NATIVE VEGETATION (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 8 May 2008. Page 3256.)

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (11:03): I rise in support of my colleague the member for Stuart (Hon. Graham Gunn) in relation to his amendments to the Native Vegetation Act. In the whole time I have been here I have always admired the member for Stuart's strong stand on issues like this, and I have to say that he has been right almost every time. He is taking a very rational and sensible look at an area that causes the rural community a lot of angst, especially in recent times, and it has been particularly bad under this government.

The member for Stuart seeks to amend the Native Vegetation Act to ensure that farmers, pastoralists, land managers and local councils are in a position to make proper management decisions without unreasonable hindrance by the bureaucracy. That has been his call for a long time, and I have to wonder what we will do when the honourable member is not here. I bet the bureaucracy is just waiting for that time so that they can then ramp up all their restrictions. Hopefully, the door of the new minister for the environment (the current member for West Torrens) will be open for us, to make sure that common sense always prevails.

Mr Koutsantonis interjecting:

Mr VENNING: We are still waiting to hear which portfolio the member will end up with, but if it is environment I hope we will get a sympathetic ear, because I know the member sometimes has his feet on the ground. Decisions relating to local clearance of native vegetation for control, building extensions, and other essential services should be made by local, elected people: not by metropolitan-based bureaucrats.

As we all know, the member for Stuart is very passionate about this, and I have to say that he is generally right. As a country person myself, I can say that nothing annoys you more, when you want to do something on your farm and the weather is right, than having to apply for a permit. You get told, 'Sorry, you'll need three or four days' notice to get this approval.' It is very frustrating that those decisions have to be made by someone in Adelaide. I am fully supportive of those decisions being made locally. The local fire control officer, in conjunction with the council, on the spot, can assess the situation and say, 'Yes, it is safe to do this; do it now, do it quickly and keep it under control.'

There are lots of problems with the Native Vegetation Act, particularly in relation to the delays it causes. We hear today that the best way to control fire is with fire, particularly in relation to cool burning. It is now quite fashionable to burn some of the undergrowth in cool times under controlled conditions—

Mr Koutsantonis interjecting:

Mr VENNING: It is. I have lit a lot of fires in my time, and the main thing is to have a good look at what you are doing, assess the situation and, when you decide to light the fire, light it quick, get it going and get it out. However, the restrictions that have been put upon us today and the bureaucracy you have to go through before any weather conditions change just annoys me.

I have been a member of parliament for some years now and, as many members (particularly the member for Frome) would know, so many times we get calls from constituents who are very frustrated. In a lot of cases they have been doing something for many years, are second or third generation farmers, but then they run into this brick wall of environmental bureaucracy and are told they cannot do certain things that they have always done.

I remind the house that farmers today are probably the best environmentalists we have in this state. Very little burning goes on out there now; if farmers can minimum till they will, and they are—and the member for Frome would certainly know that, because of living where he does and because of his previous vocation. I think the farming practices we have today are the best we have ever seen in Australia. Our forefathers tilled the soil, turned the soil, burnt residues, but none of that happens today, it is all minimum till with minimum disturbance of the soil. All the tilth is kept there and the crop is grown through it. So, I do not think it is necessary to have these huge, bureaucratic restrictions in the way of our farmers.

I believe there are six amendments proposed by the member for Stuart. The first is in relation to the definition of burning being removed as a form of clearing, and I fully support that. Burning is often done to tidy up roadside verges, particularly where there is a risk, and I am guilty of that. For many years I have burnt around my farm buildings and even along roadside edges on cool days. On a bad fire day, you know there will be a much higher risk.

So, you get out there on a cool day and you remove the risk. That decision ought to be local—given the okay by a local fire control officer who assesses the situation and who knows that you are reasonable and not a fire bug, who will say you can go ahead as long as you have the relevant firefighting equipment, which most farmers have and which most farmers have a lot of experience handling.

The second one is in relation to district councils having the authority to grant permits for controlled burning between 1 March and 31 October each year. I fully support that. It annoys me that we have this blanket burning off period across the state, and what annoyed me this year was that we wanted to burn off a month before we were able to by law purely because there was nothing there to burn—we are in a drought after all—but because the silly laws say, 'You shall not burn until 15 April', you had to go and get a permit and there was a lot of fussing about. Flexibility is the most important thing. It should be done on a regional and seasonal basis whereas the local fire control officer, usually a very responsible and experienced person, could say, 'Yes. There is no risk out here, there is very little to burn. It is a cool day and the wind is in the right position. You can light a fire today.' That is common sense, but now we have these times set in concrete and you cannot burn inside the set period.

