counting cattle dung. That is their scientific experiment. It is just an absolute joke. So all those weeds that come in, they are in the cattle droppings and they spread through these areas and include things like blackberries and couch grass. They are up there and they are not native to high country ecosystems.

I also want to talk about the fires because this has been an interesting one. We get this romantic view of 'cattle grazing reduces blazing'. But not one cow would eat bark, twigs or leaves, which is what causes the fuel load, which is what causes the intensity. I know this because—it is a pity the member for Hume is not here—I sat through the hearings on the 2003 alpine fires where parts of the cattle-grazed area were burnt and parts were not, and parts in the areas that were untouched were burnt and other parts were not. Things like weather conditions, including the wind conditions, caused the changes in the fire. Not one person, including the people from the CFA or environmentalists, agreed that cattle grazing reduces blazing. Cattle eat grass. Grass does burn with the same intensity as twigs, bark, fallen trees and all those things. So the theory that cattle grazing reduces blazing is just quite simply rubbish because it does not. It was proven it does not and you cannot run that argument seriously and say, 'Look, I'm being honest, hand on heart, this is what it is about'.

This is about the protection of eight families. That is all it is about. If you want to be fair to farmers and give them all a fair go, you would not allow eight farmers to go through drought conditions and fatten up their cows and get top prices while every other farmer on the low plains and on the low ground is getting nothing for their animals and going out the back door and relying on drought support. You cannot do that. Rather than having a hereditary license in which you have to marry in to get one, we looked at whether it is an option to the auction them off. This was quickly dismissed both by the mountain cattlemen and by us because people would go up there and do as much as they could to get as much as they could out of the grass.

In the end it was a decision that was made looking at things such as ecology, fire, cattle and heritage. We looked at a whole range of things and came to the conclusion that cattle grazing was not compatible with a national park. We concluded that it was not compatible with the native flora and fauna that is up there or with other users of the national park. The state government then offered the cattlemen more state forest land, extra amounts of land to use for grazing. But they said no. It was either all or nothing, so they got nothing. We went out of our way to help them; we tried to keep things going. It is not ending the tradition. It is not ending the heritage. There are still high plains up there in state forests that get grazed all the time and there is no problem with that. But this is about the use of the national park, which is not compatible with cattle grazing.

The other thing that seems to have been overlooked is that the cattlemen received $5 million in compensation from the Victorian taxpayers. That is a more than generous amount of money, but now, because of direct relatives of the Premier and friends of the National Party, they are back in there. Where is the money? Did they give the money back? No. According to the member for Gippsland, they financed National Party campaigns with it. That is absolutely wrong. You cannot stand there and say, 'We're doing the right thing'.

Mr Chester interjecting—

You basically have said that they paid for their opinion to be heard.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker: I ask the member to withdraw.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For what?

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The suggestion that a member's vote can be bought by political donations.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will withdraw if it makes you happy, but I would just ask you to read your own Hansard later and tell me if I am wrong.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for McEwen might assist the House by simply withdrawing.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will withdraw again. When we look at this issue before us today, quite clearly it is about mates and not about national parks or about ecology. We know that cattle damage moss beds, which are very fragile. Cattle pollute waterways and create tracks. We saw an example of this during the time we spent up there with the cattlemen and the environmentalists—and this is going to be a good slap at environmentalists. A cow had died in a bog and it was decomposing. It affected the bog. The environmentalists were very quick to say: 'Look, the cow's died in a bog. It's bad.' But at no time did any of them think: 'You know what? We should remove that and protect the environment'. No, they slapped the cattlemen. I brought it to their attention and said: "Well, this is rubbish. If this is so important, why wouldn't you just remove the carcass?' That was the right thing to do, to remove it and to ensure that it did not impact any further on the moss beds. But what if we take away all the arguments that have been put forward by those opposite and sit down and ask: 'What's important? What do we want from the national park?' We want it to be open for a lot of users, for a lot of people to use it and to use it freely.

