Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Emergency Management (Senator McAllister) to a question without notice I asked today relating to bushfires in Tasmania.

Catastrophic fires are burning in Tasmania at the moment, and I want to acknowledge that, in places like Zeehan and Corinna, the fear being felt by people is very real, as the fires are in very close proximity. I also want to acknowledge the bravery of firefighters and other responders, and the danger that they often place themselves in as they respond to the fires. But there is an element of these fires that has not received the attention that it should, and that is the catastrophic impact that these fires are having on unique ecological communities in Tasmania. Absolutely calamitous fires are burning in the Tarkine region right now in north-west Tasmania. This is an area of acknowledged World Heritage value, both Aboriginal cultural heritage value and natural and ecological value.

In particular, in places like the Wilson River and its tributaries the Harman River and Yellow Creek lie the most extensive stretches of unlogged and undisturbed Huon pines left on the planet. These are ancient, ancient paleoendemic plant communities, and they're not just at the core of Tasmania's Gondwanan heritage but also actually at the core of the world's Gondwanan heritage.

The fires that are burning now have taken grove after grove of Huon pines along the Harman River, including a grove that contained the largest known Huon pine. When I say the largest known Huon pine, we have to all understand what that means. It was a tree estimated to be 3,000 years old, which, because it was the largest known Huon pine in Australia, was actually the largest Huon pine we know of anywhere in the world. At 3,000 years old, it was one of the oldest trees. I say 'was' because it's now a pile of ash. It's now a pile of ash.

These are ecological tragedies on a global scale. These fires that are burning in Tasmania are Tasmania's version of the melting ice caps that we see in the world's polar regions. They are Tasmania's version of the dying coral reefs that we are seeing in the world's tropical regions. And these fires are being driven by climate change. Fifteen or 20 years ago, dry lightning strikes were almost unheard of in Tasmania, but on Monday 3 February this year alone Tasmania recorded 1,227 dry lightning strikes. This is the new normal. This is a global catastrophe for these globally unique ecological systems. The technology to detect these lightning strikes exists, but what doesn't exist is the resources invested into aerial and on-the-ground firefighting capacity so that we can respond to these fires as quickly as we need to.

The Greens established a Senate inquiry into the terrible 2016 fires that scoured so much of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, and we made recommendation after recommendation which have sat on the shelf and gathered dust under Liberal and Labor governments here in Canberra and Liberal and Labor governments in Hobart in Tasmania. The evidence was clear. You need to get onto remote area fires quickly, hit them early and hit them hard. We didn't do that this time, despite the fact that we should have learned our lessons in 2016.

We've got to do better. Yes, there has been aerial capacity deployed to Tasmania in recent days, but there were multiple days after these fires started where aerial capacity was either not deployed or not deployed to the extent that was needed. This is an emergency. It needs an emergency response. We are, in real time, watching a global ecological catastrophe unfolding on our watch. We've got to do better.

Question agreed to.