The third one is that district councils have the authority to allow for construction of firebreaks and access tracks in excess of 5 metres and up to a maximum of 20 metres for firebreaks and 15 metres for access tracks. This is a favourite of the member for Stuart, particularly in relation to forestry reserves and bushland. We know that a five metre break in bushland may as well not be there if there were a strong wind. I believe that where the risk is high and where the undergrowth is such, 20 metres ought to be allowable, and that decision ought to be able to be made by the local council. I am fully supportive of that. After all, these things are just plain common sense.

The fourth one is that the Native Vegetation Council has no authority to prevent pastoralists extending water points for pipelines or the construction of dams. That is ridiculous. If a person has a farm and wants to extend the pipeline so that stock does not have to walk so far to water, how can the Native Vegetation Council say that you cannot? That is a restriction of trade. This is big brother all over again. I cannot believe that that should be allowed to be there. How did that become law? Did it become law by regulation or did we actually pass it in here? Surely not. If we did, what were we thinking? It is a nonsense. Again, the member for Stuart puts forward a valid and commonsense point.

The fifth one is that landholders in local government areas can construct dams up to 100 metres by 100 metres without reference to the Native Vegetation Council. That is an area, again, relating to local government. It is a bit more of a touchy decision, and I believe that decision can and should be made by local government. I do not always agree with the member for Stuart, and that one is probably a lesser one, particularly with the problems we have now with water and dams which are certainly a hot political potato. I believe that certainly local government vis-a-vis the local boards and the local NRM board can make these decisions rather than be blanketed in by a decision of the Native Vegetation Act.

The sixth one is that farmers may rest paddocks for periods up to 15 years without invoking sections of the Native Vegetation Act. This one has bitten me several times in the Barossa. Many people who are blessed to own parts of the Barossa Valley ranges love those ranges. They deliberately under stock them or place no stock in them, but if they do not stock them and the native vegetation grows, then after 15 years they are forbidden from touching it. What sort of reward is that? What do you want? Do you want it to be grazed heavily? We have had people in the South-East, of a name we all know, deliberately grazing so that they do not slip through that net. It is a ridiculous thing. If a person wants to leave the area out in order to beautify the area, maintain the native status of it and maintain the bird populations, then you penalise him because it is then classed as native vegetation and he cannot graze it or do anything with it. It is a nonsense.

Once again, I commend the member for Stuart for bringing commonsense legislation to this house. We are going to miss him when he is not here because he gives this house the extra depth and understanding of issues that many members here do not know or do not want to know about, perhaps because they just will not put up with the hassle of crossing over the bureaucracy, particularly the bureaucratic greenies via the Native Vegetation Act. Again, I commend the member for Stuart and I ask the house to support him because I certainly will.

Mr RAU (Enfield) (11:13): I have an enormous amount of time for the member for Stuart and I know his genuine concerns about these native vegetation issues. I understand and sympathise with his views that, to the largest extent possible, decisions about native vegetation clearance and activities impacting on native veg should be made in the local area in a fast, responsive way so that landholders are able to get on with the management of their properties to the benefit of their own activities and those of their neighbours, particularly when we are dealing with fire issues.

The difficulty I have with these proposals from the member for Stuart is that I am not convinced that these measures are now necessary. I say that for a couple of reasons. First, several years ago the head of the CFS (Mr Euan Ferguson) gave evidence to the Economic and Finance Committee about the difficulties in obtaining permission to secure firebreaks and other forms of protective measures for properties. Mr Ferguson told the committee—and the member for Schubert might find this shocking—that if an application for a cold burn was made, say, in August of this year, one could reasonably anticipate to have an answer—not necessarily a positive answer, but an answer—within 12 months.

You do not need to be a rocket scientist to work out that 12 months from August to August includes the summer months while you are still waiting for the answer about the cold burn. Clearly, it is a completely unsatisfactory state of affairs. But the good news is that since that time the CFS and the Native Vegetation Council have formed a committee which regularly meets and enables the CFS people and the Native Vegetation Council people to make quick decisions about these matters.

There is evidence on the record from Mr Ferguson as recently as last year to the effect that he believes those arrangements are now working well. There is no doubt that a couple of years ago the arrangements were not working well. But Mr Ferguson, who, after all, is responsible for looking after parts of this state that expect to be protected by the CFS, has said on the public record that he believes the activities of the CFS, in as much as they relate to the protection of properties by taking appropriate steps for firebreaks, cold burns, or whatever the case might be, are now working satisfactorily.

