Bills

Biodiversity Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

Mr DIGHTON (Black) (15:53): The Friends of Glenthorne National Park is another group that has been dedicated to returning biodiversity, and in this case to Glenthorne National Park. They are a very active and organised group whose passion for biodiversity includes activities to control weeds, assisting in revegetation efforts, identifying different birds that visit the park, collecting seeds for propagation of local provenance plants and protecting historical and heritage buildings and structures that are throughout Glenthorne National Park. I am looking forward to the opening and the establishment of the Friends of Glenthorne plant nursery, which will significantly support their biodiversity efforts.

The Friends of Upper and Lower Field River are two other groups that have provided significant biodiversity activities that help protect our local environment. They are passionate groups who have worked tirelessly to rehabilitate this river corridor, protect native species and improve public awareness. They have focuses on weed removal, erosion control, rubbish clean-ups, revegetation and education with the local community about the river's importance. They have planted thousands of native trees and shrubs to restore habitat for local wildlife, including birds, lizards and insects that depend on that environment.

The Upper Field River has recently been declared one of the state's newest conservation parks. This proclamation of the new park provides a significant opportunity to protect, restore and rewild the metropolitan river valley corridor along the length of the Field River catchment.

I also want to acknowledge the work of other volunteers who support biodiversity through wildlife rescues, and in particular groups like the Southern Koala and Echidna Rescue group and staff and volunteers at the RSPCA. I recently conducted a tour of the RSPCA and saw how their animal hospital was set up so it could accommodate significant numbers of injured wildlife should a disaster such as a bushfire occur—a step towards protecting the biodiversity of our native wildlife.

I also want to highlight the work of our park rangers who do so much to support biodiversity. This legislation helps to support the work of dedicated volunteers and those who choose a vocation in biodiversity.

I commend this bill to the house. It demonstrates that the Malinauskas Labor government is taking biodiversity protection and restoration seriously and ensures that South Australia is at the forefront of the protection of nature. I want to acknowledge the work of the Deputy Premier and her team. The Deputy Premier is a true conservationist whose commitment to our environment is evident in this legislation and also in all she does as Minister for Environment.

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (15:56): I rise today to speak in support of this landmark legislation: South Australia's first ever biodiversity act. This bill, which has already been well discussed here today, is a long overdue framework for how we protect, restore and interact with nature and how we sustain, increase and protect our biodiversity.

Biodiversity is the variety of all life on earth—plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms—and the ways in which they interact within ecosystems to support life and maintain balance in our environment. It underpins the clean air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink and the very fabric of our economy. But, sadly, we face a biodiversity crisis.

The World Wildlife Fund's 2024 Living Planet Report found an average 73 per cent decline in global populations of mammals, fish, birds, reptiles and amphibians since 1970. Australia has the highest mammal extinction rate in the world, and here in South Australia an estimated 73 native species have already been lost since European settlement.

Biodiversity loss is not just an environmental issue, though: it also presents an economic risk. More than 80 per cent of our exports and over one-third of the state's employment depend on healthy ecosystems. Industries like food, wine, tourism and agriculture all rely on biodiversity. Our major trading partners are setting ambitious biodiversity targets, linking environmental standards to trade and investment. If South Australia does not act, we risk being left behind in the global green economy.

The bill has been developed over two years, in close consultation with environmental scientists, primary producers, miners, economists and planners, ensuring that the best available science, knowledge and perspectives inform how we protect nature while enabling sustainable development.

The key elements of the bill include a new general duty for all South Australians to protect biodiversity; stronger native vegetation laws and critical habitat protections for threatened species; a nationally consistent process for listing threatened species, guided by a scientific committee; stronger penalties for environmental harm, including significant fines and jail terms for illegal activities; and recognition of Aboriginal South Australians and their vital role in caring for country.

The bill consolidates biodiversity provisions from existing acts and creates a single framework. It also sets up four expert committees and three dedicated funding streams to support conservation. Additionally, it establishes a state biodiversity plan and biodiversity policies developed with community input to guide long-term conservation efforts and ensure that culturally significant biodiversity is respected.

The Biodiversity Bill complements the more than $15 million already invested in biodiversity data collection, threatened species assessments, and native vegetation protection in the past two budgets. It delivers on our election commitment to ensure conservation outcomes are fully integrated into how we live sustainably and prosper in the future.

As the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2025 highlights, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse are among the most significant risks facing humanity, second only to extreme weather events. Alongside climate change, biodiversity loss demands urgent action, and I see the very real impacts of biodiversity decline in my own community every day. South Australia is in the midst of a severe drought. Many parts of our state have experienced little to no rain for months, resulting in a water crisis with tanks and dams running dry. Residents of Upper Sturt have only just managed to hold out this summer, but what about next summer? If we have a dry winter, there will be no chance to recover water supplies.

Without the water our native vegetation and fauna will struggle, and they are struggling. I now have a resident kangaroo that is enjoying the green grass that an Envirocycle provides. With little evidence of green shoots in the national park across the road, we are seeing these animals come out in search of food and water.

But it is not just animals, though: the effects on our landscapes and ecosystems are stark. In particular, dieback in our trees is becoming more widespread, manifesting as browning leaves and, ultimately, the premature death of trees. Researchers like Chloe Bentze and Donna Fitzgerald at the University of South Australia have been observing this troubling dieback in stringybark eucalyptus in places like Belair National Park.

However, the scale of this problem is not yet fully understood. It is most definitely occurring, though, and there is no denying it. I see it every day as I drive home. It is a real problem and it is why the Stringybark Dieback Research Team at the University of South Australia has joined forces with the Dead Tree Detective team at Western Sydney University, led by Professor Belinda Medlyn. They are asking all South Australians to report dieback sightings through the Dead Tree Detective project on iNaturalist or BioCollect, simply by snapping a picture and providing a GPS location.

This community-driven research will help better understand how drought is affecting different tree species and, more broadly, the biodiversity of our forests and woodlands. This urgent work highlights the intimate link between biodiversity conservation and climate resilience—exactly what this bill seeks to address.

In regard to bushfire resilience, this legislation carries forward the essential provisions from our existing native vegetation laws that allow the clearance of native plants to manage fire risk. It recognises the vital role that landowners play in keeping their properties safe by allowing them to clear native plants that are in close proximity to homes and other structures and along fences and to undertake prescribed burning on public lands. These measures are crucial to reducing bushfire risk and protecting life and property, while ensuring that these activities are carried out in a responsible and measured way.

Importantly, this bill also provides for chief officers of the CFS and MFS to approve clearance in additional circumstances where it is reasonably required to reduce fire hazards. In emergency situations, officers acting under the Fire and Emergency Services Act will have the clear authority to undertake or direct the clearance of native plants to protect the community. This includes creating fuel breaks, fire back-burning and the use of heavy machinery to create a bare earth firebreak. Creating a clear strip of land to expose the soil—removing all vegetation, debris and flammable materials and creating a barrier that a fire cannot easily cross—is a crucial element in preventing fire spread and protecting property and lives.

By carefully carrying these powers forward, this bill strikes the right balance, empowering proactive fire safety measures without compromising our broader commitment to conserving South Australia's native vegetation and biodiversity.

We are fortunate to have incredible community organisations leading the way in restoring and caring for our natural landscapes. Groups like the Friends of Sturt Gorge exemplify what it means to take local action for global benefit. Founded in 1999, the Friends of Sturt Gorge work tirelessly to maintain and promote the Sturt Gorge Recreation Park. With more than 100 members, they are actively removing pest plant infestations, conducting recovery programs for threatened plant species, propagating indigenous seeds and replanting native vegetation to restore the park's pre-European habitat.

The Friends of Sturt Gorge also play a vital role in wildlife monitoring, trail maintenance and engaging with the community. Their vision to foster a deep appreciation for nature and inspire best-practice conservation demonstrates the power of grassroots action in achieving the goals of this bill.

Similarly, the Friends of Belair National Park are a shining example of dedicated community conservation. They contribute over 3,300 volunteer hours each year in managing the ecology of the park, including areas like the old golf course, where they remove invasive species like boneseed, African daisy and olive, helping the native ecosystems regenerate. They have even undertaken two small-scale revegetation projects on the 17th fairway and the Tea-Tree Oval sites, despite challenges of altered soils. On both occasions I joined them it was very boggy, and not very much fun, but those trees and those shrubs are trying their hardest to grow.

The area also contains three significant plant communities: a stand of native pines, likely to be remnant survivors; a population of native windmill grass, the only one in Belair National Park; and a rare black bristle-sedge, listed as rare in the Mount Lofty Ranges. We also see the inspiring work of the Friends of Belair National Park supporting younger environmental leaders like Xavian Parr, who has been making possum and bird boxes from recycled wood to create homes for local wildlife.

Xavian began his project as part of his Urrbrae High School application, inspired by concerns about deforestation and habitat loss. He combined his passion for carpentry with conservation, and donates 10 per cent of his profits to the Friends of Belair National Park, as well as to Minton Farm wildlife rescue. Last year, he was also the recipient of my Environmental Warrior Award, and he is now working on a new design for bee hotels to support native pollinators. His story is a powerful example of the next generation of conservation champions.

Importantly, I would also like to highlight the work of the Sturt Upper Reaches Landcare Group's Bandicoot Superhighway Project. The community-driven effort is protecting the endangered southern brown bandicoot—the last surviving member of the bandicoot and bilby family in our region. Each bandicoot can dig through up to four tonnes of soil per year, playing a vital role in supporting native plant growth and soil health.

The Bandicoot Superhighway Project is creating a network of connected habitats by planting native vegetation, fencing off important remnant areas, setting up cameras to monitor bandicoot movements and predators, and trialling reintroductions of bandicoots into safe spaces. It is a true community effort, and simple steps like keeping pet cats indoors at night can make a huge difference in giving these threatened marsupials a fighting chance.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the exceptional work of the Waite Conservation Reserve along the bottom of the freeway. Dedicated to conservation and scientific research, it protects the best remaining example of grey box grassy woodland and is home to rare and vulnerable plant species, as well as kangaroos, koalas and echidnas. Adjacent to it, the Waite Arboretum is an extraordinary living collection of over 800 species, freely accessible to the public, and a testament to how science, education and biodiversity conservation go hand in hand.

The impacts of drought-related dieback, the inspiring community efforts to restore habitats, and the innovative research underway at our universities underscore the importance of this biodiversity act. These challenges and opportunities show us that, while legislation provides the framework, it is the collective effort of people on the ground that brings this vision to life.

I, too, would like to pay my respects to our park rangers. They do an incredible job of looking after our national parks and recreation areas. Not only do they have the passion inside them but they also educate others. Just on Saturday they joined us and took over our park run and spoke about the work that they do, so I want to take this time to thank them personally. But let us remember the future of our planet depends on protecting what biodiversity we have left and on restoring what we have lost. This act sets the tone for a future where nature and people thrive together. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (16:07): I would like to make a contribution to the Biodiversity Bill. It is an important place/space that we all live in and all expect it to go along as it should. I do note that the government have come into power with a commitment to introduce the first biodiversity act here in the state, and I think it could be commended, should it be introduced, and carefully considered in the way that it is introduced.

Many of the contributions today have talked about the threats to biodiversity and the threats to whether it is a species, whether it is an animal, whether it is a plant, whether it is the soils or whether it is the things that are growing in those soils. I think it is very important that we carefully consider what this biodiversity act will mean and potentially how it will benefit, and also how it will impost on the day-to-day lives of those who will be impacted by what the introduction of this bill will mean to them—whether it is to their lifestyle, whether it is to their business or whether it is to the landscape that they are living in and living around.

A concern I have is that we have a government patting themselves on the back with this Biodiversity Bill, and that is fair, but what I would like to better understand is the duty of the government. What is the duty? I think for much of the time I have been in this place, governments always introduce penalties, hardship, red tape and green tape, but I do not ever see the incentives that I feel that this bill should have. It is not about introducing new penalties. It is not about making it harder to navigate, to run a business, to look after the landscape, to look after the challenges that we face.

Living in a regional setting, we face challenges every day, and a lot of those challenges are biodiversity challenges that we have to deal with. The carrot-and-stick approach is always my business model for any piece of legislation, any law that we introduce in this chamber, bring here and pass, that the wider population then has to deal with. What I would like to see, what I would like to better understand, is that there has to be a carrot-and-stick approach. That carrot-and-stick approach must include that the Biodiversity Bill has penalties for those who are not doing the right thing, but what are the incentives for those who are doing the right thing?

What are the incentives for those who are providing better biodiversity in our landscapes, in the world where we live? Where are the incentives? As an avid regional person, I do go out there and mix it with a number of community groups that go out there on bird watch for bird counts. There is fish watch for fish counts. We look at native trees and tree counts. We look at the impacts of what has come past our landscape, whether it be bushfire, drought, flood and natural disasters, if you like, or whether it be pests and diseases that we have to deal with at every corner.

Not only does the natural environment have to deal with a lot of introduced species, introduced issues and problems, but we have to actually manage, and I think better manage, the biodiversity. I think there are some sensible ways to do that, and I think there are some other ways that are not as sensible. What I must say is that when I went on the website and had a look at the YourSAy for consultation and giving feedback into this process, for 180 pages of legislation, the consultation was open for 27 days.

We had the usual contributors into that consultation process: a lot of conservation groups, a lot of community and environmental custodians, if you like, that like to put their two bobs' worth in on a consultation process. I must say that a lot of the stakeholders do have a vested interest. A lot of those stakeholders like to voice their concern or they like just to hear the sound of their voice so that they feel good about making a contribution to the consultation process. But many of us live in amongst it and understand intrinsically about the betterment of biodiversity. We promote biodiversity as primary producers, as regional communities, as environmental groups and as tourism businesses.

