Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Threat Abatement Plan for disease in natural ecosystems caused by Phytophthora cinnamomi (2009), made under section 279 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, be disallowed.

It is actually quite unusual for a member of the Greens to be standing up here moving a motion to disallow a threat abatement plan; usually it is the Greens that are nagging for the development of a threat abatement plan or a recovery plan. However, given the nature of the threat caused by dieback, we believe that this plan needs serious review. It is not adequate as it stands and in all good conscience the Greens could not let such a plan go through without bringing to the attention of the Senate the scale of the threat presented to a wide range of native ecosystems across Australia. Some people think this is just a West Australian issue. I am here to tell you that it is not. This disease threatens native ecosystems and commercial agriculture across Australia. The inadequacy of our current response to Phytophthora cinnamomi, commonly known as dieback, and other Phytophthora species—it is not just the cinnamomi that is a problem—is both a state and a national threat that needs to be dealt with. The nature of the threat needs to be adequately acknowledged and appreciated.

I have been looking into this issue in some detail. In fact, I have been working on the issue of dieback for a number of years. I have talked to researchers and experts in disease management and I am convinced that the more we find out about dieback, the more we realise that dieback is a much greater threat than is presently appreciated and acknowledged and that it demands a much more comprehensive response than is currently articulated through the threat abatement plan.

Given what we know of the biology of this pathogen and what we have observed in recent years of its behaviour across a wide range of ecosystems, it is very clear that if we continue with the current management practices and resources, which we consider woefully inadequate, we can expect dieback to ultimately occupy every single piece of habitat listed as suitable for its growth and survival. In other words, it will spread everywhere if we do not do something about it.

It is not only our opinion but the opinion of experts that we have consulted that the scale and permanence of the likely impacts of this pathogen mean that Phytophthora needs to be ranked within the top three key threatening processes nationally. We are talking about a very serious threat on a scale that is not being acknowledged at the national level and is not being reflected in our national environmental priorities or in the allocation of resources to natural resource management, in particular through the Caring for our Country funding program.

Phytophthora cinnamomi is a microscopic soil-borne organism that attacks the roots and collars of susceptible native plants and also, as I said, some commercial plants. It is believed to have been introduced into Australia by early European settlers, and many native plants have little or no resistance to it. Phytophthora is often referred to—and I have been guilty of this as well—as a fungus but is in fact a type of water mould that taxonomically has much more in common with algae species. It produces a number of different types of spores which can be spread easily and rapidly, particularly by disturbance by vehicles and boots, for example, during the wetter months.

While we have tended to conclude that its spread is restricted to wetter areas with higher annual rainfall and soils prone to waterlogging, there is evidence now coming to light that suggests that this is not necessarily the case. I will talk about its impact on the tuart forests and trees in Western Australia a little later.

Phytophthora is able to parasitically attack a wide range of plant species across their life cycle. The consequences of infection of a susceptible ecological community include: major disruption of community structure; extinction of populations of some flora species; modification of the structure and composition of ecological communities; massive disruption to primary productivity of these species, including, I will note, their ability to store green carbon; and habitat loss and degradation of dependent flora and fauna. For instance, we think the crash in numbers of the western ground parrot in the Fitzgerald River National Park may be related to the impact of dieback as a loss of its primary habitat and also potentially its loss of its primary food sources. There is also an interaction between plant diseases and other threatening processes.

Recently, we were alarmed to discover that a number of plants and plant communities that we previously believed to be immune or resistant to different Phytophthora strains have become severely affected—and I must note here and remind people that we are not talking about just cinnamomi here; there are a number of different species involved in dieback. It now appears that these otherwise resistant plant communities may become susceptible to infection by this pathogen when subject to other environmental stresses such as water or climate stress. It also appears that, once affected by the pathogen, the ability of these plants to resist other environmental threats such as pests may also be compromised.

For example, we have seen some alarming rates of tree dieback in our already threatened coastal tuart forests in the south-west of Western Australia. These live in sandy soils and were believed to be immune to Phytophthora dieback. It appears that water stress has reduced the resistance of these plant communities to Phytophthora and that the Phytophthora has then further reduced the resistance of the tuarts to borer attack, to the point that some communities are being decimated by the combined impacts of water stress, Phytophthora and borer attack. This has important implications for the threat Phytophthora may pose to ecosystems across southern Australia, where it is known to be present but has yet to result in the kind of extreme decimation of ecological communities that we have seen in south-west Western Australia.

The behaviour of this pathogen varies dramatically, depending on the interaction between particular plant types and communities, particular soils and soil properties, and climate factors. In Western Australia—and I will go into this in a bit more detail later—we have a million hectares already affected by dieback. There is a real danger that Phytophthora could spread, and in fact it has already spread quite widely in ecosystems in south-eastern Australia, without it being recognised as a significant threat because its impacts to date have been less dramatic on those ecosystems and the symptoms have not been widely recognised. However, with climate change projections likely to result in an increase to the range of the pathogen, together with what we have learnt about the interaction between it, other environmental stresses and climate stress, we believe Phytophthora could cause even bigger problems into the future.

