Environment Volunteers

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (14:27): My question is to the Deputy Premier. Can the Deputy Premier update the house about action the Malinauskas government has taken to activate volunteers in relation to our environment?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Workforce and Population Strategy) (14:28): I am delighted to answer this question from the excellent member for Waite, who herself is a very active volunteer with the environment and in other areas in her community. There are a couple of great truths, I think. One is that, given the state of our environment today, the environment needs us as much as we need the environment. Humans need to get active to help protect and restore the environment and, of course, humans benefit enormously. People benefit enormously from a healthy environment and their engagement within it.

The other great truth, of course, is that a dose of money is very helpful, as the Treasurer would be very well aware, and one of the best ways that we can use money is by giving it to volunteer groups, because the effect of a relatively small amount of money with a very active group of people makes it seem like a much larger amount of money—a truth that the Treasurer is also a bit of a fan of.

When we were in opposition, one of the actions that we undertook was to spend a lot of time with volunteer groups, with people who were active in all of the different fields of responsibility in government, but I, of course, with people involved in the environment, such as Friends of Parks, such as landcare groups, to say, 'What is it that we can do to make things better for you and therefore, through you, for the environment?' We crafted a number of policies and commitments to support them in those activities, and I am pleased to report that not only, of course, have we acquitted the election commitments, as you would expect us to do, but they have had real impact in the way in which people have been able to be active in supporting the environment.

For example, we allocated $3 million to the Friends of Parks and Nature—they recently changed their name from Friends of Parks to Friends of Parks and Nature. They have over 5,000 volunteers and there are 148 groups so you can imagine the reach—$3 million out to them has made a significant difference.

As some examples, the Kangaroo Island Wildlife Network has been able to purchase emergency response equipment. As we all know, they are a bit prone to fires in Kangaroo Island and that is a very necessary part of their management. Also, we are working in and around Piccaninnie Ponds with the Friends of Mount Gambier Area Parks, being able to monitor the impact of water quality down around Piccaninnie Ponds, which, as I have mentioned several times in this place, is under severe stress; and it being under severe stress means that primary producers will, should the groundwater be compromised, also be under stress.

We have the installation of rainwater tank telemetry along the Heysen Trail. The Friends of Heysen Trail are a very active group in every sense of the word—active in their volunteering and on-ground work for the environment and obviously active in the sense of being good walkers. There are also the motion-sensor cameras for monitoring native fauna and feral animals. We all know the impact of feral animals on our environment and the need to take control over their impact on it.

In addition to the $3 million, we have also allocated $6 million to landholders, people who are largely primary producers but who want to see the environment being protected and want to have the capacity to invest in their properties. By adding $6 million to support native vegetation agreements, we have been able to not only increase the number of native vegetation agreements but also add value for those people who have them, through the capacity to do fencing to keep stock out and the capacity to get in and do some weeding. I have spent time with primary producers who are so proud of their ability to put aside some parts of their land to support the environment.

We have $2 million that has gone straight to Landcare and to the Conservation Council to assist in their engagement with community—with Landcare it was partly a case of just providing insurance for Landcare groups so that they weren't broken by the insurance costs individually themselves—and $2 million to citizen science projects, where we get people who are enthusiastic about the environment out and also gathering information that can help guide the way in which we protect our precious environment and make sure that it's available for the enjoyment of humans as well as the capacity for primary producers to keep producing for all of us.