Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Environment and Communications References Committee entitled Commercial use of Tasmanian bumblebees, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I will not speak for too long because I am sure that Senator Urquhart would also like to speak to this report. I am very pleased to comment on this report today. I inherited the chair of the Environment and Communications Reference Committee only recently, but Senator Urquhart has also been involved with this inquiry. A little bit of background: this inquiry has spanned two parliaments—the 44th and 45th parliaments. It did lapse with the double dissolution, but we rejigged it so that we could take evidence in this new parliament. We have the report here today. Also the amendment to the EPBC act that the committee was looking at has previously been bought to the parliament and the Senate. It was during the 44th Parliament when the government introduced the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Bilateral Agreement Implementation) Bill 2014. It included a part 3 to the live import list, which was the key proposed amendment. That that would have created an exemption to the offence provision so as to allow companies or individuals to possess live specimens that are part of an existing feral population in a state or territory listed under the new part 3. Specimens would be listed for specific states and could be listed with or without conditions for use.

The populations that we are talking about here are bumblebees. They might seem like a strange thing to be talking about in the Senate. But, in my home state of Tasmania, this is a very important issue. We rely on bees—honey bees and, in some cases, native bees to pollinate plants and crops. It is absolutely critical to an agricultural-based state, like mine of Tasmania, that we have effective pollination services available to farmers and agricultural producers. We have to make sure, of course, that we have a healthy ecosystem and healthy environment so that bees can thrive. What we have discovered for the invasive species of the bumblebee—sadly, we have another awful invasive species in Tasmania called the European wasp that does an incredible amount of damage to our environment and our crops; but that is a debate for another time—is that bumblebees have been noted to be good pollinators. The genetic diversity in Tasmania is very poor. It is believed that the population, which has a firm foothold now right across the state, came from only two queens.

The Tasmanian government in recent times, together with industry, has proposed a plan to test how good bumblebees really are as pollinators by having a closed greenhouse trial. It would probably be on tomatoes because we know that they are used internationally on tomato crops. Then we can actually look and see how good they are as pollinators and whether they can actually provide a broader service across the state. One of the reasons for this is not only to increase productivity and, I am guessing, to provide some competition for the honey bee providers but also that honey bees are, as we know, under significant pressure. If we get varroa mite in this country, it could potentially be devastating and catastrophic to our honey bee population.

The committee heard a lot of evidence. We did go down to Tassie. We heard from a number of stakeholders down there. I would say that there are opportunities in this, which we have firmly outlined in the report, and there are risks to this, as well. The committee has considered those and has very cautiously made three recommendations that, I think, are very sensible. They are fairly close to what the government brought in in the 44th Parliament. We believe—and, I suppose, the committee is made up of a number of Tasmanian senators—this, potentially, could be a positive for Tasmania if the environmental risks can be managed. I would say to anyone who is interested in the report, please read the detail. We want to see the EPBC amendment come back to parliament. We can send it off to the legislation committee when that happens. We can look and see if there have been any updates to the science and if there are any more concerns that we need to incorporate. Then, hopefully, we can actually get a very selective, limited trial in Tasmania on the use of bumblebees for pollination.

I recommend the report to the Senate. I am sure that Senator Urquhart has more to say.