Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

In addressing the tabling of this report on natural resource management and conservation, I agree entirely with the submissions made by both the chair and the deputy chair of the Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee before me in this debate today. Before I get onto the substantive part of the report, I congratulate the chair on the work she did with this committee and this inquiry. Senator Nash only came into the chairmanship of the group halfway through. Also, I might say, I congratulate the previous chairman—I think it was Senator Sterle—who operated the committee very well and ably. Senator Nash came in halfway through and picked up the idea of the inquiry very quickly and made a significant contribution not only to the report but also to natural resource management in Australia by her action on the committee. I also congratulate the deputy chairman, Senator Siewert, who has just spoken, and particularly thank the staff who were assiduous, as always, as we have perhaps come to expect. They were very professional in the way they assisted the committee in its hearings and in reaching the conclusions that the committee has made.

Senator Siewert is right: this whole natural resource management issue has had a long gestation period. It was an initiative of the coalition government in the Natural Heritage Trust program, which we initiated when we first came to government. NHT1, as it was eventually known, set the scene and went in the right direction, but it was not perfect. We then became involved in what was known as NHT2, where we did focus natural resource management on community groups who had a direct connection with the landscape and with the particular environment in their region. We recognised that in a country like Australia one size does not fit all. We realised that, if natural resource management was to be effective in Australia, it really needed to be a grassroots, ground up sort of approach to the management of our natural resources. I was one of the two ministers responsible for NHT2 and I remember we had many arguments and many discussions with the Public Service and the people involved. We eventually came to the approach that was adopted by NHT2. Then there was a long gestation period in getting business plans and investment plans.

At that time, I acknowledge, we did lose some expertise that had been in the NRM management area. But I think we eventually got it right and, whilst nothing is ever perfect, it was going pretty well. It was entirely a catchment based program where money was given to, in most instances, community based resource management groups who knew and understood what needed to be done and could coordinate all the various environmental and landscape groups and people wanting to assist in their particular catchment. It was really working quite well. Regrettably, politics then intervened. The new government came into power and thought we should have change for change’s sake. They adopted an ANAO report, saying ANAO had concerns about the operations of the NHT2 arrangement. If you looked at the ANAO report, sure, there were two or three instances where they raised some problems. But principally, as I read that report, they were indicating that the department needed to pull up its socks, not that the whole program needed to be changed.

Politics being what it is, the new government came in and did not like to pursue successful programs of the previous government. So they changed the name and changed the words and, at the same time, gathered back a bit of money so they could spend it on other promises the Labor Party had made when in opposition. So what we had was that Caring for our Country came into operation with great fanfare but, when you dug down beneath the spin and the hoo-ha, you found that there was actually less money going to natural resource management in our country. Other things that had been promised by the Labor Party were added into the Caring for our Country program, but what that did was diminish the money available for the NRM work.

Throughout this inquiry it became clear from talking to people who actually knew what they were talking about that the government through Mr Garrett had adopted this ‘we know best in Canberra’ approach. It became very much a top-down approach, which they disguised under the name ‘national priorities’. It was the minister and bureaucrats in Canberra telling everyone else in Australia what they needed to be doing. Senator Siewert is quite right in what she has said—there was an enormous amount of expertise that had built up around the country, and that expertise is now being put at risk as the money is now uncertain and people who can make a real difference are moving on because of fears for their own financial future. It is not only that; the whole process has had to be started again. I do not think the Labor Party or the bureaucracy intended the consequences of their change of direction. I think they were intending it to continue in a useful way, but what has occurred is enormous disruption to the contributions that have been made by thousands of committed individuals right around our country, many of them volunteers.

I urge the government to swallow their political pride and go back to a bottom-up approach to natural resource management, rather than the top-down approach that they have adopted. The committee heard concerns from many witnesses about the cost of applying for programs, the lack of feedback, the uncertainty and the fact that groups were now competing with each other whereas in the past they had cooperated, and almost cohabitated, to get a good result for the landscape, the biodiversity and ecology of a particular catchment.

My interest in natural resource management has been around for a long time, since before I was one of the ministers involved. I want to pay tribute to all of those thousands and thousands of people who believe in what they are doing, who know what they are doing in their own area and who have a real commitment to Australia and its landscape. In Queensland I have formed very good friendships with a lot of people in the natural resource management area. I will mention a few up my way in the north: the Northern Gulf NRM and their CEO, Noelene Goss, who has been a great advocate for the environment, the Terrain NRM in Far North Queensland, the Burdekin Dry Tropics NRM and the Whitsunday group. In Queensland they have a collective of NRM bodies which is very professional and does a fantastic job of promoting the environment and resource management. That has been duplicated right across Australia. In commending this report to the Senate and urging the government to carefully consider the recommendations and to act upon them, I want to pay tribute to all those thousands of people around Australia who make a genuine commitment to the future of our great country. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.