The second thing that I would like to mention about this is that, within the past 12 months or so, the leadership of the Native Vegetation Council has changed, and Mr Dennis Mutton is now the presiding member. I think it is fair to say without any way reflecting on the previous occupier of that position that Mr Mutton is a person who has very practical experience in terms of land management issues and brings to the job a very positive cooperative attitude, which does more to correct the balance between the important needs of the environment and the very practical needs of people who are trying to manage land for agricultural purposes and perhaps protect other land from the incursions of scrub fire.

Am I sympathetic with the member for Stuart on this? Absolutely. Do I agree with the member for Stuart that it is important to have answers given quickly and promptly to questions that land-holders might have about clearance? Absolutely. Do I think it is important for decisions to be made as much as possible in a local community setting? Absolutely.

The Hon. R.G. Kerin: But.

Mr RAU: But, my understanding is—and it is based on the evidence of Mr Ferguson, who after all should know something about this—that, because of administrative arrangements between the CFS and the Native Vegetation Council, and including the change in personnel at the council, which I think has been reflective of a change in point of view (if I can put it that way) by the Native Vegetation Council, much of the issue about which the member for Stuart was quite rightly complaining has now been addressed.

I congratulate the member for Stuart for bringing this matter forward. I congratulate the member for Stuart for his untiring efforts to see a sensible regime established in relation to native vegetation. I know, as some members here perhaps do not understand, that the member for Stuart is not some sort of pyromaniac who wants to get out there in the scrub and burn down everything and then bulldoze it. What the member for Stuart is talking about is a sensible, responsible farmer having the opportunity to manage their land in a way which maximises their opportunity to get productive use out of their property and protects their neighbours from the possibility of wildfires, bushfires and other things, which, after all, every person with an adjoining property should be looking out for on behalf of their neighbour. I understand where he is coming from, and he is absolutely right. My point is—

Mr Koutsantonis interjecting:

Mr RAU: No, as I have said before, the member for Stuart is absolutely right about all of the things that are driving him to put forward this bill. I just emphasise again that the reason that I do not think the bill is necessary is because, as recently as the past 12 months, Mr Ferguson, who is after all the most senior person in the state in relation to fire management issues, has told certainly the Natural Resources Committee that he now believes that the new administrative arrangements and the fact that Mr Mutton is now heading up the Native Vegetation Council mean that these decisions will not take a year. He, as the CFS commander, has no complaint to make about the interactions they are having with the Native Vegetation Council, and he believes that it is operative as it is.

My difficulty with what the member for Stuart is putting up is that I think, if it is possible to achieve these things administratively and cooperatively—and they are, in fact, being achieved—there is no need to use a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. That it is my only concern about the bill. I have no concerns whatsoever about the member for Stuart's motivations or the points that he quite legitimately makes about the need for farmers and farming communities to be able to protect themselves appropriately and manage their land in a sensible way.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (11:21): I take a different view from the member for Enfield. I am opposed to this bill, but I do understand the member for Stuart's rationale that he is looking to provide greater safety in rural areas. I do not have a problem with cool burns, but we do not know a lot about them as the research is still ongoing. I do not have a problem with the principle of burning. I think we should have done more of it in the past and we will be doing more of it in the future, but it should be based on scientific research not simply on a whim.

This bill has a lot of measures in it which, if they were ever implemented, would result in things like firebreaks not exceeding 20 metres—that is a fairly wide firebreak. The point about firebreaks is that, in most cases, they are ineffective because the wind blows the embers at a speed and height which makes them irrelevant. Firebreaks can be useful in terms of, first, the access, and they can be useful—

The Hon. G.M. Gunn interjecting:

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: Look, you've made your speech, Graham.

The Hon. G.M. Gunn interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Stuart will have his chance.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: Firebreaks can be useful in terms of access and where you have a ground-burning grass fire; but, in respect of a lot of fires, a firebreak is very ineffective because the wind will lift the embers right over the top of the firebreak. What you get is this hopping activity as a result of the wind driving the embers.

What this measure would do here is we would have vehicular tracks. I accept you need access in certain areas to fight fires, but a track of 15 metres is a very wide track and what happens in many areas is that you have very little effective native vegetation retention because it is crisscrossed by firebreaks and vehicular access tracks. There are other measures in here which basically would give a licence to people to go to extremes in terms of removing native vegetation.

