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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Climate Change and Water (Senator Wong) to a question without notice asked by Senator Williams today relating to bushfires.

I was fortunate enough, a few years ago, to have a lecture from one John Walmsley—a man who has done such a great job in managing the environment. Mr Walmsley told me how, despite the general perception that hundreds of years ago the nation burnt as the Aborigines lit country in the hope of rain and to get green feed going to attract kangaroos et cetera for their food, that was not the case. In fact, the case was that Australia had millions and millions of some smaller species of kangaroos that grazed the country. Once we introduced the fox and the cat to this nation that was the end of those species. What I am saying is that Australia was grazed prior to white settlement. The severe fires were not a matter of fact; it was management of the environment by nature, obviously brought about over thousands of years.

But now we have a situation where the Greens, with their dominance over the Labor Party, especially in the New South Wales parliament, insist on so many national parks being formed. And what are they? They are simply fire balls. It was so disappointing to drive through the Pilliga three years ago, from Narrabri to Coonabarabran and to see the burnt out mess that was a result of the fire there. Huge fires were brought about by huge fuel levels on the ground because there was no grazing, of course, and no hazard reduction burning. And when you have a hot fire it gets up into the crown of the tree and destroys the tree. Thousands upon thousands of acres were burnt, and all that was left was dead, black sticks.

I find it amazing how the Koala Foundation is now kicking up a fuss because our koala population is reducing. Of course it is reducing. They are being burnt in national parks. How many koalas were killed in the Pilliga? Hundreds or thousands would have died in this bushfire. And there is the problem: unless you graze this country and keep the fuel levels down you will destroy the environment, the trees and the animals that live in those places.

It was interesting: I had a farmer call me just recently. He used to graze the state forest alongside his property. He ran 150 cows in it for months and reduced the fuel levels by reducing the grass. But now it has been turned into a national park and no longer is grazing allowed. We know what is going to happen. It is only a matter of time, as the grasses build up after rain and thunderstorms and then we have a dry spell with lightning strikes—along comes the fire. It is in pretty rough country, too, which is not easily accessible, especially on the ground. So we face the enormous cost of helicopters and aeroplanes trying to put the fire out. If we grazed that country and kept the fuel levels down we would not have the severe fires. We would not have the destruction of the environment. But this is the issue: by declaring more national parks the Greens and the Labor Party are saying, ‘We’re doing a great thing for the environment.’ No, they are destroying the environment. That is exactly what they are doing.

We will see it this summer. We will see it on Toorale Station, out near Bourke, where Minister Wong bought the property—90,000 hectares, I believe—without even looking at it. It is locked up now in a national park. It is only a matter of time before that burns from one end to the other and destroys the environment—destroys the trees and kills the animals. And they call it conservation! I find it a disgraceful way to manage the environment.

The point I make is this: when you have a severe bushfire, 200 tonnes of carbon-dioxide per hectare is released into the atmosphere. So, in the 450,000 hectares that unfortunately burnt in that tragic fire on black Saturday in Victoria this year, 90 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide were released, yet here we find a policy where they want to reduce carbon-dioxide levels. It is so ironic; it is so hypocritical. I urge the government to start to learn how to manage land and properties. The best way to do that is to graze with dry stock and steers—not cows, calves and bulls, so that you have all the trouble of cows calving et cetera—and manage the fuel levels on the ground. Then and only then will we stop destroying our environment—destroying our trees and our animals that are supposed to be there, preserved for future generations.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Question time in this place is getting more bizarre by the day. It is the last week of the Senate sitting, and those opposite have no strategy or tactics when it comes to question time. We had an opposition National Party senator get up and ask a question today in relation to fire strategies. Yet when it comes to the emissions trading scheme, they want to run a hundred miles away and deny that there is anything happening as far as the climate is concerned. When talking about national parks and state reserves, I find it astonishing that a senator would come in and ask a federal minister about something that is clearly within the bounds of the state governments. Why aren’t these questions being put to the New South Wales government? Why would you, in the final week of the Senate, ask such a bizarre question of a federal minister? We have had nothing for weeks in relation to the economy—no questions on the economy. What is clearly foremost in the minds of those opposite is disunity. The common goal that too many of those opposite have is to undermine their own leader. They bring questions into this chamber on topics that clearly lie with the state government of New South Wales.

In terms of fire strategy and what we need to do in relation to ensuring that we do not have a repeat of the terrible disaster in Victoria earlier this year that we are all impacted by, of course we need to take steps. The federal government is taking its responsibilities in that area very seriously. In fact, the Commonwealth government has committed over $26 million to assist the states and territories develop a national telephone based emergency warning system. Those things are incredibly important, but it still comes back to the old question about climate change. Senator Williams has already left the chamber, which shows how little interest he really has in this issue. He denies that climate change is a fact.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cash interjecting—

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Back interjecting—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You always know when you hit a nerve when those Western Australian sceptics interject—two of them, at least. Once again, when you hit a nerve, they have to divert attention away from their own disunity and their scepticism regarding climate change.

