Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

What we have here today is a terrible precedent. I do not know if Senator Colbeck, the Liberal Party, the Tasmanian member for Lyons, Mr Adams, or Mr Llewellyn, the minister in Tasmania, know the full consequences of what they are doing. It was the Howard government that passed the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. It was the Howard government that set up the process by which areas could be listed as threatened under the EPBC Act. There has never been a precedent for the disallowance of an area recommended to go onto a threatened species list since the act was introduced. This would set a precedent whereby political decisions are made to destroy the integrity of the threatened species lists associated with the EPBC Act. Henceforth, anytime anyone does not like a threatened species listing, they will be able to use the parliament to block it, so you will get only those things on the list that are deemed to be politically acceptable, and that would be wrong. This would set the worst-case precedent.

I am no fan of the EPBC Act. At the time it was introduced by the government, I was one of those who said that it was a terrible piece of legislation and that it would not protect threatened species. That has been proved time and time again, no more so than in recent times when my colleague Senator Bob Brown went to the Federal Court to demonstrate the complete failure of the EPBC Act to protect threatened species because of its deference to the regional forest agreements. That was a whole court process, and governments came in behind it and altered the law in order to destroy the court decision that Senator Brown had achieved. But the fact of the matter is that we do have the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the integrity of its threatened species list is critical.

At the minute, we are in Biodiversity Month. I think it is really interesting that in Biodiversity Month—7 September is Threatened Species Day—we should have the Tasmanian Liberal senators, the Labor member for Lyons, Mr Adams, and the Tasmanian minister, Mr Llewellyn, trying to stop the lowland grasslands of Tasmania being added to the threatened species list. No-one, it seems, is disputing the fact that these grasslands are threatened species. This is a political argument as to whether an identified threatened species should be listed, and the Liberal Party and the National Party are saying, ‘No, it should not be listed.’ That is wrong. It is a political decision.

The evidence has been gathered over three years. This was first nominated for listing in 2006, and there has been, contrary to what has been said, extensive consultation. Senator Colbeck has identified one property owner who says that he was not consulted. I have no reason not to believe that that is the case, and there may be others. Nevertheless, three years of consultation and assessment have determined that these grasslands are threatened, and they are of national importance. The temperate grasslands are one of the most underrepresented ecosystems in Australia’s conservation estate, according to Gilfedder et al, 2008. They are recognised as one of the most threatened vegetation types, according to one of Tasmania’s leading academics, Jamie Kirkpatrick. In February 2009, only four natural temperate grasslands had been formally listed as threatened under the EPBC Act: the natural temperate grasslands of the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, which are listed as endangered; the iron-grass natural temperate grasslands of South Australia; the natural temperate grasslands of the Victorian volcanic plain; and the natural grasslands on the basalt and fine textured alluvial plains of Northern New South Wales and southern Queensland.

The remnant lowland native grasslands of Tasmania are regarded as one of the most threatened and fragmented ecosystems and the most depleted vegetation formation in Tasmania and they deserve to be listed. The evidence is there, the assessment has been done and they are not currently listed as a threatened vegetation community under the Tasmanian Nature Conservation Act. Why is that? I assume it is because of our minister, Mr Llewellyn, who has the proud record of being the person who has most proactively throughout his entire parliamentary career done everything in his power to destroy conservation efforts in Tasmania to promote the logging of as much native forest as he could possibly facilitate. He has also acted against the interests of maintaining species through his proactive prosecution of the case for every development under a Labor government policy of dig it up, cut it down, build a road into it, put a resort on it or shoot it. That has been the conservation policy prosecuted by the Tasmanian government. It does not surprise me one iota that they would object to the listing of these grasslands, but these are one of the most threatened vegetation communities.

The Tasmanian Midlands, one of the main areas where the lowland native grasslands of Tasmania are found, is one of the 15 national biodiversity hotspots declared by the Australian government, but the Liberal Party senators and the National Party senators want to deny one of these hotspots listing under the act. In addition, the grasslands and the orchids, herbs and reptiles that depend on them are identified as one of the conservation priorities for the Tasmanian Northern Midlands in the Australian Natural Resources Atlas biodiversity assessment of Tasmania. The grassy ecosystems in the Campbelltown-Ross Tunbridge areas of Tasmania are considered to be particularly important. The township lagoon nature reserve at Tunbridge is a 16-hectare site listed on the National Estate that contains lowland grasslands. The 116 native species found in the reserve represent approximately 15 per cent of the 750 native plant species of grasslands in Tasmania. Significant populations of a large number of threatened species at the national or state level can be found in the reserve. These include Basalt peppercress, grasslands paper daisy, Tunbridge leek orchid, Tunbridge Buttercup, the tussock skink and the Tunbridge looper.

In addition to their value as a habitat for endemic and threatened species, the lowland native grasslands of Tasmania are an economically valuable resource for Tasmania’s agricultural sector. I notice that Senator Colbeck did not mention that, but they are used in the wool industry, where around half of Tasmania’s high-value fine-wool sheep graze on native grasslands. This talk about jackboots and locking up fails to recognise that that use will continue in spite of the listing of the grasslands as a threatened species. Native pastures are known to produce some of the finest wool, due to their low nutritional value and more even growth through the year when compared to sown pastures. The natural wildflower displays of some remnants in spring may also offer future ecotourism potential.

The interesting thing about the native grasslands is that one of the most threatening processes to these grasslands—and there are many—is climate change. At the awards ceremony the other night for young scientists involved in agriculture, fisheries and forestry, one of the awards was for a young person doing research on perennial grasses. We know that we need to be maintaining, looking after and looking at perennial grasses as a mechanism for sowing into them. There is a lot of work being done in New South Wales using native perennial grasses as a way of improving agricultural systems. These native grasses must be conserved for their own sake and for the species they support and also because they can potentially have significant use in agriculture.

