Environmental Protection

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:34): I have been contacted by a number of environmentalists and environmental groups about their concerns about the way in which the government may listen to them when they raise issues about the environment. In particular, most recently there is a concern about a rocket launch site down on the southern tip of Eyre Peninsula which is proposed to be on a piece of land that has had a native vegetation heritage agreement over it.

These environmentalists are concerned that if they raise concerns about it they will not be listened to respectfully by the government. I have lots of reasons to think that they might be right, that this government do not really ever want to hear about problems with issues in the environment and particularly not with proposals undertaken by the government themselves.

I am going to give three examples. The first one is the truck road through the Semaphore dunes. When people in my community stood up and said, 'We don't want a road with trucks on it going through our dunes,' we had these comments coming back from the minister:

I just cannot believe that a small group of people want to stand in the way of a climate resilient strategy for our state. It is just a sad reflection on a noisy minority.

When I asked, 'Would you send some departmental officers down to talk to a pubic meeting?' he wrote a letter to me saying that sending departmental officers would be a waste of valuable departmental time—not to talk to me but to talk to my community.

We will all recall that in Flinders Chase National Park there is high-end accommodation being proposed on the cliffs away from the trail requiring native vegetation clearance. The Friends of Parks on Kangaroo Island were so horrified by this that they went on strike. That is how disrespected they felt by the proposal that the minister was undertaking. In fact, the whole group of Friends of Parks wrote a letter stating:

…send a message of support to three KI groups to say they are not alone and they are being thought of and that other member groups appreciate the time and energy spared for the KI development. The Board unanimously supports this motion. We share the deep concern that is behind taking a stand when a protected area—a national park—is threatened. We understand and regret the immense amount of energy and work that must then go in a direct action other than looking after our parks.

That is something that those people who are normally collecting seeds, weeding and planting are having to put into because the government, the environment minister, does not listen to the community when they say that this is unacceptable and that this should not happen. Of course, what has happened is that the minister not only approved the proposal but also put through regulations that waive the normal processes for both planning approval and native vegetation clearance approval.

The final example is Belair National Park. That is why I had to put in a petition today with nearly 6,000 signatures—because, although the minister has now backed off the proposal of seven soccer pitches being put into Belair National Park, the community has no faith that there will not be another proposal that is equally objectionable. What I also object to is that not only did the minister not listen to the groups but in fact he wrote them letters saying, 'We're going out to consultation on this, asking what people thought about it.' Then, when they wrote in and said what they thought about it, he stated:

I am heartened by the significant outpouring of interest in the protection of Belair National Park, but surprised that so many people are keen to have their say from the comfort of their homes, firing off quick emails or social media posts without consideration of how they can protect this precious space in a practical way. If you have not had a chance to interact or join the Friends—

the same Friends who went on strike for Flinders Chase of course—

I encourage you to do so, you will learn much about our natural environment, the need to protect it, and more importantly, have opportunities to get your hands dirty.

That is not the right attitude when you have asked people their opinion and they have written in and said, 'We don't agree with what you want to do.'

That is a terrible attitude. Not only that, he hung the Sturt Lions Soccer Club out to dry by distancing himself from a proposal that he himself put into the master plan, where he said, 'Yes, that's good enough that I'm going to make it the mainstay of this master plan, put it out for consultation, tell people they should get their hands dirty and not fire off emails,' when they told him that they did not like what they saw. Then, when it comes to backing away from it, he describes it as a relatively controversial proposal that emerged from the Sturt Lions Soccer Club and says, 'I'm now ruling out going on. That's not appropriate for the site, and I don't believe that it will be financially viable either.'

When did that happen? Why did that suddenly become a reason to stop doing that project? It was actually that the community stood up, and they have to shout loudly to be heard unfortunately, and they have no faith that that is not going to be necessary. They will continue to put their position, and that is why I had to put in that petition.