We believe the national threat abatement plan—which was originally put in place in 2001, reviewed in 2006 and then revised and released in May 2009—is not adequate to address the scale and extent of the threat. I will go into some of the reasons why we believe the threat abatement plan is not adequate at this stage and also talk about how, as we understand it, dieback is affecting states like Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia.

The emphasis of the threat abatement plan as it stands seems to be on the protection of threatened ecological communities, and rare and endangered flora. While we agree that the protection of both these is important, we are concerned that this narrow focus will prove ineffective in preventing the spread of this pathogen. Clearly, if we focus only on protecting threatened species and communities and do not prevent Phytophthora from spreading to other adjoining plant communities—which may become threatened themselves, in time—once it does spread to these adjoining areas it will be much more difficult, if not impossible, to stop. In other words, we cannot just concentrate on threatened ecological communities, because in the meantime the rest of the ecosystems around them start getting infected.

We believe that equal emphasis should be given to the protection of areas of susceptible vegetation together with the microbiota, fungi and animals that remain free of the pathogen and could be protected in the long term. We should intervene before they can fall into the category of a threatened ecological community. Unless we take a more comprehensive and strategic approach, the risk we are facing is what we could refer to as a tragedy of the common, where the most common organisms—which are frequently keystone species that are taken for granted—become infected and threatened and it is too late to take any corrective action.

If you read the threat abatement plan, you will see that the text admits that it only has the status of a guide to resource use in the management of Phytophthora cinnamomi. There do not appear to be any mechanisms to compel compliance with these guidelines by any of the three levels of government or in fact by private stakeholders, nor is there any mechanism to provide adequate resources for the management of this disease, and that is the absolutely critical point. In our opinion, the plan has no commitment to action and no resources, which effectively results in it being an empty gesture. We will have a nice plan while dieback spreads across, certainly, Western Australia and the other states. We believe this is a totally inadequate level of response to such a significant and pervasive national threat.

The text of the threat abatement plan clearly states that the success of the plan is dependent on both ‘a high level of cooperation’ between stakeholders and the allocation of ‘adequate resources’. However, to date, neither of these things have been forthcoming. In addition, Phytophthora was overlooked in the national priorities listed in the business plan for Caring for our Country and in the funding provided for national resource management activities. There also does not appear to be an audit mechanism within the threat abatement plan by which success can be measured or responsible authorities held to account. Furthermore, I know from personal communication with some of the community organisations in the south-west of WA that they were told that if they wanted any funding for dieback they needed to get more threatened ecological communities listed—which of course makes our point. We cannot take action just on dieback on the basis of threatened ecological communities; we need to protect the whole of the environment.

In Victoria, climatic and topographic parameters indicate the potential for Phytophthora to occur over a large proportion of the state—that is, 60 per cent. Sixty-nine per cent of the parks listed under the Victorian National Parks Act have at least some areas classified as high risk, and 14 parks, mostly in the central and western areas, have greater than a 50 per cent chance of their area being classified as being at high risk of dieback. The study these figures are based on considered only the park and reserve network and did not include other flora and fauna reserves or remnant ecosystems on private land. We should note that many of these smaller reserves in areas of private land have much less controlled access and therefore present both a higher degree of risk and a vector for infection of adjoining reserves.

Very little mapping of dieback has been undertaken in parks and reserves in Victoria, despite such mapping being an essential prerequisite to management. I have recently spoken to some Phytophthora experts who recently visited some Victorian parks and interacted with their Victorian colleagues. They told me that they believe the extent of the reported Phytophthora cinnamomi infections in Victoria is likely to be underestimated. I have also had reports that there are outbreaks of Phytophthora spreading along the lines of the north-south Sugarloaf Pipeline.

In Tasmania the best guesstimate is that tens of thousands of hectares are infected, including significant infections within the south-west wilderness and adjoining conservation zones. Some experts have suggested that, next to logging, Phytophthora could present the next biggest future threat to Tasmania’s biodiversity and wilderness. From what we understand, there has never been any attempt in that state to map the pathogen infection state-wide. We have also been told that there have been some significant cutbacks in staffing and operational funding within the Tasmanian departments and this may also impact on their ability to manage these threats.

In my home state of Western Australia the area infected with the Phytophthora pathogen in the south-west of has been increasing at a rate of close to 20,000 hectares per annum. It has increased from less than 200,000 hectares in the mid-1970s to—as I said earlier—1 million hectares in 2009, with an estimated additional million hectares identified as being at high risk. An estimated 40 per cent of our native species in Western Australia are susceptible, including many of the keystone species within plant communities. Extensive mapping has been undertaken by the WA Department of Environment and Conservation, who have created a dieback atlas. While this is the best survey conducted to date by any state, we know from both personal experience and communication with other land managers that many smaller areas of disease—for example, on private land and smaller reserves—have not been included in that atlas.