A fellow that the member for Gippsland and I both know, Mr Devers, will tell you about the time he was chased by cattle through the park when he was bushwalking. Mr Devers is a very good bushwalker and also does alpine rescues. You cannot go to the areas that are okay to camp in because of the cowpats that are everywhere. We have to use it for as many purposes as possible. This includes Wonnangatta Station. I went there and I remember hearing, 'Have a look at it, it's a mess'. If you looked at it as a paddock to put your cows in to graze then it probably did look a mess. But if you looked at the native grasses that were growing there, the kangaroo paw et cetera, in their native environment it was looked pristine. We do not lock people out of there. There is a place there called the widow-maker where the four-wheel drivers go up and down. That is part of it. There are bush tracks for people to walk through and huts for people to stay in when they go fishing and camping.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Four-wheel drives but not cows.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member says 'Four-wheel drives, not cows' but there are four-wheel drive tracks in the national parks and there have been for a long time. I am sure someone like yourself has probably never been in one and would not understand that. It is about ensuring that you get a balance for all users and not lock up lots and lots of areas just for eight families to protect their interests. I know the member for Gippsland is on the charge for his buddies down there but the reality is that he is wrong. This motion is wrong and the minister is right that we do not take steps backwards and turn a national park into a private farm for a handful of graziers.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a disgraceful performance we have just heard from the member for McEwen, repeating the allegations made by the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities and also by his Greens mate, the member for Melbourne, disparaging graziers in Victoria, claiming that these guys had bribed the National Party to give them—

Mr Mitchell interjecting—

No, that is what you said, mate. You stand by those comments, and the minister can too. You made the claim that graziers had bribed the National Party to get this outcome, to get this trial.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I have a point of order. The member for Dawson has just made an outrageous allegation and I ask him to withdraw.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It would assist the House if the member for Dawson would withdraw.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw, Mr Deputy Speaker, but what has been said here, particularly by the minister and by the member for McEwen, flies in the face of not only the reality of natural resource management but also what the minister's department is approving elsewhere. I will tell a little of what is going on in my electorate at Wongaloo Station. Wongaloo Station has been bought and now is being looked after by a private foundation called the Wetlands and Grasslands Foundation because, basically, it is North Queensland's Kakadu. We have an area there which is second to none for its wetlands—the Cromarty wetlands, the bird life and the wildlife that all comes to that area. The bloke who is pushing for Cromarty wetlands to be established as Wongaloo conservation park is a former state Nationals MP, Mark Stoneman, who is a great practical environmentalist. He is the chairman of the natural resource management group up there, NQ Dry Tropics. As the member for Riverina says, most National Party people are great environmentalists and, again, most farmers are also great practical environmentalists. Mark Stoneman is no different. He has been pushing the establishment of the Wongaloo conservation park for some time. The end result will be management of that property by the Wetlands and Grasslands Foundation as a conservation park. There is currently a lot of research going into this. It has been done with the minister's support when the member for Kingsford-Smith was the Minister for Environment, Heritage and the Arts. Some time ago he went to Townsville, in that region, and gave $1.79 million in federal funding to help purchase the wetlands for the Wetlands and Grasslands Foundation to set this place up as a conservation park. There have been ongoing discussions between the Wetlands and Grasslands Foundation and the federal Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities on this. One of the key principles that they are looking into up there, with the department's support, is the retention of cattle grazing as a control against the intrusion of exotic weeds—in an area aimed at being set up as a conservation park.

Now we have the minister arguing in here against what they want to do in one state—to have cattle grazing to stop noxious weeds and to see what other outcomes that that might achieve—and has been done in that part of the world for many a year, longer than the Labor Party has been in existence, longer than the Greens have been bleating. The people there have a definite heritage in that area. Yet, up in North Queensland, the federal department is facilitating the same outcome to get environmental results.

As I said, a lot of research has gone into the benefits of continuing grazing. The Wetlands and Grasslands Foundation, with the cooperation of the federal environment department, is getting that research and monitoring so that it can be used by other people who want to set up conservation parks around Australia. It is just unbelievable that the minister is here advocating that something should not happen in Victoria while his department is facilitating it in North Queensland. I have been down there to Wongaloo and the Cromarty wetlands and I have seen that the cattle that are grazing in certain areas there have nearly eradicated the noxious weeks, and there are plenty of them—182 different species of weeds in that area which cause real damage to the native flora.