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

Tell us about Shane Murphy. He was a good example of disunity in the Labor Party.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am more than happy to take any interjections from Senator Macdonald. If you want to talk about disunity, let us talk about disunity. Disunity is running rife within the Liberal Party. Where are they? No wonder they have no policy when it comes to climate change; they have no—

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Polley, I think that perhaps if you want to talk about this you should do it at a different time. We are taking note of the answers that Senator Wong gave to questions. I think that you should revert to the subject matter before the chair.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, in relation to the interjections about disunity, surely I have a right to respond.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. Ignore the interjections.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those are already out there in the chamber, Mr Deputy President. It is an important point to make in relation to not only this issue, which is natural disasters, but climate change and the economy. On this side of the chamber, we are united. Talking about people from the past is completely irrelevant to the debate that we are having here this afternoon.

When it comes to farmers and the farming community, talking to those from my home state of Tasmania, we have already experienced fires. In fact, over the last few days in Tasmania the fires have in fact been quite disastrous. A couple of homes have already been lost. It is already very evident to the Australian community that natural disaster and bushfire planning and prevention all tie in with climate change. I urge those opposite to take this time to reflect. Then they should support the emissions trading scheme. (Time expired)

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to take note of answers given by Senator Wong. It is pleasing that Senator Polley made the point for Commonwealth federal intervention, simply because we see an absolute abrogation of responsibility by the New South Wales government. In fact, the New South Wales government seems totally irrelevant. What we do see, unfortunately, as was stated by my colleague Senator Williams, is that that state has absolutely no influence, control or activity at all—they do at the operational level; they have a very effective rural fire service. Why is it that the Commonwealth needs to take a role? Simply because of the enormous expenditure that the Commonwealth now has to often undertake in regards to response and recovery. In other words, what we have seen this year particularly is the Commonwealth rewarding failure. That is the reason why there has to be activity and why Senator Williams is absolutely correct.

Only the other day, the dean of agriculture and a member of the bushfires CRC in New South Wales, Professor Mark Adams, lamented his state’s and the country’s poor preparedness. Have a look at that statistics in New South Wales. This year, a lousy 23,000 hectares have been burned in prescribed or fuel reduction burns. At least last year it was 60,000 hectares. Even the Victorians, who do very little at all, burned 154,000 hectares this year in fuel reduction burning.

This chamber should not need reminding that there are three key elements to fires and bushfires. The first is fuel, the second is a source of ignition and the third is oxygen. We cannot do much about the oxygen. We know that there are many sources of ignition, including lightning and men, women and children. But we can do something about fuel. In particular, we must undertake fuel reduction. As Senator Williams has already explained and I will not repeat, grazing by animals has been a time honoured means of fuel reduction. Fuel reduction burning in the cool time of the year is the preferred method and naturally there are attempts to clear vegetation.

Prior to the last bushfire season we saw something regrettable in Victoria. In 2004, a resident of Reedy Creek, Liam Sheahan, was fined some $50,000 for removing trees around his property and then he had to pay $50,000 more to battle the Mitchell Shire Council because he was in fact reducing fuel levels. Guess whose home was the only one in a two-kilometre area to survive the bushfires last year? We all know the answer: it was Mr Liam Sheehan’s home.

Aborigines have shown us for 30,000 years the value of fuel reduction burning in a mosaic pattern. Indeed, had they not done carried out that burning, we would not have had the forests that we have today, because they would have been subject to the same level of burning that we saw in Victoria this year. Incidentally, speaking of emissions, that fire alone produced greenhouse gases equivalent to Australia’s entire industry for one year. That was from one fire on one day. The shame of it, of course, is that we know the value of fuel reduction burning. The CSIRO-led Project Vesta in the mid- to late 1990s confirmed what we already knew and added to that information.

In my home state of Western Australia, we regard seven to eight per cent of the forest being burnt annually as the minimum that should be undertaken to protect the community. We know that the figure in Victoria is less than a half of one per cent, as against that seven to eight per cent ideal, and the figures I have seen for New South Wales would put it at a fraction of one per cent. How regrettable that is. We will always have fire in the mediterranean, eucalypt dominated bush of Australia. We will either have low intensity, cool season, controlled burns called fuel reduction burns or we will have uncontrolled hot season conflagrations like we have had.

I conclude with an acronym I have explained here before: DEAD—disaster, enquiry, apathy, further disaster. If we do nothing, we will have further disasters.

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The motion to note of an answer on disaster management provides an insight into an intriguing tactic used by the National Party at this juncture in the climate change debate. It strikes me that they are so intent on trying to find some alternative, plausible explanation for extreme climatic events, including bushfires, that they are now pointing the finger at the absence of bovine grazing in our national parks as some alternative to the facts arrived at by the consensus of world scientists that climate change does in fact exist and there are likely to be more of the extreme climatic events that are the precursors of the ravages of the bushfires Australia is experiencing on an increasing basis. It is intriguing to see this tactic. No doubt the National Party are hurting as their own constituents depart from the National Party’s view on the CPRS. Now that farmers have been excluded, with agriculture outside of Labor’s proposed ETS system, the National Party have nowhere to go.

