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

I rise today to support the motion standing in the names of Senator Brown and me. Very clearly there needs to be an independent inquiry into what is causing the toxicity in the George River in the north-east of Tasmania. That is very clear. What is also clear is that you cannot trust the Tasmanian government to oversee an inquiry into the toxicity of that river. Why is that? It is because the allegations of toxicity in the river are not new. These have been going on for a very long time, and the Tasmanian government is condemned by its own ministers who appeared on national television saying that it is not a problem and who accused Dr Bleaney and Dr Scammell of quackery. Minister Kons at that time said ‘quackery’. Minister Llewellyn, who has overseen some of the worst environmental disasters in Tasmania in his long career, continues to say it is fresh water—fresh water killed the oysters in George Bay, says Minister Llewellyn, who has blocked at every single opportunity, as has Premier Bartlett, as has the Liberal Party in Tasmania, the move to end the use of triazines in Tasmania. Back in the early nineties when Forestry Tasmania poisoned Olivers Creek at Lorinna in northern Tasmania, atrazine in the water was coming out of the taps in that community. Full responsibility was taken, in the end, after a considerable argument, and recompense was made, tanks were put in and various other things occurred in communities around Tasmania.

For Senator Colbeck to suggest that the Greens have not been working on issues of water quality in relation to forestry activity is ludicrous. Go back to the Hansard. It is years and years and years, and it is still my view that triazines should be banned. We did finally achieve a moratorium in Tasmania for a short while when Evan Rolley, who was head of Forestry Tasmania, was forced into it. Then, eventually, they said, ‘Oh no, we have to go back to the use of triazines.’ Now we still have atrazine used in private forestry in Tasmania. Europe has banned these chemicals for a long time.

What is the relevance of this to the toxicity of the George River in north-east Tasmania? The relevance is that had the Environment Protection Authority in Tasmania ever had the will to investigate, had Dr Taylor ever had the will to investigate, they would have found that there are pulses of pesticides coming down that river. We do not know what the chemical cocktail of that river is, nor do we know what the combination of the herbicides and pesticides used in the catchments and the toxicity coming from the non-native to Tasmania, Eucalyptus nitens, is actually doing. We do not know what the combination is doing. Have we had the opportunity find out? Oh, yes we have. But the problem here is that the director of the EPA ,Warren Jones, was also the general manager of the environment division and under Warren Jones’s authority there was a study into the water quality in the George River in 2005. That investigation discovered toxins. But what did it do? Absolutely nothing. It decided not to investigate further. So why would I trust an inquiry from the Environment Protection Authority in Tasmania under the jurisdiction of the Tasmanian government that in 2005 decided, when it knew there were toxins in the water, that it would not investigate further? That is what it decided to do—the environment division simply concluded in 2005, on the basis of no evidence at all, that the toxins ‘are produced by native forests’ and therefore okay. We find that the toxins being referred to at the moment are not caused by native forests; they are caused by a eucalypt that is not native to Tasmania, Eucalyptus nitens.

Now to the issue of genetic improvement. There is some confusion in the community about the difference between genetic improvement and genetic modification.