Then I go to the areas inside that wetlands, inside the proposed conservation park, where there is no cattle grazing permitted. Do you know what I see? Feral pigs, everywhere, chewing on the weeds and running rampant. That damages not only native flora but also native fauna. If we look across Queensland's national parks—there are plenty in my area; for instance, Eungella National Park—the management of those national parks is so poor that farmers have to invest in stopping feral pigs, wild dogs and other feral animals from coming into their properties from the national parks. Again, I am just astounded that the minister's department is supporting an approach in North Queensland while in this chamber the minister says that approach is no go in Victoria. Even more disgraceful are these repeated comments, without any proof, that graziers have funded a political party in order to get a specific outcome—that being this trial of cattle grazing in Victorian national parks.

Surely the cattlemen in this country have copped enough from this Gillard Labor government. We went through the live export debacle, which they stuffed up in every way possible—almost bringing the entire North Queensland cattle industry to its knees. Now we have a carbon tax which will increase input costs for farmers everywhere around Australia, including for the Victorian graziers. On top of that, the carbon tax will drive costs for abattoirs higher, so the abattoirs will seek to reduce the number of cattle which go through in order to get their carbon emissions down. That is going to have an impact on graziers as well. Now here is another hit.

What is it all about? I can tell you what it is about: it is about the Greens. It is about the fact that this government has a written alliance with the Greens. They are dancing to the tune of the Greens once again. We have seen it up in North Queensland. Pressure was put on the state government to introduce reef regulations which impact on cane farmers. They have to complete a bunch of paperwork, test which way the wind is blowing and obtain information that even the Bureau of Meteorology would probably not have before they are able to use fertiliser and herbicide on their farms. The federal government is now pushing to lock up fishing waters in North Queensland. Commercial and recreational fishing will both suffer. This Labor government is again dancing to the tune of the Greens.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Dawson is a long way from the motion. It would assist the House if he were to return to the motion.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will return to the motion. But we are seeing a consistent approach to policy around the nation—the government dancing to the tune of the Greens. Whether it is locking up sections of the Coral Sea, whether it is requiring farmers to fill in heaps and heaps of paperwork just to undertake normal farming practices or whether it is knocking Abbot Point on the head for another six, seven or eight months—bringing it to two years—all of this stuff is just dancing to the tune of the Greens, and this regulation is as well. The minister should be ashamed of the comments he has made in this place.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to support those on this side by rising to speak on the motion proposed by the member for Gippsland to disallow regulations under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Grazing of domestic stock within the Australian Alps national parks and reserves, which are on the National Heritage List, has a significant impact on the listed values of those places. The Australian alps are one of Australia's unique landscapes, as has been eloquently agreed by all members who have spoken on this disallowance motion this morning. The alps are listed under the national environment law, the EPBC Act, to protect this area of great national significance.

Over the summer of 2010-11, the new Liberal-National Party government in Victoria quietly reintroduced cattle to the Alpine National Park in Victoria under the guise of a so-called scientific research trial. That has been very clearly covered by the minister, by members on this side and by some of the Independents and the Greens. The Victorian government took that action without first submitting their proposal to the federal government for assessment under the national environmental law to determine if any ecological areas would be impacted by their actions. The minister made it very clear, very early, that the Baillieu government were wrong to reintroduce cattle to the Alpine National Park and that, in doing so, they had set a dangerous precedent for the management of national parks across Australia. That is why this government last year made regulatory changes which formally recognised the significant impact of livestock grazing on the National Heritage values, listed under the EPBC Act, of the Australian alps national parks and reserves.

