National Park Rangers

Mr MURRAY (Davenport) (14:24): My question is to the—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER Order!

Mr MURRAY: —Minister for Environment and Water.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader is called to order.

Mr MURRAY: Will the minister inform the house on the government's commitment to protect and enhance our environment by increasing rangers in our national parks?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (14:25): I thank the member for Davenport for his very worthy question. I know he has a particular interest in our natural environment and in the preservation and stewardship of the open spaces that my department has responsibility for. He is particularly excited, no doubt, by the creation of Glenthorne national park on the western boundary of his electorate. He would be keen to be assured that there will be enough on-the-ground resources and staff to be able to implement that policy and care for our national parks across the state.

In the lead-up to the last election, the Liberal Party announced that we would increase the number of park rangers by 20 to 25 per cent. That's 20 park rangers. That doesn't sound like that many, and it's not. It will just be the beginning of our recovery for park rangers, but an extra 20 does come close to 25 per cent. Unfortunately, we currently have only 93 park rangers in the state. When the Liberal Party last left government in 2002, we had almost 300 park rangers and now we are down to only 93.

Park rangers are an iconic part of the management of our natural landscape. They provide support to volunteer groups and friends groups. Many of us would have friends groups operating within our electorate, who can work alongside park rangers, whose capacity can be expanded and who can work with local community groups, look for funding opportunities and stretch the dollar that bit further in the preservation of our natural environment.

We also know that park rangers can provide an iconic role within nature-based tourism, which this government and the previous government were intent to grow for our state. Park rangers play an important role in that. We see expanding their numbers and developing their knowledge and understanding as being an absolutely critical part of our strategy around nature-based tourism.

We are also very keen to develop the role of park rangers more broadly. We are keen to develop a particular class of park ranger to look after our coastal environments, in particular. We have 5,067 kilometres of precious coastline in South Australia, often fragile coastline, the front line in the battle against changing climate and the need to adapt to climate change, so we need to have park rangers who have specific knowledge and understanding around coast.

We are very keen to grow the number of Indigenous park rangers. Their connection with country is so important. We have seen some successful federally funded Indigenous park ranger programs developed in recent years, particularly one around the Coorong National Park with the Ngarrindjeri people. It has been really heartening to see the success of that. On this side of the house, we are all about looking at the growth of that front-line service provision.

Yesterday, it was great to hear the member for King talk about Para Wirra Conversation Park in her contribution to the deputy leader's motion on World Environment Day. With our increase in park rangers, we will be looking to get someone into Para Wirra Conservation Park. The member for King was one of many speakers who spoke yesterday on the deputy leader's motion. In fact, you needed a park ranger to get the tumbleweed off the other side of the house during their lack of contribution. This side of the house will always stand up for practical environmental outcomes and that includes having resources on the ground, in our parks, enhancing and revitalising them and partnering with the community in order to do that.