I have a very well-known tourism business up in the Riverland, the Murray River Trails. The proprietors of that business, Tony and Susie Sharley, do an outstanding job not only showing off the pristine environment, showing off the pristine biodiversity that they operate their business under, but also being the eyes and ears of their business, where they take people, where they show people some of the great environmental assets that this state has on the banks of the River Murray, on the plains of the River Murray, on the flood plains of the River Murray and also some of the high country.

What we can see is some of the historical artefacts and some of the native vegetation, how it is regenerating, how it is succumbing to some of the pressures of invasive species or invasive weeds and invasive pests, if you like. Obviously, many of us would understand what a lot of these invasive pests are. Whether it be a rabbit, whether it be foxes, whether it be deer, whether it be a native animal, whether it be an introduced animal, they all put pressure on the biodiversity of our landscape.

If they are not managed, then we put unwarranted and unneeded focus on an area that needs to be better managed. Who is probably going to do that? The landowner, the farmer, those community groups, those environmental crusaders, if you like. Many of them will do it for a reason and in most instances it is not about the monetary gain—there is probably usually no monetary gain—they are doing it for the betterment of the biodiversity, they are doing it for the betterment of the environment and the landscape that they live on and live under.

On a day-to-day basis, I see people out there, keeping an eye on waterways, keeping an eye on rivers, keeping an eye on the natural landscape, the flood plains. They do report in exactly when they see inconsistencies, when they see activity that is of detriment to that biodiversity or that landscape. Usually they will have a voice and they will cast that voice normally with a level of opinion. There is always an opinion when there is a voice and some of those voices and opinions are good for the future, and some of those are quite obviously not so good for the future, because some of it is unsubstantiated and some of it is warranted with a level of expertise.

What about the life cycle of biodiversity? I heard the member for Waite talking about some of the diseases within native trees, browning. We have all sorts of insects that get in under the bark, get into the wood and then create a tree that will then have a limited life, but that also poses risk for people who walk under it, camp under it or walk past it. Potentially, a lot of those trees will then have a lot of deadwood which invites campers to look at the opportunity for firewood. That is just human nature and I do not think in any way, shape or form that this bill will stop the human intervention of opportunity.

The life cycle of that of biodiversity is no more prevalent than it is on open landscape, landscapes that are surrounded by rangeland, bushland, flood plains. I hope in this consultation process that there is a good balance of the management within that biodiversity. Obviously, what we hear and see a lot about the natural environment, particularly out of the department, is there are two types of tape: there is red tape and there is green tape, and in many instances I think that there should be a role for government to reduce that burden. A big pair of scissors is what we really need to be able to cut it out of the way and simplify the activities around this bill.

I will be watching very carefully the landowners' rights and the impact on landowners. They have always, in most instances, been good custodians of the land they own, the land they maintain and the land they love, so that will be very interesting to see. With the carriage of this bill, the minister will obviously oversee it and the management and the enforcement will, I think, be watched very carefully around how that is managed and the unintended consequences.

I live on the banks of the River Murray; I live and breathe it. I came into this place on a platform fighting for the right to have a healthy working river and it is no different than looking at the right to have a healthy working biodiversity. It is about regeneration, it is about the life cycle and it is about the natural phenomena that we live with and live under every day, but it is also about managing the unforeseen circumstances, managing natural events and managing human intervention.

As I have said, managing pests is probably one of the biggest issues in a healthy biodiversity, whether it is disease, a natural incursion or something that has been introduced. Here in Australia we have, by and large, introduced a lot of the pests that have become plague-proportioned and have needed significant management in order to keep a healthy biodiversity and a healthy environment. We know that plants, forests and parks regenerate. The flood plains and the waterways all regenerate, but they also go through an element of change and unforeseen natural phenomena.

With the most recent flood that hit the main channel on the River Murray, what we saw was a flood event that has seen a change in the shape of the river corridor. It has seen a change in the shape of the flood plain. There are some newer species and some plants, trees and bushes that were not there before. A lot of the landscape, the shape of the landscape, was never there before. There are large deposits of different mediums, such as sandbars, that were never there before. I guess the reckoning is what was before the flood, we endure the flood and then we pick up the pieces after the flood.

I did want to touch on the River Murray. We talk about biodiversity, we talk about waterways and we also talk about the management of those waterways. What I saw with the floods in late 2022 into 2023 was a significant detrimental impact on a lot of the river trees and the population of trees. We saw a lot of the river red gums fall into the river. We saw a lot of regeneration on some of the flood plains.

It was great to see some of the black box population. The black box population is something that is far away from the river. It is a tree population that receives water every number of decades. It is unlike a river red gum that needs water every four to five years to keep its feet in good condition so that it can survive and continue to grow and be part of the magnificent landscape that the river corridor offers.

What I would like is to make sure of the way that the same department that is going to implement the biodiversity act manages the river at the moment. I get a sense that it is a little bit of experimentation, the way that weir pools manipulate that river, the way that we undercut the banks. A lot of the blame for this is put on human intervention. But it is not about human intervention—being on a ski boat, being on a jetski, being on a houseboat, setting up camp, or bringing your boat onto the bank. This is about raising and lowering weir pools. What it is doing is undercutting a lot of that, a lot of the banks, and we are seeing huge bank slumping, and then we see more trees falling into the river. We see more erosion and we see huge impacts that I think are all about a department experimenting with the management of the river corridor.

I think the river is very much a telltale of its environment. As I have said, with the most recent flood, we have seen a real phenomenon of what regeneration means on a flood plain. We have seen huge regeneration of lignum, we have seen huge regeneration of native trees and native bush, but we have also seen a huge regeneration of native animals. Many of those animals have moved to higher ground. I can attest to that, that after the high river all the rabbits, all the snakes, a lot of the reptiles have all moved to higher ground, and a lot of that higher ground is my property.

So what I would say is that, if we are going to put a biosecurity act in place, we are going to have to further manage a lot of our landscape. We are going to have to make sure that we have a healthy working biodiversity and a healthy working river, that we have a healthy working flood plain and also a healthy, working environment. Whether it be in a paddock, whether it be on a hill, whether it be in a forest or whether it be in a park, I think that there will need to be much care and consideration that this bill does not create work for the sake of creating work, that it does not create green tape for the sake of creating green tape, and that it does not just introduce red tape and create a burden for all of the population that is part of that biodiversity. I will be very interested to see how this act is introduced, and I hope it is with the least amount of burden put onto landowners and land users.

Time expired.

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (16:28): I rise today to make my contribution to the Biodiversity Bill 2025, an issue that is of importance across my electorate. You do not have to go too far in terms of the area in the western suburbs to see a couple of pretty diverse but also interlinked habitats, landscapes or ecosystems, to speak of a different river to the member for Chaffey's, who has discussed in great detail the River Murray. The River Torrens is essentially right down the centre of the electorate of Colton. From time to time, we have been very proud of what the River Torrens has become, in particular over the last couple of years, with the clearing work that has been undertaken on the river itself, particularly down on the western end, with regard to the last in a schedule of three projects that have culminated in the redevelopment of Breakout Creek.

For those who are unaware, the River Torrens previously did not quite look as it does today in terms of the river mouth coming out to the sea in between the suburbs of West Beach and Henley Beach South. It had meandered through what were reed beds down towards Port Adelaide as opposed to that cut that was made in the early 1930s.

One of the significant projects that had been undertaken by a range of governments, over what has been a pretty significant period now—it started in 1999—was this work to rewild, revegetate, replant and essentially change what had been a man-made outlet. That has taken a significant period of time, probably longer than anybody would have liked to conclude that project.

The project that I am particularly proud to have seen when I was in government was when that last stage of works was funded and then delivered, seeing the clear and significant change in what that project has been able to deliver: 15-odd hectares of land returned for public use and community enjoyment, but, more than that, in terms of what has been achieved from an ecological perspective in ensuring that land is now more closely matched to what it should have been previously, being able to see significant wetland areas returned through that system for the purpose of not just improving water quality but trying to rewild and introduce species back into the River Torrens.

I will not speak in detail of the project that has been undertaken by successive governments around the platypus. It is one that I am sure some will potentially talk on further, but there are significant works being undertaken across that whole stretch to the extent of returning and creating that new habitat where more than 215,000 native plants have been inserted into that stretch of land.

Something that has been well received from the community, of course, is the opportunity to access the area in a way that has not been done previously to bring people closer to that space. The community also felt part of that journey, with multiple opportunities to plant and see the continued revegetation of that area. It is not just secluded to that end of the River Torrens. From time to time, usually aligning with Arbor Day, there are various groups that go out and do other planting exercises around parts of the river further to the east, but still in the general western suburbs area.

There are many organisations, community groups and volunteer groups that are obviously incredibly passionate about ensuring diversity in our landscape, but more broadly as well across the area. Whether that is coastal dune planting that occurs through not just my electorate but more broadly across the coastline, both in metropolitan and regional South Australia, those groups do a fantastic job in supplementing the work that is done in growing coastal plants through the various agencies within South Australia, through to dune care groups such as the Henley Dunes Care Group in my particular area. There are, of course, others across the metropolitan coastline as well.

A more recent addition to our area is the Henley Beach Greening group, which is doing something fundamentally different in terms of approach. That started completely outside of government, whether that be local or state, but it is effectively finding local council verges and planting as many natives and other plants that they can possibly source into those areas. Marion Kilsby does a fantastic job with that group. It has significantly changed the face of many a verge through the Henley Beach suburb to this point already and with the opportunity to increase that planting exercise, I am sure she will continue to grow it over the future years as well.

As I said, the two particular landscapes, whether that be the river through the middle of the electorate through to the coast, are interconnected. That is why I am incredibly passionate about improving the quality of the water and the management processes that come along with the intersection between the two, the area where the River Torrens comes out to the sea. For many years, unfortunately, we have had to describe our role in the River Torrens system as essentially the butt end of the river system. All of the debris and the items that come into our stormwater system and make their way into the River Torrens, it is not that we see parts of that, we see all of it basically down at the western end.

We know that the quality of the water needs to be improved. There have been many instances of the management of the blue-green algae system within Lake Torrens itself that have resulted in effectively a channel needing to be cut in advance, when that gets passed through each summer, hoping that it is not the case that it does get to that point. Again, I would encourage the government to continue to research and find ways that we can improve the quality of the water within Lake Torrens.

Every time we need to flush the blue-green algae in the Torrens Lake we see a release of water further upstream that then pushes through the system and makes its way through my electorate and out into the sea. I am not sure that we necessarily understand the full effects of what that does, but certainly, from the perspective of local residents and more broadly those who use the beach, it is not that nice, it really is not.

Unfortunately, to this point there is not an easy solution to that problem, but it is something that I would certainly encourage the government to continue to work on in the short term. I do thank the minister for calling together a group of interested parties in putting forward some solutions to improve the management of that process. With the cutting of the river out to sea, it does go dry during most of the summer months in anticipation of that happening. We can always improve and we can always do better, and I am glad that everybody is open to improving that process.

West Beach is also home to the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), which is heavily invested in research that is geared towards improving biodiversity outcomes in South Australia, whether that be aquatic or terrestrial ecosystems or more broadly with inland waterways and catchments. As locals, we value the fact that we have SARDI there in our local area, that that work is being undertaken in the western suburbs and that that contribution of science more broadly is happening there.

I am not going to go into too much detail in regard to the coast itself. From the many contributions that I have made across the years in this place, it is clear that more needs to be done to improve our coastal and sand management processes in South Australia. Over the last couple of weeks in particular, we have had some severe storm and weather events that have battered the coastline right the way down.

However, it is not untrue to say that the better job that we do in managing sand and beach management processes the better we set up the condition of our beaches to deal with those significant storm events that are going to happen more frequently as we start to move into the years ahead. That is not disputed. We know that those events are going to happen more frequently. It is the very reason why we need to get coastal management and sand management right. That is exactly why we need to ensure that our beaches are best placed to deal with those ongoing events into the future.

I am happy for this bill to progress through the house. I strongly support the intent of the bill to improve biodiversity outcomes in South Australia. I am sure there will be opportunities to improve the bill from a range of interested parties in the other place; there is no doubt that that will likely come. I look forward to the continued debate as the Biodiversity Bill makes its way through this place.

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (16:39): Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker, for the opportunity to speak today on the Biodiversity Bill. It is a bill that is designed to protect and enhance biodiversity in South Australia but also gives consideration to restoring biodiversity. That is certainly applicable in the electorate of Morphett, which is where European settlement in South Australia really first started, certainly from a metropolitan Adelaide point of view.

The electorate of Morphett is also very important because it has some of the most beautiful beaches in the state, certainly in metropolitan Adelaide. The beach ecosystems are very important ecosystems to help both from the ocean's point of view but also terrestrially because, as is the case in Morphett with estuary systems, it actually brings together those two ecosystems in the one place and you go from a saline environment through to a freshwater environment.

In the electorate of Morphett's case, that is the Patawalonga lake system, which basically sees the termination of both Sturt Creek and Keswick Creek. These are creeks that meander, you would say, their way through metropolitan Adelaide. Obviously, on the plains Adelaide is very flat, so these creeks are not the big rivers that you see in Europe or other continents, but they are very important in terms of the role they play in the ecosystem.

Going back to my original comments, European settlers came up the coast looking for a place to set up a settlement. One of the important aspects of having a settlement is finding fresh water, so the Patawalonga was the first real freshwater source of a substantive nature that got the interests of those Europeans who came to set up the colony of South Australia.

In fact, going up the Patawalonga and through the Sturt Creek at the time, the mangrove system that was there—the dry land where the proclamation of South Australia first occurred—was at the Old Gum Tree Reserve, for those of us in this chamber who attend that ceremony. I go to that ceremony on 28 December each year. That is about a kilometre inland, so it gives a bit of a sense that when Europeans first came to set up in South Australia the first real firm land from the perspective of Holdfast Bay was about a kilometre inshore. The rest of it was the estuary system that is the Patawalonga.