The regulation specifies that grazing of domestic stock, including cattle, could have a significant impact on the heritage values of the Australian alps National Heritage area and that any future new grazing activities proposed in the Australian alps National Heritage area, including the Alpine National Park, needed to be assessed under the EPBC Act. The minister made that statement last year in introducing the regulation. He has again today eloquently and forcefully given the rationale and reasoning behind that regulation, as have others on this side and others in this place. That is why I was quite prepared to support the minister in opposing this disallowance motion. I think that all in this House should now say where they stand on this important principle of whether you protect your national parks or you do not. We on this side do.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was most impressed to see the passion shown by the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities on this issue of cattle grazing in the Australian alps. I look forward to him showing exactly the same passion and commitment when he brings about a triple-bottom-line approach in the Murray-Darling Basin plan and ensures that we have social, economic and environmental outcomes considered in any water policy in this nation. He showed a lot of passion today. I look forward to him showing the same passion on that issue.

This disallowance motion comes about because, as is evident, the Greens are running the show. Labor might be in power but the Greens are running the show. The cattle will not be tearing up the bush as Labor and the Greens would have people believe. The Greens would like to see the national parks locked up. They are anti everything Australians cherish about the great outdoors. If the Greens get away with this and our national parks are locked up they will be left for feral animals to rule and noxious weeds to take over. With all the litter left lying around it would take just one spark for Black Saturday—those terrible, dreadful, horrific Victorian bushfires—to be repeated, and no-one wants to see that. The Greens, and others, are opposed to grazing but grazing reduces the litter load. Grazing reduces the risk of terrible bushfires. This disallowance motion is necessary because the Greens are running the show. Stockmen have grazed cattle in the Victorian alpine country for decades—more than 150 years. They have managed the high country ecosystems over this period. Only recently has it been decided that grazing should not continue—and why? Because we have a green agenda running this country. This alpine country was open up by stout-hearted stockmen, the mighty men of the Snowy River, on their horses. Now the brumbies run free, and I have no doubt the Greens want to get rid of them too.

This issue has been very much in the news since 2005 when the Bracks Labor government banned cattle grazing in Victoria's Alpine National Park in response to ongoing lobbying from environmental groups. The ban was overturned in January 2011 when the Baillieu coalition government, newly elected by the people—and this was very much an issue at the forefront of that election—reintroduced cattle to the estate for a short-term grazing trial, the first annual stage of a planned five-year project designed to ascertain whether grazing lowers bushfire risk by reducing fuel loads. The move attracted the ire of the minister at the table, Minister Burke, who pushed a special regulation through federal parliament to prevent the Victorian government from allowing cattle to re-enter for the second year of the trial. At the same time, the minister wrote to his state counterparts advising that the federal government was seeking greater control of Australia's 500 national parks, which are currently controlled by state governments. Citing the devastating nature of bushfires, the Victorian government asked the federal government to reconsider the importance of the trial as a bushfire mitigation tool. The federal minister responded by saying the move would have a 'clearly unacceptable' impact on the National Heritage values of the park estate. The minister's actions are based on a green desire to lock up vast tracts of country and to return them to complete wilderness. Mark Coleman, a third generation mountain cattleman and president of the Mountain Cattlemens Association of Victoria, said:

The concept may work in a rain forest in the Amazon or somewhere, where nature will take its course, but not here where I am standing in Victoria which is one of the most bushfire prone areas of the world.

Aboriginal people have managed the alpine landscape with firestick farming for tens of thousands of years and mountain cattlemen have continued similar management practices by burning patches of country every autumn. Cattlemen took a $100 million hit last year from Labor's live cattle export fiasco. They do not need to keep taking green hits from this government. Particularly in this, the Australian Year of the Farmer, farmers do not need to continue to be deterred by this government.

The member for McEwen speaks of bushrangers. Had a certain MP on that side of the House said 'Bail up! There will be a carbon tax under the government I lead', maybe—just maybe—we would not be having this discussion this morning.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In concluding this debate, may I say this has been an excellent debate and I congratulate all members who have spoken, including the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities and the Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and the members for Hume, Hinkler, Melbourne, McEwen, New England, Dawson and the Riverina. What we have seen this morning is proof of the passion that issues of natural resource management still generate in this place and, in particular, the passion that the issue of the mountain cattlemen generates. I thank all members for their contributions, even those I do not necessarily agree with, and for the way they took on this debate and raised their points of view.