Most management activities in WA focus on quarantine and hygiene measures associated with specific activities—for example, mining, forestry and national park access. However, during 2008 about 280 hectares of threatened ecological communities containing rare and endangered flora were sprayed with phosphite, an effective but very expensive way to treat Phytophthora outbreaks in high-value areas. So while that is a solution for very high value areas, according to the experts it is not going to be an effective way to treat, for example, the million hectares in WA that are already affected or the million that are at high risk.

Significant resources have gone into the management of Bell Track, which is a well-known infestation in one of my favourite places, the Fitzgerald River National Park. That is at a cost of around $2.5 million. We expect to see smaller amounts spent this year on some of the most threatening infestations in Fitzgerald River National Park and further to the east at Cape Arid National Park.

A 2005 study into the economic impacts of Phytophthora cinnamomi in WA estimated that the direct cost of degradation caused by this disease amounts to $127 million per year over the next 50 years. That equates to $6.36 billion. Of course, this estimate is necessarily limited to those impacts that can be quantified. This means that the estimated monetary impact is conservative because none of the indirect benefits of the value of these natural areas were included, such as the intrinsic value of its biodiversity and the significant impact on tourism. The study also estimated that the loss could be an order of magnitude higher if the spread of dieback damages the ability of our south-west vegetation to store carbon, which is estimated to have a present value of $12 billion.

To date we have not looked at these issues on a national scale. We need to follow up with this type of analysis in the other states. There have not yet been any field studies to quantify the loss of carbon, for example, either above or below ground caused by a Phytophthora cinnamomi infection. I asked Senator Wong, the Minister representing the Minister for Environment, Heritage and the Arts, about dieback several months ago, specifically about what resources were being invested into dieback and where the abatement plan was.

I was told the abatement plan had just been released. I went to the website to find the abatement plan that had ‘just been released’, but it had not been; it was not on the website. It was only when my office persisted and contacted the minister’s office several times did we get a copy of the abatement plan and it was put up on the website. When I talked to people who were heavily involved in the management and research on dieback I understood that they were not aware that the abatement plan had been released. In fact, many of them had not been consulted for a long time on the finalisation of the threat abatement plan.

I deeply believe we need an abatement plan but the scale of the problem is much bigger than is being recognised in this abatement plan. The level of response is not at a sufficient scale to make it appropriate or effective. We need to take a preventative approach and not just deal with it when it threatens ecological communities. It is too late. It is doing what the environment minister says we should not do: putting the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. We need to be dealing with the issues before they start falling off the cliff.

We need a strategic approach that protects ecosystems before they are threatened. We cannot hope to protect threatened ecological communities in isolation. The disease simply does not let us do that. We have a threat abatement plan at the moment that has no commitment to action and no resources; therefore, it is an empty gesture. We need to do better on this issue. We need to be linking a threat abatement plan, for example, with our key environment funding program, Caring for our Country.

There were a number of applications made from organisations, particularly in the south-west of Western Australia, for funding to address dieback. There was a project of several million dollars put up and it did not get funded. A few small programs did get funding, but that is nothing near the scale of resources that we need to be investing. We think the government needs to come back to the people of Australia with a threat abatement plan that is effective at the scale we need it to be and commits the resources that we need. It is with a heavy heart that I ask that this threat abatement plan be disallowed because the government needs to do better. (Time expired).

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

The threat abatement plan for Phytophthora cinnamomi is a very, very important one. I think that, in the broad, all senators would be keen to see a proper plan adopted. I will start just by making some comment on the process, with apologies to the government and the minister at the table and the whip. I understand that it had been indicated this morning that the coalition would be opposing the disallowance motion and voting with the government on it. For that reason, the government has not come prepared to debate in detail some of the queries that I have and some of the issues that Senator Siewert has raised. The coalition had another look at this this morning. I have some interest in this and so do some of my colleagues. We have been persuaded by Senator Siewert’s elegance not necessarily that she is correct but that perhaps this does need some further investigation that had slipped my mind when the matter first arose.

I have an interest in this because in a former life I was a minister with responsibility for weeds of national significance. I was also a minister responsible for forestry and promoting the sustainable use of our forests. I understand that it is a very big issue in Western Australia and also in Tasmania but that it does have implications right throughout the country. For those like me who are not precise in the scientific discussion regarding the particular pest, it is related to dieback, as Senator Siewert has said.