It is a haven of biodiversity but, of course, with European settlement came urbanisation: cement, bricks, roads. Where Morphett is, it is heavily urbanised. That caused a real change in the biodiversity of the ecosystem there. It also caused a change in the actual oceans themselves.

Now, you see the satellite views looking overhead and you can see that the sands and the dunes system that was once there extends out for a good number of metres—hundreds of metres—before seagrass starts to appear. A lot of that is because of all the nutrients that are either getting flushed out from roads or flushed in through Sturt Creek or Keswick Creek. You would think that nutrient richness would be a reason for promoting the seagrass growth in those very near areas of the ocean, but in fact it is the opposite: you will find that, to some extent, it is a desert beneath the waves there.

So there are real issues around restoration. I spoke about that when I first opened my comments around the efforts to restore biodiversity in Morphett. I am not saying that we should exclusively only be talking about Morphett, of course. We have members in parliament who represent all areas of the state, but I will keep most of my comments just to my electorate, to give that flavour and reinforcement, and let others speak for their own areas.

Maybe I will talk about Sturt Creek from the outset because it is such an important part of the electorate. It effectively runs through the entire electorate of Morphett. Initially it goes underneath Oaklands Road—certainly it starts its way in Morphett, from Park Holme—then it makes its way through Morphettville, where you will see it predominating, then it goes under Morphett Road and gets to Glengowrie and makes its way to Novar Gardens before finishing at Patawalonga in Glenelg North. You can see that it is a really important water source.

Again, in days gone by it was a meandering river. There are pictures of what Sturt Creek used to look like that you can see at Cummins House, which is where Sir John Morphett lived, whom the electorate was named after. Cummins House was established in 1842, which was very shortly after settlement in 1836. You can see from the pictures of the time that it looked basically like you would expect most creeks to look: just carving their way through the landscape with trees abounding, and being a source of waterholes for animals and attracting native fauna and flora. Of course, as happens in Australia, which is a land of droughts and flooding rains, oftentimes the river would be dry, especially in the summer months, but in rain events you would get flooding.

Sturt Creek itself starts in Coromandel Valley, in the Mount Lofty Ranges, effectively like the green island for metropolitan Adelaide and of course where most of the rain falls. That rain makes its way to Patawalonga and, as a catchment area, collects more and more water along the way and then floods. Back in the fifties and sixties, the design was to protect housing as Adelaide grew, and Sturt Creek was basically converted into a big cement drainway. I do not think it is unfair to describe it as a large drain, because that is effectively what it looks like: a scar making its way through. While that allowed the water to be controlled and the volume that it could handle was quite large, it also meant that the water actually ran quite quickly from Coromandel Valley all the way to Glenelg. So, while it achieved the effect of not spilling the banks and flooding houses that were adjacent to Sturt Creek, it caused trouble in that it put a whole lot of water into the Patawalonga Lake, and that needs to be managed as well.

The point is that humans have come in and changed the ability for that creek to be rich in biodiversity. The other effect is that, as you go along Sturt Creek, it is quite barren on either side. There was very little vegetation put there, deliberately so, to allow water to make its way down. That turned what was a nature corridor into a pretty barren landscape, if truth be told.

So back in 2021 there was a really concerted effort led by the Friends of Sturt River Landcare Group to turn, as I said, this barren area into a more natural green corridor along the Sturt River, especially in the suburb of Glenelg North, with the aim to plant local native species that would then provide vital habitat for birds, insects and small mammals, and also try to improve the health of the river system there as well and effectively try to rewild it to some extent and turn it back into a nature corridor.

In 2021, the first of those plantings was at Fordham Reserve in Glenelg North and I was able to join the Friends of Sturt River Landcare group there. With a number of volunteers, we planted over 1,500 new seedlings around that reserve. It took it from being basic grass and gum trees to actually having a fair bit of undergrowth that supports effectively the food source and also habitat for native birds, animals and insects. Nesting boxes were also put into the surrounding gum trees to again promote birds to effectively have a safe haven and really accelerate the native birdlife to set up in those groups.

Moving along, there was another planting day, again held by the Friends of the Sturt River at Bob Lewis Reserve in Glenelg North. Again, this was just a very grassy reserve. I have talked before about drainage and run-off. This drain, to basically get stormwater and flush it into the Sturt Creek, had been effectively split up into two and carved out with a rocky depression in that reserve to try to break up the stormwater a little bit. But it was still very barren—it was basically a whole pile of rocks.

The planting at the Bob Lewis Reserve was around planting strappy sedge and wetland plants into those rocks. They basically needed to get auger drills because the rocks themselves were quite heavily compacted. They used the auger drills to drill in and then put in those wetland plants, again with the aim to attract wildlife, and frogs especially—there is not so much of an opportunity for frogs to be in the Morphett parts of the Sturt River because it is basically concrete lined, but here was an opportunity—and also dragonflies and insects as well, and the aim was for the plants to improve the drainage even further. On the other side of the Sturt Creek is Stewart Avenue Reserve. Plantings were also undertaken there, again basically to provide a number of opportunities for this nature corridor to be built up.

Finally, moving closer to the Patawalonga is Shannon Avenue Reserve in Glenelg North, just up from Kibby Reserve and Kibby Avenue where you have the primary school; and the Baden Pattinson kindy is set up there. You also have the Kibby Veterans Shed set up there as well, so it is a great activity and source of volunteers. Between them and the locals, the planting was done on Shannon Avenue. That basically lasted over a period of three years and it was fantastic to be able to join the Friends of Sturt River Landcare to be able to help set those up.

In fact, it was also very opportune to be able to attend the completion ceremony that was held in November last year at the finishing point of that greening project at Shannon Avenue Reserve. We had Professor Chris Daniels come along and commend all the Friends of Sturt River for their work in basically providing a nature corridor. You can see the growth over time. Fordham Reserve has had three years of growth behind it and you can see what a difference that has made compared with Shannon Avenue, which was only done in July. Obviously it has not had a chance to mature and build out, but it gives hope for that.

Thank you to all the volunteers for the dedicated efforts over three years to plant thousands of native seedlings. It certainly will go a long way to enhancing local biodiversity along the Sturt Creek in the Glenelg North region. Their work that they are doing directly supports the goals of this Biodiversity Bill in terms of restoring native vegetation, enhancing biodiversity and helping to build resilience as well in the suburbs. They are a community-driven environmental care group, and they certainly remind us that biodiversity protection can be done at a grassroots level as well. It does not have to rely just on a top-level approach.

Talking of nature corridors, another corridor that is available for planting of native species is along the tramline that runs from Glenelg all the way into the city. We have some fantastic volunteers who help green areas of our transport corridors, especially along the Mike Turtur Bikeway, which runs adjacent to the tramlines. It really is very shady for people, so it encourages people to get out and just enjoy being outside. It also provides natural habitat. All these gum trees are quite significant.

As more developments are being undertaken on private housing blocks, more and more of those bigger gum trees are making way for houses, so these corridors become sanctuaries. I was out doorknocking only recently, in the last couple of weeks. I spoke with, as it turned out, Brian and Kayleen Light. They told me that over the years they have really enjoyed and worked hard at doing tree plantings along the tram corridor. I commend them for their work as well.

Another great example of biodiversity in Morphett is the Glenelg shellfish reef. I talked earlier about all the nutrients that get flushed out and have basically made a bit of a wasteland under the ocean in the first few hundred metres from the shoreline. Previously, before a lot of this urban build-up had occurred, there were a lot of natural oyster beds all the way along the coast. One of the projects under the former Liberal government was to invest quite significant money, over $1 million, in creating a shellfish reef the size of Adelaide Oval. There is quite a substantive amount of native oysters there.

Not only will it stabilise the seabed and try to slow down that sand drift that naturally occurs heading north but it will also help to filter the seawater and prevent coastal erosion. It takes the energy out of the waves that go over and also provides habitat that supports not only fish but other sea life such as crabs and sponges. It is located about a kilometre out from the mouth of the Patawalonga. There are opportunities there, once it gets established, for people to go out diving with tour operators such as Adelaide Ocean Safari. Those are the opportunities that are opened up there.

So they are some of the really important aspects of biodiversity in Morphett. I look forward to further debate on this bill. I note from some of the contributions of others, as we provide support to progress the bill, that it is about getting the balance right between biodiversity and lifestyle, especially for those in other regions, especially rural. They basically make their living off the lands, so of course biodiversity is important to them. There is also the ability to make sure that their farming processes are not overly held up by green tape or any hurdles that are created. With this bill, we will have to work through how it deals with the impacts and risks to biodiversity, the obligations that have been put in place by this and how that balances out. I look forward to those questions being put in the committee stage as this bill progresses.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley) (16:59): I rise today in support of the core intentions behind the Biodiversity Bill 2025 and also to raise concerns on what could be, if passed in its current form, a landmark legislative effort aimed at safeguarding South Australia's irreplaceable nature and heritage but missing the target and delivering the social licence for compliance and enthusiasm.

This bill rightly recognises that biodiversity conservation is a collective duty, an intergenerational responsibility and a moral imperative, yet while we must applaud its bold framework, we must also pause to critically and constructively consider whether the methods proposed may produce unintended consequences. We must ensure that this well-meaning legislation does not falter under the weight of ambiguity, bureaucracy, or uneven enforcement, or inadvertently displace or disadvantage the very communities and ecosystems it seeks to protect.

Biodiversity matters. South Australia is home to unique ecosystems, coastal wetlands, arid deserts, river systems, mallee woodlands, all teeming with native species found nowhere else on earth. Our biodiversity is not simply a biological inventory; it is the very pulse of our landscapes, central to our economy, our culture and our wellbeing.

Biodiversity supports our food security through pollinators and soil microorganisms. It supports climate resilience through carbon-sequestering ecosystems like seagrass meadows, forests and mangroves. It supports tourism through the multibillion dollar industry that we have that is heavily reliant on our state's natural wonders. Biodiversity also supports mental and physical health in our homes and streets, and especially in regional and Aboriginal communities, and yet South Australia is in the midst of a biodiversity crisis.

Let me share some sobering figures. Australia has the highest mammal extinction rate in the world. Over 100 native species have gone extinct since European settlement. In South Australia, more than 1,100 species are currently listed as threatened—that is about 20 per cent of our state's known native species. According to the 2021 State of the Environment report, South Australia's biodiversity condition has continued to decline due to land clearing, climate change, altered fire regimes and, importantly, introduced species.

Of course, extinctions have been caused by introduced animals. One of the most devastating threats to our native biodiversity is predation by introduced species. Of these, none is more damaging than the domestic and feral cat. A 2020 survey by Australian National University and the Threatened Species Recovery Hub found that feral cats kill an estimated 1.5 billion native animals annually across Australia—that is a very big number. They have been directly implicated in the extinction of over 22 Australian mammal species.

In South Australia alone, they are a major threat to the western quoll, the southern brown bandicoot, and the greater bilby. Other introduced threats include European red foxes, responsible for major declines in small ground-dwelling mammals; rabbits, which outcompete native herbivores and degrade soil; and deer, altering understorey vegetation in sensitive bushland. We must acknowledge that many of these species were introduced through negligence or ignorance, but it is now our responsibility to mitigate their harm using the best science available.

The Biodiversity Bill 2025 repeals the Native Vegetation Act 1991. It establishes multiple statutory bodies, such as a biodiversity council, a scientific committee, and an Aboriginal biodiversity committee; however, the minister's ability to ignore stakeholders for appointments is concerning. It introduces innovations such as environmental benefit credits and threat abatement plans, and recognises Aboriginal knowledge as integral to conservation efforts.

The bill's objectives are clear: to improve the state of biodiversity, build ecological resilience and share responsibility across society. But what is unclear in this bill as it stands is whether it will meet those objectives. This should be a visionary document that, if implemented properly, could become a model for biodiversity legislation in other jurisdictions; however, it falls a long way short of that aspiration.

There are potential unintended consequences. Even the most noble legislation can falter in practice. I will outline three key concerns. The first is ambiguity and overreach. The bill defines 'harm to biodiversity' as any direct or indirect adverse impact that is not trivial, but what constitutes trivial? The lack of definitional clarity could invite both legal challenges and regulatory overreach particularly affecting small landowners, Aboriginal land managers practising cultural burning or farmers conducting routine operations under tight margins. If protections are implemented with rigidity rather than nuance, we risk alienating the very stakeholders whose cooperation is essential.

While the bill introduces a robust permit system for any regulated activity involving native species or habitat, the cumulative result may be an administrative bottleneck. Every land clearing, grazing adjustment or fire management plan could be subject to approval by multiple overlapping bodies. This poses a real danger of delayed conservation actions, frustrated landowners and enforcement gaps in areas where swift decisions are vital.

Despite acknowledging the damage caused by introduced animals, the bill is relatively mute on specific strategies for controlling invasive species. The language surrounding the taking or disturbing of protected animals, while appropriately cautious, risks being weaponised against practical wildlife management, particularly culling programs targeting feral cats or deer. We must ensure that compassionate, science-based management is not stymied by a one-size-fits-all set of legal provisions.

Let us never forget the species we have already lost due to inaction: the Toolache wallaby, Macropus greyi, extinct by 1939 and driven to extinction by habitat loss and hunting; the lesser stick-nest rat, Leporillus apicalis, once common in South Australia and now extinct due to predation by cats and foxes; and Gould's mouse, Pseudomys gouldii, extinct across its former range largely due to introduced predators.

Those still clinging to survival include the Mallee emu-wren, endangered due to fire and habitat fragmentation; the Mount Lofty Ranges southern emu-wren, down to fewer than 500 individuals; the yellow-footed rock-wallaby, threatened by feral goats and foxes; and the western pygmy possum, vulnerable to climate extremes and habitat destruction. Each of these species tells a story not just of ecological loss but of a system struggling to keep pace with human progress.