I want particularly to comment on the member for McMillan's contribution. The member for McMillan spoke very eloquently about the cultural heritage of the mountain cattlemen that we are talking about today. He made a very important contribution regarding what direction we are going to take in natural resource management in this country in the future—whether we are going to recognise that active land management involving people on the ground is the way forward for natural resource management, rather than the 'lock it up and leave it' approach which has been dictated by governments in various jurisdictions in recent times.

At the outset I pleaded with the minister to show respect. He tried hard but he did, in the end, whip himself into an indignant frenzy about whether or not it was appropriate for the mountain cattlemen to make a donation to a political party. I encouraged him to give it his best shot and he certainly did. Unfortunately, in the minister's attack he suggested quite strongly—and I hope this was not his intention—that there was some kind of ulterior motive involved behind the mountain cattlemen making a donation to a political party in an open and transparent manner. I hope that is not what he was intending to say, but that is what it sounded like when he was speaking. He was imputing improper motives to members of the National Party and in doing so he was showing enormous disrespect to the cattlemen. As I said in my comments to the House, quite clearly and in a very open and transparent manner—and the minister congratulated me for my honesty—the Liberal Party and the National Party had pre-existing policies relating to the mountain cattlemen well before the 2010 election. It is spurious and it is a red herring to try to link the two and suggest there is some level of cash for comment, as the minister himself did, and as the member for McEwen did later on. I do not think that either member covered themselves in glory by trying to suggest there is some sort of ulterior motive on the part of either the members involved or the cattlemen themselves.

For the record, in answer to the member for McEwen's comment that I am 'on the charge for my buddies', I just want to say that I have no financial interest whatsoever in this issue and it is wrong to suggest that my opinion on this issue has been influenced in any way by friendships or financial donations to me or my party. I think you are wrong to make that suggestion. It was inappropriate and I took exception to the comment. Hence, I raised a point of order when the opportunity presented itself to me.

The minister said that the Labor Party is proud of its record on this issue. The fact is that the state Labor government kicked the cattlemen out of the high country on the back of a dodgy inquiry with preordained recommendations. When the high country burns next time and lives are lost, property is destroyed and native animals are scorched, I wonder whether members opposite are still going to be proud of their approach to the issue and the issue of natural resource management more generally.

Natural resource management in this nation is heading in the wrong direction. The member for Hume spoke about this. The member for New England also spoke very eloquently about this issue. We are going down the wrong path when it comes to natural resource management. 'Lock it up and leave it' is not an environmental policy; it is a recipe for disaster. This is the path we are heading down. If we follow the Greens down this ideological path, we will destroy this great environment that we have all stood here today and said we cherish. 'Lock it up and leave it' is not an environmental policy.

I welcome the vote today, just as the minister himself said he will welcome the vote, because we will put on the record where we all stand on this very important issue. The minister is nodding his head. I think it is important that members get to vote today on where they stand on this very important issue of natural resource management and whether they believe in practical and active land management. On this side when we vote today we will be demonstrating our respect for the Victorian coalition government and the mandate it received in 2010. We will also be respecting the mountain cattlemen and their families and their more than 150 years of active management of the high country. We will also be respecting the role mountain cattlemen can play in reducing the fuel load and in sustainable environmental management through grazing and prescribed burns. We will also be respecting the heritage of regional communities on both sides of the Great Dividing Range in Victoria.

The member for McEwen asked the question: who is Doug Treasure? Doug was a former President of the Mountain Cattlemen's Association of Victoria. Doug died this year. Doug campaigned for many years on behalf of his constituents in the Mountain Cattlemen's Association. Doug was a great man. He lived in Stratford and made an enormous contribution to active land management through his role with the Mountain Cattlemen's Association of Victoria. I assume that the member for McEwen just wanted to know who Doug Treasure was. That is who Doug Treasure was. Doug was a tremendous man who made a great contribution. He passed away earlier this year, and we in this place send our love to his family.

Today, in voting for this motion, we will demonstrate our respect for regional Australians and how they choose to live their lives. I thank the House.

Peter Slipper (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the chair is that the motion moved by the honourable member for Gippsland be agreed to.