I mentioned that there were many threatening processes. You would assume, from what Senator Colbeck said, that there was none. The main identified threats to the ecological community include: clearing and conversion of land, and consequent fragmentation of native vegetation remnants; pasture improvement and fertilisation; invasion by weeds and feral animals; inappropriate grazing and fire regimes; urban expansion; off-road-vehicle disturbance; salinity; and the low level of protection in reserves.

Of course, those things are still impacting on threatened species and threatened communities as we speak today. You only have to drive into any service station on the Midland Highway at any particular time to see off-road vehicles covered from head to toe in mud and dust from being out there in the bush, ripping up the bushland as fast as they possibly can. And that is encouraged by car industry advertisements suggesting that that is an appropriate way to engage in recreation in the countryside—by taking a vehicle in there and seeing how much mud and slush you can get all over the top of it.

Invasion by weeds and feral animals is really significant, but remember also that these grasslands provide incredible habitats for species that are threatened. We already have, on the threatened species lists federally, the wedge-tailed eagle in Tasmania, the spotted-tailed quoll, the tiger quoll, the eastern barred bandicoot, the Tasmanian devil and the Bass Strait wombat. All of them are vulnerable except for the wedge-tailed eagle, which is endangered. And all of those rely on habitat. They are known species in the landscapes and vegetation communities near or inside these ecological communities that need to be protected.

So when you say you will not allow these to go onto the threatened species list you are saying that the habitats for some of these iconic native species, already vulnerable or endangered, should not be allowed to be registered on a national list. What a disgrace! What a shame! We had the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts saying recently that it has got to the point where we have more than 1,750 species in Australia listed as threatened. And now we have a situation where many of them are on the road to extinction—one of those being the Tasmanian devil, which is suffering from devil facial tumour disease. There are many diseases in our wildlife.

We are losing wildlife at a great rate. The International Union for Conservation of Nature—which I retired as vice-president from last year—is the global expert on environment policy and it predicts that one-third of all species on the planet will be extinct by 2050. And people say: ‘Well, that must be referring to the polar bear, which will be extinct in the wild in the next 15 years. That’s a shame; we can go to the zoo and see a few sad creatures as long as they last.’ But Australia is contributing to that one-third of all species which will be extinct. We have the highest rate of mammal species loss in the world. This is a disgrace. And it has happened because governments have successively failed to protect our native ecosystems—whether they are wetlands, forests, grasslands or marine environments—because always, when it comes to a choice between extracting as much as possible in an unsustainable way out of those ecosystems and protecting them, extraction is what is preferred under legislation at a state and national level. That has certainly been the case in Tasmania and continues to be the case there.

At last we have recognition of the work of Professor Jamie Kirkpatrick and Louise Gilfedder. I have to say that they have worked tirelessly for decades to have grasslands recognised as a significant threatened species. Often they have said that, whilst they totally support the movement for the protection of high-conservation-value forests, they worry that the forests have really taken the focus off the critically endangered nature of our grasslands. At last we have here before the Senate the prospect that these grasslands might be listed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. But, no, we have the Liberal Party and the National Party, in what is becoming a fault line in rural Australia, trying to set a precedent under our conservation legislation to prevent the listing. It would be a political precedent under this act.

Why do I say that there is a fault line in rural and regional Australia?—because out there we have progressive farmers who recognise that what is driving extinction, loss, and a lack of productivity is the unsustainable way in which Australia has managed landscapes in the past. Senator Colbeck mentioned one of the progressive farmers on the east coast who are engaged in all of these activities—fencing remnant vegetation, fencing riparian areas, working in land care and so on. Those people want natural resource management and ecological sustainability to be a key part of that process. They recognise feral animals and weeds as a great problem, not only to productivity but to biodiversity. They recognise that climate change is real and urgent and adding pressure. Those people are turning around and saying, ‘Why is it that those people who purport to represent rural and regional Australia are failing the bush—the country—so badly by not recognising that if you do not have a sustainable environment you do not have productivity in agriculture?’

As long as they have climate change denial, opposition to conservation and a refusal to recognise the plight of endangered species, you will see the Liberal Party and the National Party continue to lose support in the countryside as people there recognise that they need to go with progressive thinkers on climate, ecosystem protection and the kinds of research that will guarantee productivity whilst protecting animal welfare, ecosystems and species. That is where the fault line is developing.

Increasingly, we see the dinosaurs emerging. This disallowance is a dinosaur disallowance. It purports to represent farmers. I do not believe that, because the consultation that has gone on over the last three years demonstrates that there is support. Where is there is a coalition of interest in terms of this is between the conservation movement and the farmers who say that we must pay people in rural Australia to maintain ecosystems and to carry out ecosystems services on behalf of the whole community. I recognise that people think that one of the problems with the emissions trading scheme is that it fails to look at green carbon and ways in which you might pay farmers—make money available—for weed eradication, eradication of feral animals, restoration of native vegetation and restoration and rehabilitation of bushland on their own land. I could not agree more. The conservation movement and the farmers are actually as one in recognising that that needs to happen.

I urge the Senate to recognise that, if this disallowance happens to be passed—and I hope that there are enough progressive people in here who recognise that that would be a backward step so it is not passed—you will be disembowelling the EPBC Act. You will be setting a precedent whereby stopping a listing of a threatened species becomes something that people who want to develop at any cost around the country will be able to do by coming to a political party that is prepared to go with a predevelopment-at-any-cost argument against the environment. This is a shocking precedent and I urge the Senate not to support this disallowance.