How do we move forward? We need precision in legislation, clarifying terms like 'trivial harm', 'reasonable measures' and 'critical habitat', and ensuring exemptions for cultural practices are well defined and researched. We need to tailor permitting systems to risk levels—routine agricultural practices should not face the same scrutiny as land clearing in critical habitats—and empower local landscape boards and community organisations to act decisively with appropriate oversight.

The bill's inclusion of an Aboriginal biodiversity committee is historic, but only if its recommendations hold actual legal weight. Of course, we should fund Aboriginal ranger programs and traditional owner-led restoration projects. We should legislate clear mandates and funding for feral animal control programs, encourage community participation in citizen science and talk to farmers, conservationists, adventurers, campers and tourism experience providers. We should introduce backyard cat-containment initiatives. It needs resourcing and accountability, ensuring that the three proposed committees and their funds for restoration, conservation and administration are transparently selected and managed. It will require regular public reporting on specific recovery plans, extinction inquiries and full allocations for these programs.

Let's be clear: the bill is not merely a legal document. It is a statement of values. It should be a testament to how seriously we as South Australians take responsibility for the care of our country. As it stands, it is not. Legislation alone will not save a single species unless it is implemented with clarity, care, balance, courage and wisdom. Let us ensure that, in our outright zeal to protect biodiversity, we do not choke it under paperwork or paralyse it with procedural uncertainty. Let us listen to the land, to the traditional owners, to the farmers, to the scientists and the quiet voices of the flora and fauna whose future depends on our management of their environment. The government has the tools. As a community, we have the knowledge. Now, we must have the resolve to get this bill right.

Surprisingly, I have spoken a lot about the loss of diversity. Interestingly, when I was preparing this speech, it reminded me of a lecture that Professor Chris Daniels gave to FOCUS, the Friends of the City of Unley Society, about diversity in metropolitan Adelaide. When people think about diversity, they think about what was here first, about native plants and native animals. Of course, he did make the point that diversity in Australia has grown, particularly with the introduction of imported flora, our trees, obviously the food that we eat and the flowers that we grow and enjoy in our gardens and in our homes.

Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water when we are talking about diversity. Yes, it is very important to protect our native diversity, but it is also important to have diversity beyond what was here before European settlement. You only have to look at the difference that manicured parts of the Parklands have for enjoyment compared to those that are left to nature's devices. Both are important, and so we need to cherish them both. I would like to see more manicured Parklands. I think that they are safer, they are more inviting. As the city grows, as we see more urban consolidation through apartment living, in particular within the City of Unley and other inner suburbs, the aspiration to grow the north-west corridor along the tram line and the train line will bring more people into the city.

The aspiration of Adelaide City Council is to double the number of people who live in the city. They will need a Parklands that is diverse and comfortable for them to use. Whether it is walking, whether it is having a picnic, whether it is playing sport with the kids, we need to have that diversity of both the introduced species and native species.

One of the things I have certainly learnt as the member for Unley over the last 19 years is the value of introduced street trees. There are trees that have been identified around the world that survive best in the urban environment and plane trees are one of them. I think anybody who travels to the airport along Sir Donald Bradman Drive would be pleased that 30 or 40 years ago the City of West Torrens, as it was then, made the decision to plant those plane trees en route to the airport. We would be pleased to drive down there when we are returning from the airport or dropping somebody off or in a cab coming back.

Victoria Avenue, and a lot of other streets in Unley Park, also have benefited from the introduction of more diversity in flora in South Australia. Interestingly, Professor Daniels went on to explain to members of that FOCUS group, the Friends of the City of Unley Society, that one of the reasons why Unley has so many trees and such a dense plantation of trees is because the council had nothing to do with it. The residents got together and decided, through a discussion process, what would be the most appropriate tree to plant in their street and they all took that project on board and planted the trees in front of their own properties. Whether they thought one or two was the requirement, they would do that and they would all agree on the same species and it has worked extremely well for the cooling effect.

I know in Opey Avenue there is a big difference in the shade provided by the very large jacaranda trees to that provided by the stunted growth box trees that were planted to replace some jacaranda trees that died about 40 years ago. There is a significant difference. We have even got beautiful English oak trees in some of our streets in Unley and they have an enormous impact on shade.

They are also a habitat for birds. We had some friends stay with us many years ago from Iowa in the United States. Coming from a small forest city of about 5,000 people you would think in a town that size there would be plenty of wildlife and plenty of birds, but one of the things they noticed on their first morning after waking up were all the birds they could hear in the garden.

It is something I think we take for granted as Australians, regardless of where we live. Whether we live in the city, whether we live in the suburbs, whether we live in regional South Australia, I think we take for granted the access we have and the enjoyment that our biodiversity, our flora and fauna give us. With those remarks, I will complete my contribution.

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (17:18): It gives me great pleasure to speak on this Biodiversity Bill and the wide spectrum of what this bill represents. Perhaps before we even start and acknowledge it, this is a wide-reaching piece of legislation covering many areas and obviously it would have been quite challenging.

I think, in general, as someone who comes from a regional area like MacKillop, from our regional southern high rainfall areas, I think that it is a bill that appears to address perhaps a narrative from a city-based population's perspective, which I cannot argue and I am never going to win that debate because we are outnumbered. But as a bill I think it is looking to reinforce, protect more, create a greater level of penalties, including fines, moneys, dollars, rehabilitation—and I even hear that there is change to jail sentences in this regard to extended periods.

First of all, from the perspective of MacKillop, my constituents and how we battle native vegetation/biodiversity, we live and work in this area with trouble and perhaps with difficulty. It is cumbersome, slow and my constituents have to have a tremendous amount of patience working it in around their life, their investments and the opportunities that come up. Over the next 20 minutes, I am going to highlight some of these challenges that the Biodiversity Bill may not touch on, but perhaps could have touched on, and maybe they could even address them later on. I would say that that could be an opportunity.

My endeavour here is not to ridicule or to throw this bill out the window and say how ridiculous it is. That is not my intent, because obviously there are people who have constructed this, who are going to be affected by this who may be very pleased, satisfied and happy with where they have landed. It may be more workable and there might be some great results out of this bill. It might be great for them to be able to say that they were part of this process. In 10, 20 or 30 years' time, the community in that period of time may look back and say, 'What a life-changing and huge impact this bill has had on where we have landed today.'

I want to emphasise a comment that was said to me when I was out in the northern parts of my electorate at Lameroo and Pinnaroo. I was talking to a trucking businessperson who runs trucks and transport. I said, 'How are you finding the southern Mallee Highway?', and he said, 'They've done some major works on it.' I said, 'Yes, I've heard.' He said, 'It's really good now. They've taken some bumps and lumps out and they've put some shoulders on. It's not smooth, but it's good enough.' I said, 'Well, geez, I hear a lot of complaints.' He said, 'You've got to give people something to complain about, so don't worry. Leave it there and they'll be talking about that rather than something else.'

In regard to this type of legislation, that is probably what I am really going to allude to. By living in regional and remote South Australia, we represent a population of around 400,000 people in a state of 1.7 million, so we are the minority. I think if the 400,000 were able to put a biodiversity bill up and tell the 1.3 million people in Adelaide what to do with their biodiversity bill, this would not read like we are reading today, because they have a different perspective around biodiversity.

This is the one thing I will say: if we were all to pack up as humans or Homo sapiens and say, 'We're going to leave South Australia and never populate it again,' it would return back to its natural state at one time or another in the future. I do not know whether it would be a thousand years or a million years, but it will go back without our watch. It might have some introduced species that we stuffed up and let in and so forth, because they were not here in the first place, and there might be some other things that might be there that do not look like they did before we arrived.

However, in general, if you could flatten everything down, take the houses away and rip the roads up, and not even replant or reseed, it would go back to where it was. This is the bit that I think is lost for city folk, when they put up their high-rises like they are going to alongside here at 32 storeys, they lose sight of the gum trees and the native vegetation, that it actually is growing out there beyond the city perimeters and it is something we have to work with and we have to battle with.

I have worked with the minister and her staff and we brought up some issues. I will give you a classic example where we already know in our regional areas that we have a housing problem. Actually, we have an economic failure around housing in regional areas because it is not happening fast enough and the economics around it actually says, 'No, if you want to build houses and you want to make maximum money and have a great investment, do not build it in the regions because you will make more in the city.'

On top of that, we could stick five gum trees on a block in the little town of Naracoorte that likes to build in a north-south direction, and this will add you $150,000 to that build just like that. Those five gum trees are worth $30,000 each to the builder and the developer to turn that block into housing. There are trees all out beyond Naracoorte. There are some beautiful big red gums out beyond Naracoorte. These are not red gums, yet these trees are the difference between that block of land being built and no houses being built there today because of the cost of those trees. This is where I hope this Biodiversity Bill addresses the difference between city life and how they do want to see a greater, greener Adelaide.

I have been very privileged to sit on the Environment, Resources and Development Committee, chaired by the member for Badcoe. She does a fantastic job and puts her heart and all the inference that she can into the Environment, Resources and Development Committee. We are looking at greater greening Adelaide, we are looking at forestry of Adelaide, we are looking at tree management of Adelaide, and we are talking about the leafy green eastern suburbs of Adelaide and how we would love to transfer that over to the western suburbs, northern suburbs or the southern suburbs.

I get it. I know that that can mean a greater, more liveable suburb. I know it can be a greater, more liveable life, it can be cooling, it can be aesthetic, it can be mental health, it can be livability, it can be the prices of houses, it can be the prices of suburbs. I understand.

So then I made a suggestion—I do not know whether they will take it up, but I suppose what I am going to say and ask is—that when we look at the Native Vegetation Council, which is now going to become the new Biodiversity Council, I am hoping and I have my fingers crossed that there is some sort of representation for our regions on that council. This is not saying there will not be, but if there is I will endorse it and I will say thank you. If there is not, please consider, because what goes on beyond Adelaide is a tough life and it is a different world to the city of Adelaide. We do have these struggles.

I have talked about housing being an issue with native vegetation. I could then go on and say the Biodiversity Bill touches on the Mining Act, only in an ever so slight way. It might be about rehabilitation; it does not matter, it just touches on it. The Mining Act does deal with native vegetation in a really tough way.

Down in our region, we have low-cost quarries and mines that have pits of sand, which is used for cement and filling and house blocks. We have pits of rubble, which is used for roadworks and foundations and the like. We have black metal, which is used for highways. We have dolomite, which is used for agriculture. We have pits of lime, which is also used for agriculture. I am not really sure if there are any more; they are to name just some of the quarries and things that we do dig up in our region that is made very hard to extract out of our region—so hard that we actually find it easier to go to Victoria and buy these products rather than in South Australia because the native vegetation rules are too tough to work with.

They are too expensive. To knock over native vegetation, e.g. virgin, it would be prohibitive for a mine to expand when digging up the products I have just said, because they are only worth about between $20 and $50 a tonne. They are of low value. This is very important, as if they were more expensive we would not bloody use them. But it does not allow that mine to actually expand and work with the Native Vegetation Council, which will be the new Biodiversity Council.

These are the sort of inputs I am hoping, with this amendment and this bill here, will actually see some changes to recognise the different economic environments that we are talking about: that regional South Australia is not the same as Adelaide.

The other one I would like to touch on is that it does talk about our Indigenous Australians. It is allowed to and I hope it works well. I hope that they are engaged, I hope it is respected, I hope it gives them traction and I hope they feel that they are being recognised as the original landowners who arrived here 60,000 years ago.

However, here is a classic. We have recently heard in my electoral office that there is land south of the dog fence up in the arid lands of South Australia (the south means it is a dog-free zone) not far away from Roxby Downs—I think it is even owned by BHP—that is harbouring and looking after around 400 dingoes. These dingoes should not be south of the dog fence. Yes, I can understand they are a protected species where they are meant to be protected, but this is not part of that zone.

I hear landowners know about these dogs being a problem; they are predators. They actually have sheep businesses surrounding these leases and this land, and they need to put up their own dog fence: a second dog fence inside the dog fence area. Yet that is being made very hard in terms of Indigenous access and making sure that they work with the Indigenous owners, elders and communities.

It is hard to get them on board. They say yes one day—a property owner who was working with one gentleman does not see the end of the project. I think this property owner has 150 kilometres of dog fence to do and has 50 more kilometres to go, and the representative they were dealing with no longer belongs to the Indigenous community and committee as a representative. He has been pushed aside. A new gentleman comes in and says, 'No, you may not put that fence up.' So we now have a hole of 50 kilometres in the fence that is not dog proof, and so there are dogs coming through this area and attacking sheep on properties beyond this property. I hope that when we look at this Biodiversity Bill—and I see a number of points made around Aboriginal communities and the Aboriginal biodiversity committee—it has the traction to go well beyond that.

The other problem that I also hope the bill covers and gains traction in is that there is a huge opportunity in the arid lands for carbon capture. This is where we are going to keep sheep off property—or off the areas that are going to be capturing carbon, not necessarily the whole property. We are going to keep goats off the property and we are going to keep cattle off the property and the paddocks and then allow the regrowth to take place. It has to grow to two metres. This could be quite lucrative for landowners in the arid lands in what are now very tough times. It is really hard to make these arid lands work at the moment. With the shortage of labour, costs, the tyranny of distance and seasonal conditions it is now costing us $17 a sheep to bring sheep from 400 kilometres north-west of Port Augusta to Murray Bridge to be slaughtered. So, before we even start, there is $17 just in freight and transport.

These sorts of things are getting harder and harder, and there might be this really good opportunity to have carbon capture. But in carbon capture you have to deal with the Indigenous communities. In the example that I know of, we have a boundary between two tribes or communities, and they will not talk to each other. If you deal with one community they say, 'Yes, it's alright, you can go along and capture carbon,' and we will look after them and pay them an amount for the privilege. But if you then talk to the other one they are not happy because we have done a deal over there already, and so we do not get a deal. So we go back and start again and we talk to the other community, and they will say, 'Yes, we are all happy with that,' and then you go and say to them that you have a deal and they say, 'No, it's no good. We can't do a deal,' and so we get nothing.

