Environmental Initiatives

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (14:17): My question is to the Minister for Environment and Water. Minister, can you please update the house about the practical environmental initiatives being delivered by the Marshall Liberal government?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (14:18): I thank the member for Chaffey—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —for his question. Actions speak louder than words—and this government has been spending the last—

Mr Boyer interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Wright is called to order.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —3½ years rebuilding the morale and the capacity of our environment department, of the EPA—

Mr Malinauskas: You cut it.

The SPEAKER: The leader is called to order.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, having generational increases in expenditure, particularly in the capital program within the department—

Mr Brown interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Playford!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —and transforming our national parks regime with more rangers. There were 300 rangers at the turn of the millennium here in this state and by the time—

Mr Boyer: Everyone is a ranger. Everyone gets their own ranger outfit.

The SPEAKER: Member for Wright!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —those opposite left office there were only 93. We built that by 45 per cent and have almost 140 rangers, making a real difference at the coalface, welcoming visitors and volunteers into the community, connecting with local communities, teaching them about the value of our parks and ensuring that they can access it safely and sensitively. Our story around practical environmentalism continues. We have our nation-leading ban on single-use plastics from 1 March 2021 and we are ambitious for that legislation, setting the legislation up—

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader is called to order.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —in such a way that, as the market or the community provides solutions and demands more, we can add more items to that legislation through regulation, expanding that environmentally proactive body of legislation to ensure that our creeks, our oceans and our parks do not become subject—

The Hon. Z.L. Bettison interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Ramsay!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —to plastic pollution. We have reinstated our native heritage protection grants cut from many millions of dollars to only $4,000 by those opposite—

Dr Close interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Deputy leader!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —hugely reducing the capacity of people who have chosen voluntarily—private landowners—to set aside land for conservation and the environment. So disrespected were those people, so ignored, almost—

Mr Pederick: Divested.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —divested, yes. The opposition divested their interest in private conservation, and there was only $4,000 per annum in the kitty when we came to office. We have increased that with a $3 million two-year pilot program, giving private landowners the opportunity to participate in conservation activities again.

We have established Green Adelaide, an organisation with a high level of clarity around its vision to create a cooler, greener, wilder more climate-resilient Adelaide, building into the livability of our capital city, looking for ways to protect and expand canopy cover and particularly focusing on our urban rivers and beaches and looking for corridors that can be enhanced, invested in and improved for our natural capital in this state.

We have a big focus on the River Torrens, looking at wetlands along the Torrens, rewilding the Torrens with platypus, looking at ways to ensure there are more raptors in the city, more butterflies, more pollinators. We are working with Green Adelaide to do that. Right across the state we have gone back to basics with natural resources management reform, setting up landscape boards with local people, local expertise, local priorities, managing the natural environment. We are not the party that invested in dirty diesel generators. We are not the party—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —that put up its hand and said, 'We want to take the world's nuclear waste.'

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Lee!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: That was their big idea.

The SPEAKER: Member for West Torrens!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: The world's nuclear waste—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Kaurna!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —bring it to South Australia. We are the party of practical environmentalism, practical climate policy and we are getting on with it.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The level of interjections is disorderly.