It is important to understand that bushfires are extremely dangerous events and that there is a great deal that the Commonwealth government has been doing, notwithstanding the state and territory responsibilities for managing their parks and bushfire issues. I would like to go through a couple of facts of the matter relating to the Commonwealth government and its activities through the Council of Australian Governments to ensure that all states and territories have considered their preparedness for the current bushfire season. I firmly believe, as the Rudd Labor government firmly believes, that we are all better prepared for this coming bushfire season. In fact, on 25 September, the Commonwealth held its first preseason operational briefing for states and territories on Commonwealth roles and capabilities, including those of Emergency Management Australia and the Australian Defence Force, in assisting states and territories, and this was a recommendation from the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission.

The Commonwealth supports the states and territories with both policy and capability development and while the states and territories, as we have heard from my colleague Senator Polley, are primarily responsible for bushfire prevention and response within their jurisdictions the Commonwealth provides a key and supporting role through policy and capability development as well as supporting those jurisdictions on request. The sort of support that is provided by the Commonwealth includes providing things like meteorological and geospatial information through the Bureau of Meteorology and Geoscience Australia; funding for bushfire preparedness under the natural disaster resilience program, and, under the Commonwealth Government Disaster Response Plan, assistance to jurisdictions on request, including by closely monitoring the situation and being on standby to rapidly deploy assets if requested.

The Australian government has also provided $14 million per year towards aerial firefighting, an additional $4 million over previous years; aerial firefighting craft leased through the National Aerial Firefighting Centre, stationed at various locations around Australia and available for use by any jurisdiction that requires them; and Commonwealth-led development of a new scale of fire danger ratings introduced by the Bureau of Meteorology to better inform and advise the community. We saw the ‘catastrophic’ category of fire warning being used recently. There has also been the development of a national emergency warning system. That has now been established, and the Commonwealth committed over $26 million to assist states and territories to develop a telephone-based emergency warning capability, allowing alerts to be sent by voice and text messages to landlines and mobile phones based on an owner’s billing address. The feasibility of expanding this system to enable it to send messages to mobile phones based on the handset’s location is currently being evaluated with funding support by the Commonwealth. The government has also established an ongoing forum of peak broadcast media organisations to facilitate improvements in the effectiveness and consistency of emergency warnings.

There is no doubt that the issue of the ravages of extremely dangerous bushfires is something that weighs heavily on everyone’s minds. Clearly the Commonwealth is responding to that in conjunction with states and territories, which is the appropriate way. I find it difficult to believe that the National Party are scratching around at the bottom of the barrel to such an extent that they use the reduction in grazing in our national parks as some explanation for the ravages brought about by climate change.

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

Senator Williams’s question in question time today highlights that for the Labor Party politics and power are always far more important than policy. You only have to look at the issue of national parks to see that. Right around Australia, state Labor governments set up national parks—why? Because, politically, they are threatened by the Greens political party—the successors to the Communist Party of Australia—that, unless they do that, they will not get preferences. If they did not get preferences, very few Labor governments would ever achieve power.

Look at the Traveston Crossing Dam in Queensland—the Greens on one hand said they were against the dam and on the other hand gave preferences to a party that was determined to build the dam, so ensuring the election of that party. Right around Australia the Labor Party do the same thing. They set up these national parks to get Green preferences. The problem is that they do not resource them and they throw out of what used to be good Australian forest the people who used to manage them. The timber industry very selectively harvested Australia’s native forests. In doing that, they put tracks through all the forests, they had a workforce on hand and they did controlled burns so that in the fire season the forests were much safer. But the Labor Party and the Greens political party got rid of those on-the-spot protectors of the forests, leaving the forest without any protection.

As Senator Williams and Senator Back have pointed out, more trees are destroyed in the annual bushfires than were ever harvested under the controlled forestry regimes of Australian governments. We got rid of the people who controlled them because the Greens said: ‘You’re cutting down trees. You’re destroying trees. You’re destroying the habitat of the koalas.’ And what did they leave us with? A situation where the forests are decimated. It is not every second tree, every 10th tree or this hectare against that hectare—the whole lot is destroyed, and every living animal with it. That is the result of the Greens political party and the Labor Party taking away those that protected Australia’s native forests. The Labor Party set up these national parks because it was good for politics and they never resourced them. That was the point of Senator Williams’s question.

The New South Wales Labor government—initially in power because of the Greens political party—is reducing the number of national parks employees by 200. You would think that, at this time of the year, in the height of the bushfire season, they would be putting on an extra thousand employees. But, at this crucial time, the New South Wales Labor government is axing 200 jobs in the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Services—that is, 200 fewer people with knowledge will be available to help quell the bushfire disaster that is waiting at our doors.

That is why I return to the truism that, for the Labor Party, politics—getting Green preferences so they can stay in power is far more important than decent policy in looking after our national parks and wildlife. Wherever you look in Australia, you will find that, for the Labor Party, politics and power are far more important than policy. A look at the way the parks and our natural landscape have been managed under Labor will show you that the Labor Party have no interest in properly addressing the issues and are only making sure they can hold on to the power that they achieved with the support of the Greens political party. The sooner Australians wake up to this political power struggle, or push, by the parties of the left, the sooner we will be able to get back to real policy which will look after and properly manage our national parks— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.