I am hoping that this is the sort of traction that this new Biodiversity Bill will actually capture: that we do need recognition of communication strategies, that people do turn up and sign-off and that we can invest and move forward in these areas.

Moving more into my neck of the woods, in agricultural terms this bill talks about the penalties going up exponentially. I have to say that I think they are already quite onerous. I think they are very expensive if you get caught out, and I think it is up to the courts to consider jail time. May I say that I think that is reaching too far in this field. It is a huge deterrent, but what gets lost when you potentially start putting people in jail according to native vegetation acts and laws and breaking those laws and rules? It does become really quite fearful. It is a fearful type of process for operators. I really hope that this sort of thing is there in writing but potentially may never be used and just stays with the fining system.

We have landowners who would like to put in centre pivots, and the removal of trees for massive irrigation circles, as they are called, is so expensive. It is so expensive to put these circles in that the cost of the removal of native vegetation rules out the development, and the development then does not take place and the irrigation is lost. They might have a water licence, but too bad. I heard of one centre pivot where there could have been, I think, about 40 to 100 poorish old trees, which the landowner would claim have a limited life span, for which you would have to remediate 60 hectares for a 40-hectare pivot. What does that mean? You have to lock-up 60 hectares of native vegetation—bushes, rushes and reeds—to be able to water 40 hectares and knock over trees that are not native vegetation; they are isolated paddock trees.

We are not dropping a circle down in pristine native vegetation and saying, 'We are clearing this area for good.' It had never been touched and it was what they called virgin native. That is not happening. But these are the sorts of things that we are struggling with in our electorate. We know that landowners, people who try to grow lamb, beef, wool, crops, seed crops, are all suffering under the current rules. I am not saying that this Biodiversity Bill is absolutely going to put the nail through this and it is not going to happen. What I am asking is can it make it easier? Can it work with these landowners better than it is today? Do we have to have such onerous rules?

There was a big housing development in Robe, and I think they have had a really good win. Robe lives on the sand dunes right on Guichen Bay, and in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s the sand dunes were all grazed by sheep. If you can remember the heydays of sheep in the 1950s—pound for a pound—they were running sheep wherever you could run sheep. This country was all cleared—barren, it started to blow, perhaps deteriorated. It was not the greatest practice in the world. It has certainly stopped. It is now a national park.

Robe is really beautiful, pretty and attractive and it attracts a lot of people for retirement and their holidays. It has growing pains. We had an area of land that had low-lying bush, two metres high maximum, maybe three—not virgin—yet they found it really hard to expand and actually get approval to build houses on this native vegetation. I know there are growing pains there for the Robe council in water and wastewater and the like, but I am hoping again that if we have good representation by this Biodiversity Bill, if this Biodiversity Bill brings in people who actually understand this dilemma, understand the opportunities that may be out there in our regions and gives it fair consideration, that these developments could and should take place.

We are not losing our pristine environment and the native vegetation that has never been touched and was virgin. It is regrowth. The town is really desperate to grow and have people develop more houses, and the council is looking for greater developments to be more viable in a really changing landscape. So this will all depend on the reference of what this Biodiversity Bill can achieve and what it should achieve.

The other point I would like to touch on is feral animals. We know we have wild dogs—and I do not say dingoes—foxes and rabbits. We know that we can try to obviously remove them from the landscape. I did ask the question whether this Biodiversity Bill had any traction with the landscape boards and apparently it will not touch them. I think that is a little bit of a missed opportunity because a lot of people say that the landscape boards do a wonderful job talking about all the problems, writing down all the problems, but they are very, very thin on the ground for action. I am talking about roadsides with native vegetation, I am talking about roadsides with weeds, I am talking about roadsides with vermin, I am talking about rail corridors with fire control and weed control, and I am hoping that this Biodiversity Bill is able to consider, look at or hopefully bring better management of what our native vegetation has to offer.

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (17:38): I want to thank the Speaker for earlier giving me the indulgence of the chamber under standing order 105 to be seated while addressing the chamber as I recover from my foot surgery. I also note that I am the lead speaker for the opposition and that the opposition will certainly support the passage of the bill through this chamber but will consider possibly amending it and then deciding on whether we support it fully due to some concerns we have that we really want to unpack through the committee stage, making sure that this bill does what it is intended to do.

Biodiversity is very important, and I think it is important that we are moving from, in particular, the Native Vegetation Act, very focused on the vegetation that was native to Australia, to talk about biodiversity, because we cannot remove the exotic plants and animals that are now in the environment here in Australia. Biodiversity has been changed forever in this space, and we cannot go back from that, so we need to make sure that we are having a holistic approach to its management going forward. The opposition is very supportive of looking at that sort of move.

I have some concern about parts of language in the bill and particularly the use of the word 'restoration'. To me, restoration of biodiversity to something that now has been changed is, as I said, almost impossible. I do not think 'restoration' is the right word. We can increase biodiversity, we can decrease biodiversity, we can make sure that we do not lose further biodiversity and we can also enhance biodiversity, but I am not sure 'restoration' is the correct word that we should be using through this piece of legislation.

We have to be very careful, because what point in time are we trying to restore to? Are we trying to restore to a point prior to settlement? Are we restoring back to 1400 AD, which is a date that is referred to in the bill for becoming native to Australia? To me, it is a really challenging concept around restoration. That is certainly one thing that I want to unpack when we go forward.

Another part that I really feel is important to pull apart is the understanding around the definitions. I met yesterday with the member for Heysen and a constituent of his who has a passion for fungi, and they are very concerned about the inclusion of fungi and algae in the definition of a plant because, scientifically, they are not plants. They are very concerned about fungi and algae being treated in the same way as plants without further unpacking that. To me, that is the starting point around the definition of plants that I feel we really need to have a good deep dive into.

There is also the understanding of the definitions of 'native plants' and 'native plants of a relevant kind', understanding through this legislation how, where and when they apply. For example, there is certainly an area where we are talking about what requires approval for a regulated activity such as clearance and we have plants that have been planted by someone. They were not naturally growing there: they have been physically planted. Is a native plant that has been planted covered by this? Is a native plant of a relevant kind also covered by this?

To me, it really needs to be unpacked because it could lead to significant adverse outcomes. If the native plant of a relevant kind instantly becomes protected because it is not considered a native plant under the clearance rules, that could lead to the perverse outcome that people may choose not to plant South Australian natives. They may actually choose to plant other natives that are not South Australian or plant exotic plants instead. I think we need to make sure that we get the understanding of that really quite clear, because I have been racking my brain over the last couple of days trying to work my way around the legislation to see where it is meant to land.

I know what the intent is; I am pretty sure the intent is to allow people to continue doing the relevant thing of planting native plants without putting an extra burden on them, but I just think the way it is currently worded is a little unclear and could lead to that perverse outcome.

To me, likewise, it is so important that we continue to actually think outside the headspace that we all get in in this space, and that is thinking about trees. There are so many other plants and animals, but it is probably more in the plant space where we actually get tied up to thinking about just the living tree structures because we can easily see them.

There are many other plants out there. It is something that I became very well aware of when we had our farm at Mount Compass and we had some native scrub that surrounded our house and we managed that quite differently. We destocked it. We tried to thicken it up by removing the undergrowth, which it did. Interestingly, once you thicken it up by spraying the undergrowth out, the undergrowth that came back after we did that was native orchids and things like that were appearing, so we were enhancing that native vegetation to be there.

It was a real eye-opener to see that in trying to minimise fire risk, etc., and also thicken up the canopy by giving it greater protection, we saw a complete change of what was there underneath the native trees themselves. So, to me, we need to make sure that we continue to understand and promote more than just the thinking of trees.

Another example really comes to mind in this space about trees and people's thinking—and it comes back to the word 'restoration' again. There is a piece of land that my family has a long history with down between Port Elliot and Middleton, which has been for about 40-odd years a park called the Ratalang (Basham's Beach) Regional Park, managed by the Alexandrina Council. They have done a great job of turning it into a nice environment for people to walk through and they keep using the words 'restoring the native vegetation'.

On all the historic maps and in all my family history, and even talking to some of the local Indigenous people of the area, that area was native grassland—it never had a tree on it. Quite interestingly, it is having trees placed on it but it is not being restored to its original state, which to me is fine, but it is about making sure we acknowledge that we are doing that and making sure that we are not tree focused in this space, that we are actually looking at biodiversity and at what is the appropriate biodiversity to aim for for particular ecosystems and environments that surround us.

I have certainly had significant feedback in the last week in relation to this bill and from people I was not necessarily expecting to receive feedback from: rec fishers, four-wheel drivers, from farmers to conservationists, to many other people. It is a real challenge to actually pull all that together and try to ask questions on their behalf.

Unfortunately, we do not have more time to actually do this as we are heading into the committee stage. We will keep working with those groups as we expect this piece of legislation to pass this place this week. We will keep working to manage that and make sure that we try to get their views heard because there are some significant concerns out there. I guess both the farming sector and the conservation sector that have come to me very much have concerns about placing so much of the control of this act in the hands of the minister of the day, that the minister of the day gets to appoint members of the council. Yes, there are recommendations of three names from each of the bodies that want to have people on that council, but the minister of the day may choose not to accept any of those names and appoint someone else.

Likewise, there is concern over the environment benefit credit structure and how the minister will have control of that going forward as well. That would be much better in the hands of the council themselves to actually assess the pricing around those credits, etc. So I think there is still a lot to unpack in relation to those things and how we can make sure we see the right outcomes and the right benefits in this space.

We also need to make sure that people are able to continue to do what is necessary in their environments. Looking back over the history of South Australia, we have had a very large change in thinking on how we should do things. It was not that long ago that we were opening up land in South Australia. My family farm that we were on for many years in the Mount Compass area was only cleared in the 1930s. There was much of the Fleurieu that was still being cleared through the 1960s. At that point in time we thought that was the right thing to be doing, to make that land active farming land—and it is great farming land—but it was certainly putting a challenge into the biodiversity.

For basically all my lifetime there has been a change the other way. I very much remember how my parents really instilled in me that as property managers we had a big responsibility to make sure we looked after the property, not in a farming capacity but in the ecosystem of the property as well to make sure that we were trying to keep things in balance.

I may be challenged by one or two in this chamber, but I am pretty confident that I have probably planted more trees than anyone else in this chamber. I was trying to estimate it and my guess is I have planted somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 trees in my lifetime. It is a lot of trees. I remember relatively recently there was a tree-planting exercise on Granite Island that people were invited to, and I was invited as the local member. They had done a great job; they had actually pre-dug all the holes and placed a tree beside every hole. They were expecting us to take about an hour to plant these trees, but I planted about 50 to 100 in something like 10 minutes.

They were wondering what I had been doing and how I had done that, but you actually get pretty good at it when you have planted a lot of trees. I am pleased to see going around Granite Island that those trees have survived, too, so it is not as though I had rushed the job and not done it properly. You can actually get pretty prolific at planting trees when you have done as many as I have.

It is really important that we understand that property owners, particularly farmers and pastoralists, are in most cases great custodians of the land. They not only do fantastic work to provide food for the people of Australia and the rest of the world but also do a great job of making sure the land is managed well. As we learn as farmers and pastoralists, we also do a better job of making sure we do not put our properties at risk. A great example of that is: yes, we have seen some dust storms recently, but certainly if you go back to my memories in the 1980s it was a regular occurrence that we saw dust storms. That is just a measure of what we have seen as an improvement in our land management.

I guess that then leads me to the general duty section of this bill. I certainly understand that its intent is to encourage people to do the right thing. Effectively, even though there is no direct penalty for doing the wrong thing attached to it, there is the ability for people to be directed to correct, or do something to try to correct, any damage that they may have done in their position on general duty. The challenge here is that it could have a very significant impact on the individual.

We need to ensure that we are making people aware that doing the right thing is there to make sure that we do protect the biodiversity, but we do not want to make it such an onerous thing that effectively it becomes the threat of the big stick leading us to those perverse outcomes, that we choose not to do things, we choose not to plant native plants because we are worried that we could get hit by the big stick down the track. To me, we are still balancing a very fine line here. Again, it is those things that I really wanted to significantly unpack as we work through the committee stage.

Going back to the stakeholders, there were certainly some things that were raised with me, and some of them have been in the Native Vegetation Act and just a carryover in relation to the Native Vegetation Act. Primary Producers SA, for example, raised the issue of fence lines only being a metre on a boundary fence, and certainly understand that we do not want significant removal of vegetation to put up fences. I guess the challenge is whether a metre is enough. In their eyes they thought it was not quite enough, that maybe it should be a little bit more. Their comment was that you could not even ride a motorbike down that space along the fence. As you are doing things on the fence, sometimes a quick way to get down the fence line is to whizz down on a motorbike, as you are straightening it up, etc., so maybe a metre is not quite enough.

If we can look at and ask questions on those sorts of things—for example, the three metres from a dwelling. I was thinking that the width of a lane on a road is 3½ metres, so to get a vehicle down the side of a dwelling, is three metres enough? Do you need that little bit more? I am just trying to understand whether those numbers are actually quite where they need to be. To me, this is something that we certainly need to go through and continue to unpack. I think that the committee stage hopefully can help us understand the intent of this and make sure that we are achieving what is necessary to help and promote biodiversity within our ecosystems around South Australia. We do not want to see that negative impact occurring as we go forward.

I am happy to wind up my remarks at this point and then continue with a contribution in committee.

Sitting suspended from 18:00 to 19:30.

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) (19:30): I am delighted to close the debate on the second reading, and I will go fairly quickly because I know there will be a number of questions and I also know that we would all like to have reasonable hours.