Most farmers do the right thing, most are very sensible and we have a generation of younger farmers who are more enlightened than some of those in the past. That is to be commended, but I would point out to members that in South Australia we are the state with the smallest area of woodland and forest out of all the states. Since European settlement it has been extensively cleared. If you go to areas such as the Yorke Peninsula and the Mid North, absolutely disgraceful destruction of native vegetation occurred over time, within properties, but also on the roadside verge where the landholder had no authority to clear on the side the road. Many of those areas are like barren areas; with monoculture, a single crop and, on the edge of the road, no remnant vegetation left. It has been cleared as a result of greed and, in some cases, ignorance.

The major areas of clearance have been Eyre Peninsula, especially the Far West and North, the Upper and Lower South-East and Kangaroo Island. Prior to the 1980s, there were taxation incentives to help people clear and encourage them to clear and, indeed, the earlier leasehold arrangements encouraged and sometimes required people to clear. Fortunately they have gone.

The Native Vegetation Act in 1985 provided incentives to help people keep native vegetation and it certainly has helped, including the more recent 1991 Native Vegetation Act and we can thank the Labor governments of the day for that. It was not done by the Liberal governments because traditionally—I am sad to have to say this, but the protection of what little is left in South Australia in regard to native vegetation is the direct result of some farsighted people in the Labor Party; people such as Dr Don Hopgood and others. In the Liberal Party people who have had any commitment to the native vegetation or the natural heritage of this state have been very scarce. Going back, there have been a few; Cecil Hinks and a few others—

Mr Venning: Brookman.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: And Brookman was another one, but, generally speaking, there has been little or no commitment from the Liberal Party towards the natural environment in this state. That is a sad indictment and it is not a true reflection of people who should hold genuinely liberal views, but it has been operated on the basis of money for people who want to destroy the natural environment of this state.

I have some of the figures on the rate of clearing in South Australia between 1970 and 1990. In the Eyre Peninsula and Yorke Peninsula areas, the rate of clearance in those two decades was more than 10,000 hectares per year. In the eastern ranges (Flinders, Murray-Darling Depression), the rate of clearing was between 10 and 100,000 hectares per year during 1970 to 1990. In the western area (the Great Victorian Desert and Nullarbor), the rate of clearance was more than 10,000 hectares per year. In the South-East (Mount Lofty Block, including Kangaroo Island, Naracoorte, Coastal Plain), once again, more than 10,000 hectares per year. These are figures from the Australian Greenhouse Office and people can check them if they dispute them.

What we have in South Australia—and this is very germane to the point that the member for Stuart is seeking to make with his bill—is only 15 per cent of native vegetation left in the Mount Lofty Ranges and 13 per cent in the South-East. In the metropolitan area there is less than 4 per cent of native vegetation left. That has been compromised by weeds, by idiots on trail bikes and other people who have no regard for the indigenous vegetation. It is not just vegetation; we are talking about habitat, because without habitat you do not have animals, what you have is sterile environments in relation to indigenous plants and animals.

Since Europeans have arrived in South Australia, 23 mammals have become extinct, two birds have become extinct, and 26 plants have become extinct. We have not even studied some of those plants. We will never be able to study them in terms of whether they offer any medicinal or other benefit to humanity. Over 1,000 species of all terrestrial plants and vertebrate animals in South Australia are threatened species. That is an appalling record of vandalism in this state. Some 63 per cent of the state's mammals and 22 per cent of the state's vascular plants are listed as threatened.

Once again, an appalling record by us collectively over the time since European settlement. I think the Aborigines are probably more correct to use the term 'invasion', because we certainly invaded the natural environment, and other species are under threat as well. We have an appalling record in this state in the way that we have treated the indigenous flora and fauna. I accept that there are times when you have to clear some vegetation, but it should be absolutely minimal. Sometimes for reasons of installing a centre pivot and so on, you have to make some adjustment and remove some native vegetation but, generally speaking, the removal of native vegetation in this state should be at an absolute minimum.

Fire safety is important and, contrary to what some people say, the presence of native vegetation, in certain circumstances, can actually help people. Regarding the fires on the southern Eyre Peninsula, it would have helped, in terms of safety, if there had been some native vegetation; instead of the fires racing down the hills towards Port Lincoln, if there had been native vegetation to help slow them down. Those fires came down the hills, driven by wind at incredible speed through what was really pasture and cropping land. There is a powerful argument for saying that the presence of some native bushland would have actually helped.

So I cannot support this measure. I oppose it. Any moves on native vegetation should be based on scientific research and sound management based on research, not on a whim and not simply on some request by someone who may get a point out in the country but who is helping to make sure that the Liberal Party will not get elected at the next state election.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN (Stuart) (11:30): We have just listened to the member for Fisher in his usual manner—

The SPEAKER: Order! Time for debate has expired.

Debate adjourned.