John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I look forward to this MPI debate put forward by the Greens here: 'The Turnbull government's lack of courage on matters of importance to everyday Australians'. One of the tragedies we have just seen in many states is the fires through the summer in Western Australia and South Australia, where I grew up, from Pinery through to Mallala through to the Freeling area et cetera. Senator Di Natale talks about the fires in Tasmania. I have warned them; I have told them; I have moved motions in this place: when you lock up country and you leave it and you do not manage it, you are going to get savage fires. Look at Tasmania: six million hectares, 52 per cent, locked up. You are not allowed to graze it. No. Just let the fuel levels grow and grow. Once you get more than five to 10 tonnes a hectare, a 40-degree day and a 50-kilometre wind, you are out of control. It will happen in the red gum forests down in Deniliquin. There is nothing surer. They have now prevented grazing. They managed it for 100 years. The truth may affect some over there. They do not like it. If you lock up the country and you leave it and you will not reduce the fuel levels, that is what you are going to get. 'Oh no; we can't allow grazing. The cattle and sheep have got hard hooves on their feet.' It is all right to have the brumbies, the deer, the wild pigs, the goats—you name it. They do not run around in ugg boots, but it is all right for those to graze there. But do not control-graze the national parks.

I would like to put a question to the Greens. How many of you have actually fought a bushfire? How many of you have been out there with a knapsack, with a shovel, on a fire truck? Put your hands up. Have you ever been to a fire? Thank you, Senator Lines; I was referring to the Greens. Mr Acting Deputy President Back, you and I have been to plenty. Good on you, Senator Siewert. But get out there amongst those savage fires and have a look at what they are doing. When fuel levels get up, the fires are that hot they get into the crowns of the trees and kill the trees. They travel so fast the animals have no time to escape. I am very pleased—I often put it on my Facebook—that there are koalas at our farm, in the front garden and down the creek, and they are safe. They will not burn, because we graze the country around and we keep the fuel levels down. They are protected. I have done my share of firefighting, especially when I lived in South Australia for the first 25 years of my life. Until you learn this, you are going to destroy the environment. You are going to lock up country and leave it. The National Parks Association are pursuing their agenda right around the nation: lock up more country and leave it; do not graze it; do not keep the fuel levels down. If there are not enough resources for hazard reduction burning, this is what you are going to get every seven, eight or 10 years: savage fires destroying the environment. One day, when it is all destroyed, you will learn and you will listen. Until you get on board with this, you are doing the wrong thing—100 per cent.

Let us talk about marriage equality. Two men married will never be the same as a man and a woman. There will never be equality. They cannot have children, for a start, so they will never be equal. But what I really endorse is equal respect, equal rights—

Senator Di Natale interjecting—

Get another tune. When we have the plebiscite, if it is voted down are you going to drop your agenda? No, you will not drop your agenda if it is voted down. Are you going to do what the people want if it is voted down? Of course you will not. You will pursue your issues.