I could indulge myself by talking about the politics of hearing the different views, the divergent views, shall we say, on the other side, about the environment in this bill specifically, but I imagine that there will be others in time who will draw attention to those apparent internal contradictions that seem to be playing themselves out. I will stick purely to the commentary on the legislation and seek to answer a few of the questions that were raised in the hope that that will make the committee stage more straightforward.

Just to remind everybody, the purpose of this legislation is, first of all, to both modernise and simplify two existing pieces of legislation. While much was made of: 'It's 176 pages,' in fact, the vast majority of this bill is the combination of existing legislation that has long since been the law.

It is also the purpose of this legislation to strengthen some of the provisions and I think we are all acutely aware of the need to better protect biodiversity. The most recent example of biodiversity being in strife with the algal bloom—and it looks very likely it has made its way into the northern lagoon of the Coorong—reminds us that we need to make sure that our biodiversity is as strong as possible in order to be resilient when external shocks like that are put onto it.

There are two additional purposes of the legislation, one being that we need to increase our capacity and, in fact, the requirement to collect accurate data and to share it in order to ensure wise decision-making, and the other being that we need to create a restoration framework.

I will not get distracted by the semantics of the terminology 'restoration', but the shadow minister, who is a thoughtful man and a man of good faith when it comes to this portfolio, did not particularly appreciate the terminology 'restoration'. I will just say that while one interpretation of that word could mean to replicate exactly something that had existed previously, no-one, in fact, uses that word when it comes to ecological restoration.

It is entirely about seeking it to be stronger, seeking the ecology, whether it is of a species or an ecosystem or a bioregion, to be more resilient, healthier and more functional. Much of that does involve bringing back species that had evolved over time to be in this environment, but it does not mean recreating some past that is long since lost and, after all, the history of life on Earth is that it has been constantly changing. So I will continue to use that terminology, but acknowledge that the shadow minister does not prefer that term; but, as I say, it is widely used.

The process that this legislation has gone through is worth just a brief bit of attention. As I pointed out, it is really two pieces of existing legislation, one covering flora and the other covering fauna, that then together form the biodiversity on which we all rely. For that reason, as I say, although people are concerned about 176 pages, they ought to be well aware that many of the elements that they refer to specifically have been law for a significant period of time.

There was extensive consultation on this bill over the last three years. Some people on the other side drew attention to the month-long official consultation process that occurred at the beginning of this year on the draft bill. This, of course, has evolved since then as a result of that consultation. I acknowledge that one month does not appear to be long, but when you consider that it is off the back of the significant work, including the discussion paper that went out, lots and lots of discussions with stakeholders, then you also know that many of the stakeholders provided their feedback after the month had elapsed. We accepted that, but we needed to start getting to work because we only had a finite number of sitting weeks, which again is why we are needing to get this piece of legislation through now.

In terms of process, other stakeholders have raised the legitimate concern, which occurs in most pieces of legislation but I understand it particularly for this one, about what the subordinate legislation—largely the regulations—is going to look like. For every piece of legislation that is of any significance that has regulations that will follow, I understand that stakeholders have said, 'We don't know if we like the bill until we have seen the regulations,' and no government ever produces the regulations until the bill is through, not least because we do not know entirely what the final version will look like.

However, I have given a written commitment to all of the significant peak body groups that this process of subordinate legislation will take a long time because there is a lot of it—it is likely to take up to two years, during which time we will segment parts of this bill to commence so that the act will commence over a period of time—and that we will have a stakeholder group that they will be invited to be actively part of. This will not be a case of now we just hand it over to the government and goodness knows what will come out, but we will take the same approach of in-depth consultation and discussion with those stakeholder groups as we develop that subordinate legislation.

We will create and make widely available the project timeline for that, because some stakeholders raised with us that they will be particularly interested in some elements and not at all in others, and they need to know when their resources will need to be deployed. They have found it frustrating with other reforms that have occurred that they have not had that, and we have committed in the environment portfolio that we will do that.

There were some specific questions that were raised, and I hope in answering them now we might foreshorten the process of the committee stage. One question was about what is an offence and what is not an offence? I think that was raised by the member for Hammond. The offences in the bill are demarked by a following maximum penalty. Section 53 of the Legislation Interpretation Act provides:

(1) A penalty set out at the end of a provision of an Act…indicates that—

(a) an offence mentioned in the provision is punishable on finding of guilt…or

(b) if an offence is not mentioned in the provision, a contravention of the provision is an offence punishable on finding of guilt…

Examples of things that are not an offence under the act but constitute a breach which might be subject to a civil or administrative order include: a breach of the general duty or a breach of the terms of the biodiversity agreement or a biodiversity management plan, so they are not offences.

Several members opposite raised the question of new protections causing the perverse outcome of people not choosing to plant native plantings. The new protection recognises that vegetation that is more than 20 years in existence acts in an ecosystem sense largely as if it were continuous vegetation and therefore ought to be protected as that. There were concerns that that would mean that people might not plant and would plant perhaps exotics.

What we have done is recognise that could well happen in the case of landholders who know that they are quite likely to want to knock over that bit of vegetation at some stage, for example, windbreaks on a farm. You know that you might at some point want to reconfigure your holding and not have the windbreak there. Therefore, where you might have planted natives that would be doing a useful job while they are there, if we had not dealt with this you would not have planted natives because you think you might want to clear it later. What we have done is to create exemptions to take account of that so that windbreaks would be able to be cleared. Farm, forestry, floriculture and so on can all be exempted so that we do not see that.

The alternative to the question of the perverse outcome of people not planting is the perverse outcome that many people fear and that we had a lot of feedback about, which is that they are concerned, having planted and put their all into seeing this bit of land come back, that in the future it may be cleared. That is one of the elements that is important for us to create the mechanism that was spoken about I think by the shadow minister for police in particular about seeing that this might be the opportunity for true investment in biodiversity restoration efforts in South Australia.

That is one of the absolute reasons that this act is taking place: we want to make sure that we can capitalise on that kind of investment. If we do not have this kind of protection clause, then people who have planted really healthy scrub that has grown over 20 years would be unable to declare that that was something that was safe and protected by legislation because it was not remnant. That is the alternative of the perverse outcome. As the shadow minister identified, these are fine lines that we are always working in when we are doing good legislation.

In terms of identifying plants that are over 20 years old, which was also a question that I think the member for Hammond had, our view is that our science and our understanding are likely to be up for the job. It is partly on the size and the nature of the vegetation that changes over time. It is also useful to be able to use satellite imagery if there is a debate.

There is no object that says 'halting and reversing biodiversity loss'. There is no 'no species loss' strapline, which is occasionally used and is a difficult one, given that we know how many species are going extinct around the planet. But nonetheless, protecting what we have and restoring is actually the recurrent theme throughout this piece of legislation.

The question of authorised officers and tripping people up with green tape was raised a few times by a couple of the members who represent more rural and regional seats. The provisions for the authorised officers have long been in place, and I would expect that any landholder who understands about vegetation clearance, should they need to use it, is aware of the legislation.

Although there are some very minor additions to that section, it is essentially intact. Certainly in terms of the strength of the provisions, to in the second reading speech act surprised that these provisions might come into being misunderstands the legislation that has been in place since 1991, and in fact provisions of which exist in other pieces of legislation, including what was the Natural Resources Management Act that became the Landscapes Act under the previous Liberal government.

There is no intention to trip people up. In fact, as I said, the first goal of this is to modernise and simplify this legislation so that a number of what had been read as inconsistent regulations, schedules and legislation relating to native vegetation have been simplified and consolidated in order to make the consideration of wise decision-making much more straightforward.

There is no intention of being punitive towards landholders. As several members on the other side pointed out very accurately—and in fact as I emphasised as well in my maiden speech, my first speech a number of years ago now—landholders are often the best people to know exactly what the challenges with the environment are. They live and breathe it, and we should show respect to landholders for that.

But in doing that, we have to have a collective responsibility, which in part is about setting standards so that a landholder is not annoyed that the person down the road is able to get away with doing something that they know is not okay for the environment in the long term when they themselves are doing the right thing. It lifts the standards in order to be fair to everybody.

There was a question about fungi, and I am imagining that that might be something that comes up in the time that we have in the committee stage. But can I just lay on the record that I understand very clearly—and the scientific side of my brain actually finds it delightful—that there is an entire kingdom of fungi and that they are an entirely separate kingdom to plants and animals. I do not know that that is widely appreciated and understood, but it is magnificent that it is so.

I recently launched a book, I think it is called Fungi of Kangaroo Island—And Beyond, at the Botanic Gardens. It is a labour of love by a scientist and her husband, who took the photographs, and the diversity and magnificence of fungi—largely but not exclusively on Kangaroo Island—was a wonder to behold.

What we are dealing with is not some sleight of hand attempting to redress a taxonomical conundrum. It is a legal device that was urged upon us by parliamentary counsel, who were very clear that this is a legal definition for the purposes of this legislation, not an attempt to redraw the conventions of determining that fungi are their own kingdom.

It is in order to not, at every point where the word 'plant' is used, add 'and fungi'. It was determined it made much more sense to simply say at the beginning that when in this piece of legislation we use that term 'plant', this is what we also mean. I do hope that the people who are very intimately aware of the complexity of the world of fungi appreciate that. Although they may dislike that legal device, this is nonetheless a protection that they have long called for.

As we have been assured by parliamentary counsel, in terms of practical application the use of the definition to simplify the legislation does no harm to the protection levels that those people are seeking, as we all are. I think with that I will close the second reading. I will no doubt be offering more thanks and gratitude as we eventually get to the end and we are into the third reading. I would like to move on to the committee stage and hope that we will be able to move at a reasonable pace, but nonetheless acknowledge that there will be many questions.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

Mr BASHAM: Thank you to the minister for her wrap-up that hopefully may speed up the answers to some of our questions going forward. A question just on this Biodiversity Bill, once approved, is: how will it interact with the recent federal legislation going forward, the federal nature repair market act in particular?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: At this stage, there is no direct interaction between the two. I do not believe that legislation has commenced yet. I think they are working on all of the subordinate legislation, and that has obviously gone over a period of an election. Our legislation is not aimed at creating a biodiversity market at the national level. Only the national government can do that. Ours is about creating a voluntary market that has legislative soundness behind it in order to attract investment, looking for that kind of legislatively approved market.

Mr BASHAM: I am just unpacking that a little bit further. If there is a federal market operating, how will the biodiversity credits here be protected from being double-counted, for example, going forward, being included in the federal market?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: When we first started this three or so years ago, four years ago, we thought that maybe the federal government would do the job of creating that kind of market for us. We recognised that the pace that was happening at the federal level was not going to get us there, and so we have created a system that works at a state level. We are aware that, over the next two years, as we start to turn bits of this on and we work through all the subordinate legislation, the federal government may or may not move and we will then react to that. So what we wanted was to have no regrets, that we have a good system that works regardless of what happens at the commonwealth level, but can be modified so that the double-counting does not occur.

Clause passed.

Clause 2.

Mr BASHAM: You outlined this just a moment ago to a certain degree. I guess it is the consultation in that once the act is proclaimed, and I am assuming that you are wishing to proclaim this before the end of this year—not necessarily? Well, how do you envisage the timeline of proclamation and then the regulations being rolled out gradually, as you described?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: As I outlined in my close of second reading speech, our intention is to turn on or proclaim different parts of the act over the next two years as we prepare subordinate legislation. It will not be fully proclaimed by the end of the year. I doubt very much that any of it will be in action—possibly, but the next job for us now, as soon as it gets through, is to do that work. Rest assured, as I said, that stakeholders will be intimately involved in each stage of preparing the subordinate legislation.

Mr BASHAM: Again, on that process, this is eventually to take over the Native Vegetation Act. When is it envisaged that the Native Vegetation Act will cease to exist and this will take its role?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: We need to get everything in order before we could switch off the Native Vegetation Act, and the transitional provisions will work that through. Transitional provisions are part of what the stakeholders were concerned about understanding, and that is where we have given firm commitments as well for their engagement in that. This is quite complex behind the scenes, as you can well imagine and understand, and that is why we are going to take our time to get this through. But it will, as the department has said, likely take two years before we are fully into the new system.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Brown): Any further questions, member for Finniss? No. Any other contributions on this clause?

Mr McBRIDE: Minister, in regard to commencement you said it is going to be a couple of years. For clarity around that two years, we obviously have a native vegetation board, committees and process, and we are moving to new committees, plus I can see there are a number of other committees that are going to be formed by this biodiversity amendment bill. Do you think that, after the two years, everything will be in place as has been stated or is it the beginning of the process and it could even go beyond the two years?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Without binding whoever is the minister after the election—so you have to acknowledge that there will be a democratic process in between—I expect it to take two years fully. We will do the project planning as soon as the legislation is through, and that will guide whether there are elements that are commenced earlier, but it is unlikely that it would take longer than two years. Although, as we are all impatient people, we would love it to be faster, I think it will probably take all of that to get all the subordinate legislation organised.

Mr McBRIDE: I would ask this probably further in the bill, but I might miss it and I would not know where to ask it, so I am going to ask about it in regard to commencement dates and I am sorry if this is going to seem a little bit confusing. You would know that in my electorate I have a great advocate around biodiversity, marine life and aquatic-type science, and they would love to be able to develop a university around the Lower Lakes: science, carbon capture, the algal blooms that we have seen on the coastal foreshore and dead fish, the science regarding all that, then collecting and working collaboratively around this with universities.

In this commencement of the biodiversity act, do you think there is an opportunity to have other things that are not listed here but are in the greater good of the state around biodiversity? Do you think other types of plans and opportunities could also be part of this commencement process, or do you think this is going to shut them out and we have to wait for this to be all completed and done and dusted?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: No. The task of the environment department portfolio and all of us to make nature stronger, particularly in the face of climate change, does not sleep and certainly does not wait two years. The kind of work that is being spoken of in terms of the Coorong, which has become still more acute given the likely presence of Karenia mikimotoi in the North Lagoon, requires us to continue to work and to continue to resource.