What I have suggested—and what I think the whip, with my apologies to everyone, has perhaps also suggested—is that the conclusion of this debate might be better left to another day when there is a minister at the table who is properly briefed in relation to a number of the issues that I want to raise and that Senator Siewert has raised. What has attracted me to Senator Siewert’s proposal to disallow the threat abatement plan is the fact that it does appear that Senator Siewert is right when she says that this new plan really contains no action plan, nothing different from what has been in the past, and that there are no resources made available to do what needs to be done. I know the Western Australian government would be very keen to address the issue. It perhaps is not an issue for which they have funding or responsibility. It does seem to me that it is a responsibility of the national government.

I hesitate in saying on behalf of the coalition that we will support the disallowance motion because of uncertainty as to what would happen if this were disallowed. If this were disallowed and there were then no plan whatsoever in place, that would concern me. That was the coalition’s original proposition—that even a bad plan is better than no plan. Senator Siewert has said—I do not think she said it in her address to the chamber but in private conversations, and I hope she does not mind me repeating this—that her understanding is that if this plan were disallowed then the existing plan would continue. So there would be a plan in place, but it would send a message to the government that they really need to work with a new plan of abatement that has serious action provisions and is in some way resourced.

I agree with Senator Siewert, and she with me, in relation to Caring for our Country. That has become a very top-down, bureaucracy-driven plan, as opposed to the previous plan which was in place, which was a bottom-up plan, a plan where the community was involved. The community was very much part of the process and, because of that, it had the support of the community. I am very concerned about the way that the whole Caring for our Country program is going. I think that is symptomatic of what is happening here. As I understand it, this new plan is a fine set of words—not quite the right words—but it does not come with any real provisions for action and it certainly does not come with any commitment to more resources.

What if, in disallowing this plan, we were to say to the government and the department: ‘Come back with a new plan that actually means something. Come back with a plan that has some funding to support it and we will all happily support it.’ I understand, from what Senator Siewert has said—and I have not been able to independently verify this yet but I have no reason to doubt Senator Siewert on this particular issue—that the experts in the field, the appropriate people, the people who have been doing a lot of research on this issue who have genuine and serious concerns about what is put before us, were not consulted. That may not be correct. I was going to ask the government minister about that, if there had been one here who was properly briefed. I acknowledge at this time that Senator Wong, who would normally be responding to this, is not in the chamber today. Whilst I know that Senator Evans is very able and has great capacity and a broad range of knowledge, I suspect his knowledge of Phytophthora cinnamomi is somewhat limited.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call it dieback.

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

You are perhaps an expert, then, Senator Evans.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I knew I couldn’t pronounce it in the Latin.

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

I am not sure I am pronouncing it right but, because it is written there, people will know what I am talking about. I would really like the government to come back—if the Senate agrees to adjourn this debate—and give some answers to the questions that Senator Siewert has raised and the points I have made. Can we get a plan that does have some action, that is not just fine words and that is not something you wave around then put in the bottom drawer and forget about? This is a very serious issue for many parts of Australia. It does require a serious response. It has been suggested to me that this is not a serious response.

What I want to know from the government and those who might be able to assist is: if we reject this plan, does the existing plan continue, so we do have a plan in place? I understand from some private conversations I had with Senator O’Brien that their briefing notes say that if this is knocked out then there is nothing. That is different to some other advice I have received, so we need to clarify that. If there is nothing else there when this is knocked out then I am fairly confident that the coalition would reluctantly oppose the disallowance. However, if agreeing with the disallowance will mean that the existing plan continues until a new plan is brought forward then that seems to me to be an appropriate way to go.

It is important that we get the department and the government to sit down and draw up a plan after consultation with the people who know and understand the issues—researchers and the Treasury department. I understand you cannot just say that it needs money—it has to be dealt with in the budget process—but it would be good if the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts could make some funding commitment from the huge amounts of money that are at his disposal. I think that would be a good way to deal with it. I am not sure how long it would take to get a new plan. There is probably six months of solid work and there needs to be good consultation with the right people. Then we will get a plan that actually means something. We will end up with not just a threat abatement plan but a plan of action to do something about this serious problem.

I will not hold the Senate any longer. I again apologise to the government for the confused messages they have received, which have left them a bit left-footed. I take full and personal responsibility for that, and I apologise. If we adjourn this debate, we can get some responses and be absolutely sure of the consequences of the rejection of the plan of action and the approval of this disallowance motion and some commitment from the government to detail a plan of action and detail some funding for the future. It may be that, even by taking this action, the government will be able to make some commitments as to plans of action and funding that may satisfy even the mover of this motion.

I conclude by saying that this issue is completely devoid of politics. This is an issue that not every Australian knows a lot about or even a little bit about, but it is very important. We all know about dieback. If this procedure may address that threat then it is worth spending a bit of time properly addressing the issue.

Debate (on motion by Senator Parry) adjourned.

Ordered that the resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for the first sitting day of the next session.