We have had a good three budgets thus far for the environment, particularly last year's budget, which put a lot of money into national parks and into biodiversity. The year before, the money went into creating the biodiversity database that is required for us to be able to do a lot of the work here. That effort continues. I do not have an answer for that group on whether we are going to be able to do a wet lab. We have looked for money from the feds. That is a separate question and we can discuss that later, but I understand their desire for it.

Clause passed.

Clause 3.

Mr BASHAM: This question goes really to the heart of this bill in particular and is about the definition of 'biodiversity' itself. Reading this definition, if we were looking at this room, it is literally everything in this room right now. That is effectively what the definition talks about.

The Hon. S.E. Close interjecting:

Mr BASHAM: But it is the whole ecosystem as well, so it is the air and it is literally everything that is right here right now. It is very much about right now. The definition of 'biodiversity' is 'as it is, at the moment it is'. Again, this was my question around 'restoration'. When using 'restoration' with this definition of 'biodiversity', how can it be restored if it is a point in time that the biodiversity is actually describing?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: The definition of 'biodiversity' actually reminds me a bit of the E.O. Wilson book that we had at school on biology. Biodiversity is the full variety, hence 'diversity', of life forms, hence the 'bio' bit. That is what biodiversity is. It is all of the life forms, whether they are feral as we might term them or native as we might term them. It is everything. The challenge I mentioned in the close of the second reading with the terminology of 'restoration' is that in no part of the planet is it in any way going to be like it was before humans found agriculture. Everything changed from that point. In fact, there are arguments that it changed before then with the megafauna going wherever humans turned up.

So this is not about trying to recreate the past. What this is about is recognising that nature is stronger when the ecosystems are intact and functioning, which means that the different species there and the processes between them work to the extent that they are able to continue to perpetuate life. That does not work well in a monoculture, and it does work well in a diverse bit of scrub. That is what we are trying to understand: how we can make our nature more resilient.

I have just spent time in the break speaking to a group of 350 to 400 people who are right now watching the film Ocean by David Attenborough. They will all be in tears now because of what has happened to the ocean. So none of us are living in a fantasy land where we think that we can magically go back to something in the past.

What we are all recognising is that if we do not make nature stronger, we will not have the basis for our lifestyle, our livelihood or even our lives to continue long into the future. The terminology we use is commonly and well understood by people, however imperfect they are, given the rapid transformation of what is happening on this planet.

Mr BASHAM: Just following on from that, I guess I would just add that a definition of 'restoration' here may be helpful just to get that clarity forward. But that is not the question that I pose. The next definition I just want to seek some clarity on is the 'substantial damage' definition. I raised this during the briefing and want to get it on the record. It appears in reading this that a dead native plant is protected more than a live one, just the way, when you get down to the 'but' at the bottom of page 21, it talks about the dead ones having a slightly different protection. I am just wanting to understand.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: The first section (a) to (e) refers to living or dead plants. It is not material whether they are alive or dead at the time. You do not have to prove that they were alive or dead at the time, those activities to a native plant. The differentiation for the last three is in the case of living ones, if you have caused the death.

Mr BASHAM: I just wanted that clarified so it is on the record. The next question I have is very much around the definition in relation to native plants of a relevant kind and the inclusion of the indigenous plants to South Australia—which is fine—but then I guess it is the definition of classes brought in by regulation. What plants do you envisage in this space that could be brought in under this part of the definition to effectively protect them as though they are our own?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Essentially, this is future proofing for climate refugees. We are seeing Goyder's line moving south, and we are seeing animals and plants moving because they are recognising the change in climate. So we would imagine in time across borders that species that we would not normally have here will start to take up residence here, and we want to not simply say, 'If they come, that's fine, we can't touch them,' because some may in fact be damaging to the local ecosystems.

For example, I am not very fond of Tasmanian blue gums. When you look at what they have done to Kangaroo Island, it is devastating. So simply because they are Tasmanian does not make it okay, but it may well be that we will recognise that species need to be protected because that is now the place that they exist and they no longer exist elsewhere.

Mr BASHAM: So that could effectively include exotic plants from elsewhere in the world, that this is the only place they could exist?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: No, it does not. It does only mean native to Australia. It is just the artificial lines of our borders might mean that plants will shift.

Mr TEAGUE: Having raised the point about the definition of 'plant' and brought to the house's attention in the course of the second reading the concern of—I am not presuming that it is every single one of those participants in the Fungimap project, but they have subscribed to a common submission. Fungimap, bearing in mind, includes a wide range of leaders and I will just note them: Atlas of Living Australia; the government of South Australia; Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium, and that is the Tom May connection; Culture to Country; Hills Biodiversity; Landcare; Landscape South Australia Murraylands and Riverland; Willunga Environment Centre; Our National Parks; Second Nature Conservancy; Trees For Life; and University of Adelaide Environment Institute.

Fungimap has gone out of its way to say, 'Here's the Biodiversity Bill; where is the separate treatment of fungi?' I hear the Deputy Premier has referred to an urging in relation to a legal definition—and I cannot help but observe that we have almost got the band back together in terms of the Fifty-Fourth Parliament Natural Resources Committee, so we are bound to be achieving something here this evening—and I have referred then specifically to the representations recently of Dr Jasmin Packer about the importance of dealing separately with fungi.

Obviously we will get to the, at the moment, more or less general carve-out in the schedule for the clearance of fungi, but dealing first with the imperative as the government has seen it to define 'plant' to include fungi—notwithstanding that we all know that they are not plants—is this perhaps the most convenient time for the government to put on the record the reasons for that and perhaps an explanation as to why that is not an inadequate treatment of that subject?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I feel I did do that in my close of the second reading. This is a legal expression of the definition that was urged upon us by parliamentary counsel and we accepted that that was a reasonable legal approach. It is not a taxonomical approach; it is a legal definition in order to make the legislation more straightforward to deal with.

Mr TEAGUE: That is there on the record. We have, therefore, got to wrestle with every reference to 'plant' as inclusive of fungi, and then we will go to clause 42 down the track and then to the schedule carve-out. Again, is it convenient at this point to explain why, having included fungi in the definition of 'plant', is it then regarded as appropriate by the government to deal with fungi by way of the generalised carve-out? Again, we deal with it in more detail in the schedule, but are we then to see some kind of treatise on the 12,000 valuable local fungi being prescribed when it comes to the schedule? Is there some other wisdom associated with the connection between the definition and the generalised carve-out at clause 25 of schedule 2?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: So the practical application of one way of interpreting the question would be the suggestion that fungi ought to be protected in the way that native vegetation is and therefore anyone digging any soil would be required to seek clearance consent because there is likely to be fungi in it. That probably would trip over some of the concerns that some of the members had about the constraints that would be placed and the reasonableness.

However, there are species of fungi that we know we will want to list as protected species under this legislation and therefore we need to have them in the definition to be able to recognise that they are a threatened species that we may choose to prescribe at a later date. It gives us that power to do it which previously did not exist.

Mr TEAGUE: I will therefore take up my full complement in relation to that particular aspect of the definition. So we have a clue from the Department for Environment and Water just based on what is published that there are 10 fungi, I think from memory, that the department would draw attention to as being significant local fungi. I understand from Dr Packer and from Fungimap that the number is more like 12,000 but that great efforts have been made to highlight that one of the key things about fungi is that they are understudied and that there are huge amounts to learn and develop and all the rest of it.

The government has indicated there is an urging to wrap up fungi under the definition of 'plant'. Can I ask at this point whether there is any body of work—and I understand that Fungimap and others were engaged by the department and the government in the work that has led up to the bill—to deal with fungi in a standalone way and to provide a pathway by which the development of understanding of fungi in the context of this bill might have been developed and has the government consciously chosen to go another way? If there is anything to add then I invite the government to put that on the record as well.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Without exhaustively going back through every consideration over the last few years, this was regarded as a straightforward way to take a kingdom of creatures that currently cannot be recognised as threatened species under South Australian legislation and make it so that they can be. That is the great shift.

My adviser rightly pointed out to me that I have been using the terminology 'definition' for this opening section but it is of course 'interpretation' which is an important distinction in language that this is how one interprets these words. So it is not saying that fungi are plants, it is not defining them that way; it is saying the legal interpretation in this piece of legislation is the legal nicety. The purpose of doing this is to enable us to recognise that when we are going to declare threatened species for which, as we will find as we get on later, there might be a decision to do a threat abatement plan or to have a management plan for threatened species. It may be that there is an extinction inquiry. All of that would not have been able to be applied to fungi if we had not done something in this legislation, and the mechanism that we have used is regarded as the simplest legally and does the job that is required to achieve those goals.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Native plant means 'a plant species that is indigenous to Australia'. My previous employment means that I am aware of indigenous trees, for example indigenous to Australia that are also indigenous to New Zealand, like kauri pine. If you were having to deal with a kauri pine tree whose parent may have been brought over from New Zealand rather than from Queensland, how would that be treated in this instance?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: It may be that the botanical knowledge of the two of us is not sufficient to answer this question, but we will attempt it. If a species is regarded as native—and that is the question of how do we determine what is native—but if the species is regarded as being native to Australia, then it is a native plant, irrespective of whether it is also native to other countries. It is only protected from clearance without consent if it is native to South Australia, with exceptions as we have just discussed.

I think your question is specifically: if that individual plant itself has a lineage that could be traced back to a plant that comes from elsewhere, does that make it less native? The question in terms of 20-year planting is interesting because could it have been there for 20 years? But the point being, it is the species that matters, not the lineage of the individual tree.

Mr McBRIDE: Still on the interpretations. I do not know how you describe the numbers, but it is number 30 on page 15 where it talks about the ERD Court, which means the Environment, Resources and Development Court. It has been alluded to here that the penalties are becoming stronger, the fines are becoming larger, and there are jail terms in regard to breaking the rules in this new Biodiversity Bill. My understanding is there may have already been jail terms for breaking certain rules prior to these amendments in this Biodiversity Bill.

Minister, my question to you, perspective-wise: is the ERD Court big enough, bold enough and strong enough and can it give good reason to incarcerate South Australian citizens if they do break the law, if they do break the biodiversity amendments that we have here, or even previous ones, and/or should these penalties be going to other levels of the legal jurisdiction, because I hope that we are not incarcerating people because of some sort of joy ride or fulfilment that people get when they pull a tree out, kill a wrong animal, do it badly or have a bad day?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Yes, the member is correct in one of his subclauses of that question, which was whether or not it is already the case that people can be sent to jail. It is already a punishment that can exist. I am not sure if anyone ever has been, but my simple answer is yes, the ERD Court is more than capable of doing that. It is the court that has the expertise, and expertise is necessary.

The idea that this would be used frequently, if at all: it is very unlikely. But the degree of seriousness with which we need to take biodiversity protection has not diminished from the original act, being the Native Vegetation Act, and therefore I do not resile from continuing to have that as a possible punishment. We have increased some of the penalties on the basis that it has been a long time since this legislation has been revised. For some reason in South Australia we do not do units that increase, as many other states do, so it is only when legislation is opened up that you get to update the penalties and that is why we have done that.

Mr McBRIDE: In regard to the interpretations, and particularly what takes my eye here is the description for wombat, which means an animal of the species Vombatus ursinus. With the wombat variety being mentioned here, we know, as does my colleague alongside me who is from Narungga, that there are issues with wombats on the Yorke Peninsula and we have wombats as an issue right through the Limestone Coast, either in agricultural pursuits or in road users using the road where they are on the road and they cause an immense amount of damage. My question to you then, minister, is: with the fact that wombat has been put in the interpretations here, does that mean that the wombat species is an endangered species and does it need protecting?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: The interpretation of the word 'wombat' is here exactly as it is currently in the National Parks and Wildlife Act, remembering that a lot of this new bill has come over from the wildlife part of that, so nothing has otherwise changed. I think that one of the two species is on the endangered or threatened list, but I will not answer that definitively for both of them.

I also want to clarify my previous answer in terms of jail term that it is in the wildlife side, that jail terms are threatened rather than in the clearance in the legislation that was brought together to make this.

Mr McBRIDE: I am seeking some clarity in how this act will work with the changes. I know there was an incident in the past where an Indigenous gentleman was either filmed, seen or recorded stoning a wombat, like they might have done 100 or 1,000 years ago. With the species being listed here and determined like this—because I do not see the red kangaroo, echidnas or corellas but we see the wombat—does that mean that the wombat does have a special place in this Biodiversity Bill? Are you telling me that there is a variety of species of wombat perhaps and there may be more endangered species than others?

For clarity, the question here is: is the wombat considered some sort of icon in this Biodiversity Bill and is it looking for greater protection or law and order to manage or to protect—like the example I gave of the Indigenous man where maybe that would have been a cultural practice 100 years ago to stone a wombat, but I am sure it did not come across that well when it was filmed in recent times?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I do not want to traverse over something that was quite a painful period for a lot of members of the community, but my understanding is the concern about that incident was an animal welfare concern rather than a taking of the animal. There are specific clauses here that refer to the rights of Aboriginal people when they are not taking for commercial purposes. Yes, there are indeed at least two species of wombat.

Clause passed.

Clause 4.

Mr BASHAM: Can the minister please explain any circumstances that would lead to the Fire and Emergency Services Act 2005 where there are inconsistencies that would stop this act performing its role?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I think the way that we read that is quite the reverse. This is probably but perhaps not exclusively relating to clearance preparing for a fire or clearance during a fire that, if there should be any inconsistency that is identified by a landholder in a specific circumstance, it is the Fire and Emergency Services Act that prevails. For an abundance of caution, people have occasionally been fearful that they are not able to protect themselves because of that, and we wanted to be very clear. I think this is likely to have come over from the Native Vegetation Act. That has always been the case and it still will be the case.

Mr BASHAM: Again, is this out of an abundance of caution and future planning or are there any other circumstances where there is believed to be any conflict that would require this act overriding?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I think the likelihood of what might be perceived of as an inconsistency is often at a point in time. So a piece of land that you would not normally be able to clear, in the event of threat of fire, existence of fire or preparation for fire you would be able to clear. As I say, this has been the legislation—I presume since 1991 when it was first put through—that this is the case. We recognise the risk of fire in our landscape and we want to be explicit. There are also in schedule 2 some more details about the way in which those provisions work. But we are very conscious that being safe with fire is the most important thing.

Clause passed.

Clause 5 passed.

Clause 6.

Mr BASHAM: Can the minister explain what activities or circumstances would lead to this act being enforced on someone's doing outside the state?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I think mostly when the second reading speeches occurred on both sides, this was as if this is an update of the Native Vegetation Act. We have to remember that the wildlife provisions have come in from the National Parks and Wildlife Act. This is most particularly likely to happen under those provisions where someone is trafficking a species that they should not be and they would be selling it not only interstate but possibly overseas.

Mr BASHAM: Are there any intergovernmental agreements that exist that would also be relevant in this space?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I do not know that there are any intergovernmental with other state agreements, but with CITES there are international agreements about trafficking of wildlife, and that is what this is really referring to.

Mr BASHAM: Clause 6(4), just understanding the reasons for the addition of that: is that to protect native title rights per se? Is that the purpose of the addition of that provision?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: This is just a clause, in explaining the operation of the act, that native title rights are not in any way taken away from through the operation of the act, and then there are some specific references to that under the plants and then the animals later.

Mr TELFER: Clause 6(2) provides that the act will operate throughout the state. Can the minister explain the new mechanisms which will see that the majority of the metropolitan area will be effectively exempt from the operation of the Biodiversity Bill? You talk about a lot of the things that are transposed over from the Native Vegetation Act. This is the unique nature of this aspect in particular.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I appreciate that is probably—and I do not want to put words in the member's mouth—coming from the place of regional towns feeling that the city is exempt from having to deal with native vegetation, and they have to. I can understand where that has come from; however, again, I remind people that this is a piece of legislation that also has as its parent legislation the wildlife part of National Parks and Wildlife, all of which binds.

There is also the general duty of care to not harm biodiversity, and there are opportunities for projects that are about prioritising biodiversity restoration through the biodiversity plan that will be developed over the next two years, that there are many projects—in fact, many members on the other side spoke about those projects in their own electorates in the city—that are about strengthening biodiversity, and these provisions will support that and, we expect, create a mechanism for funding.

Mr TELFER: Yes, indeed. I am looking at this particularly as a regional MP and the differences in the operation of the legislation between the metropolitan area and the regional areas. As you are very much aware, most regional townships have a few defined blocks of land that are centres of commerce, not-for-profit bodies, community organisations, sporting activities, activities in regional towns, including schools and medical facilities, and obviously provide federal, state and local government services and are the focus area for local economic development and growth. My question is: can the provisions of the bill be used to exempt defined blocks in regional towns in particular from the operation of the bill in the same way that the metropolitan area is effectively exempted from the operations?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: The way that the act is going to operate in reference to clearance restrictions is that a map will be lodged with the General Registry Office (GRO). There will be a map—there is an existing map that has been around I think since the beginning of the legislation—that will be the base of what is lodged. But there are reasonable discussions about some movement on the edges of what that will look like. There is also the question of blocks near regional towns that perhaps should not have been listed as being suitable for residential when they are covered in native vegetation. It is not a reasonable thing to say to developers, 'This is for residential, but you can’t clear any of it.' Trying to work that through is part of what will be happening over the next couple of years.

There is no intention to have large disruption to the way in which things are currently working because this is about adding certainty rather than creating uncertainty. We are working as quickly as we can to finalise that map for lodgement. It will be done through a consultation process. We are seeking to add data to the layers that are available publicly to people to understand not only where there are protections but on what basis and what it looks like so that they can again make better decisions up-front about where they want to invest their resources.

Mr TELFER: You speak a little bit about where it is currently working. I see areas where it is not working and it is an impediment and is actually creating greater uncertainty through the process. You spoke about the opportunity to be able to add to or alter existing maps. Is there a mind to be able to potentially designate areas outside, not just in close proximity to the existing boundaries but islands of potential exemption around the state? I look at some of the potential regional centre growth areas, which are currently constricted because of the obligations of the Native Vegetation Act.

At the moment, effectively the bill is a handbrake on economic opportunity within regional areas. If there is a possibility for there to be an expansion or an addition to the exempt areas, as you spoke about with the mapping, what would the process look like as far as engagement goes for a local government area, a city council, or whatever it might be, to try to obtain such an exemption or a changing of that map? If this is something which would be accepted, what criteria could they use for that to be considered as far as any potential change goes?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I just want to be very clear that this is not an invitation for us to suddenly redraw where native vegetation applies. This is the interesting contrast I heard in the speeches from the other side earlier where members were earnestly saying not only that they are great environmentalists themselves but that this legislation does not go far enough, and then there were members who were characterising it as being a handbrake on development and a concern. These members were on the same side, which is just an interesting dynamic, sitting inside that party room I presume.

This legislation is not an invitation for us to redraw the boundaries of native vegetation protection. This legislation is a biodiversity act that is about protecting our environment. In fact, even the members opposite who talked about the concerns about the speed of development, and so on, also acknowledge that one of the great virtues of living regionally is that you are surrounded by nature and that that is one of the reasons that people want to go and live there.

What we are doing here is far more important in my view, which is making the decisions more obvious and simple for people, so that the data that is held that is understood about where biodiversity is and what its values are is made available so that wiser decisions can be made up-front rather than suddenly saying, 'Well, we are just going to allow all of that to be cleared even though previously we wouldn't.' That is not what this legislation is about.

There is always a process of engagement with local government in particular, which is in many ways a proxy for the ways in which a community wants to develop, on what kind of information they require, how it is provided and where there might in the planning system be overlays that are helpful or unhelpful. This legislation is saying, 'We recognise that biodiversity is necessary, we already have a good protective mechanism through the Native Vegetation Act, but it has some complexities in it that have made it really hard for people to navigate.' We have added in, as we will come to, a capacity for people to go to review if they disagree with the decision, which has not happened before. So we are all about better, clearer and streamlined decision-making, rather than a redrawing of maps.

Mr TEAGUE: Just to take up where things have been taken so far, in terms of focusing on subsection (1), the structure of this bill is providing for the act to apply to the whole of the state. That is subsection (1), and that is subject to what else is provided for in the bill. Is it right, therefore, to say, 'Well then, that is where you turn to schedule 1,' and you see that schedule 1 contemplates and indeed requires that there is to be lodged the map that we are familiar with in terms of native vegetation as it currently stands. Schedule 1 requires:

(1) The regulated clearance area will be defined in a plan or plans deposited…and identified by the Minister by notice in the Gazette…[and that] will be known as the Regulated Clearance Area Plan.

If it is the case that that is actually what clause 6(1) is talking to, then why is it not possible for that to be legislated and subject to scrutiny, including in the course of this process, and what is to stop there being future change that is just within the control of the executive, whether that is to expand or contract the relevant area?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Any future changes to the plan will be subject to being disallowed by parliament.

Mr Teague interjecting:

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: After the plan has been lodged with the GRO, any future changes to that would be disallowable by parliament.

Mr TEAGUE: I understand that. That is just a way of saying that they are the subject of regulation, so entirely within the remit of the executive within the power of the relevant minister. These concerns may not be confined to any particular group; it is just an issue that is raised as a matter of structure. I appreciate how that works. What is the rationale from the government's point of view for that not to be included in the legislation and therefore for future changes not necessarily having to come back to the parliament to be legislated, or at the very least for there to be a current status included in the legislation and that changes might be the subject of regulation?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Just to trace how we have got here, the current legislation has a word description of where native vegetation applies, and then in the regulations there are maps. They have always been able to be changed through regulation. What we have determined is that that is complex. As I have said, part of the motivation is to make things simpler, more streamlined and more evident to people. To have something that sits in legislation that is wordy and then regulations with maps has caused confusion for people that we seek to simplify by having a single map that is lodged. Having done that, which will be substantially if not entirely as it is now, then it will be treated as a regulation, which enables parliament to disallow if it is not happy with it.

Mr TEAGUE: Also, without referring to legislation before the parliament but just to take it as an example, under the current arrangements, take the EFPA as an example. How will a future change to the EFPA be directly or indirectly implemented via this bill?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Should our advice change between the houses, I will let you know, but my understanding is the EFPA is a planning instrument that does not change the status of native vegetation beneath it. Just to clarify, earlier, when I referred to the changing of any map once it is lodged, I described it as a regulation because it is—it is subordinate legislation—but technically it is an instrument rather than a regulation.

Clause passed.

Clause 7.

Mr BASHAM: I had a series of questions, but the minister has effectively answered them previously. Here in the objectives is really where it stands out to me that it would be very useful if there was an interpretation of the word 'restoration' to make sure that people understand that we are not taking it back to a point in time in the past, to actually help understand these objectives. That is more a comment than anything else.

Mr PEDERICK: In reference to this clause, will Aboriginal people be exempt from prosecution under this act?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: It depends on what they are accused of having done. There are special provisions that relate to Aboriginal people having an entitlement to do things that non-Aboriginal people do not, but otherwise they are subject to the same legislation as everybody.

Mr PEDERICK: I acknowledge that answer, minister. As has been a cultural pastime of Aboriginal peoples for thousands of years, will burning of land be exempt from prosecution?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: If we are talking about cultural burning, at the moment cultural burning exists in a legally difficult land. It does not trigger in itself an exemption from the Native Vegetation Act currently. What is being envisaged here is that the policy that says what is and is not cultural burning will be developed once the relevant committee has been established and that will then enable a pathway to being allowed to do it through exemption. But currently it does not exist as an exemption.

Mr PEDERICK: I am assuming, with that answer, that the government will rely on the advice from one of the four committees, being the Aboriginal committee, for that advice, or will the government have other internal guidance on what activities may be exempt or not?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Although the committee will be involved in designing the policy, it is approved by the minister and therefore the minister can seek advice elsewhere as necessary.

Mr McBRIDE: Minister, in regard to 8(c) 'that Aboriginal people with a strong connection to Country will be engaged', I can understand the sentiment—I actually know why it is written—but the example I will ask as a question is: up in the arid lands or pastoral zones, which are not really local council but a different type of management strategy, the roads are graded and it is my understanding that Aborigines have been engaged to watch the grading of roads. These are roads that are already in existence.

My question to you is: does this Biodiversity Bill mean a greater engagement with Indigenous people around what we already do in maintaining infrastructure such as grading roads? The example I give is that apparently a grader did a U-turn, but the road is not wide enough for a grader to do a full U-turn within the road boundaries and the Indigenous people were upset by the grader going out onto native unroaded area—in other words, it was not the road, it was native bush and the like.

This is where it gets really quite awkward, but the reality sets in when a road does not just require a grader and it does not just require a driver but it will require Indigenous representatives to watch what the grader does at a cost per day for observation. Does the government recognise the extra costs that might be incurred by greater engagement, and does the government then place this in their budgets to not just have one person as a grader driver but maybe also two or three Indigenous representatives watching that the grader driver does not go into land or unroaded area that might cause damage?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: This reminds me that in my close of second reading I meant to address some of the questions that were raised by the member that related to exactly this kind of issue. All of that is the Aboriginal Heritage Act; none of that is guided by this legislation.

Mr McBRIDE: In regard to the definitions, I have received a message from a councillor who is listening to us live at the moment about how one of the members—I think it may have been the member for Heysen—went really strong on the idea of preserving fungi. The councillor wants to know how councils will know, when they are doing roadworks and earthworks and the like, that they are not going to damage or interfere with any type of fungi, and how will they find out whether the fungi is protected or they are breaking the rules or they have done something bad where this Biodiversity Bill says the fungi, whatever fungi might be being talked about, is either protected or needs protecting but the local council or worker was not aware of this?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Member for MacKillop, we did traverse this; I think possibly you were not in the chamber at the minute when we did it earlier on. I do not know exactly what the member for Heysen's views are on this—I think he is conveying concerns that have been raised with him—but on the question of whether all fungi at all times ought to be protected in the same way that native vegetation is, i.e. that you would need a clearance consent or to be in defined areas where there is no coverage, that is not what this legislation does, not least because there is fungi everywhere and every time you turn over soil that fungi will be there.

In the interpretation, by referring to fungi at the same time as plants, what this does is enable the protection of individual species that have been identified and their location is known and, as we invest more and more in proper geospatial mapping, to tell people that that is where they are so that we do not lose species. It is not about generally changing the way in which people are going to make their decisions about a development activity from a fungi perspective.

Mr McBRIDE: This is just to get clarity. I like your answer, and this is not to say that your answer is incorrect and you have misled me or anyone else, but on principles in clause 8 is it a principle that this Biodiversity Bill will be out there to protect certain species—be it animal, vegetable or fungi—and unless it has been mapped already and highlighted to either councils or the Arid Lands or the Pastoral Board or those who are working to maintain, for example, roads and infrastructure like grading, then no-one can really get in trouble unless there is a map saying, 'There is fungi here or a special tree or a special habitat'? Then that local grader, that operator, whoever it is working around, and this is a principal question, they will all be able to find out where these rules are so that they do not get themselves into trouble. Is that what you expect with this process in the Biodiversity Bill and how it shall act?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: In terms of plants and animals, broadly the protections that are there and the rules that are there continue to exist in the unification of those two parent pieces of legislation.

In terms of fungi, it is complex. We do not currently list fungi as being threatened because we do not have the legislative power to do it, so day one does not change anything. What this does is enable us to find ways to protect species that ought to be protected in a way that is reasonable.

The period of time that it will take to take this piece of legislation through to full commencement will also include addressing how we manage the question of threatened fungi, their recognition, their identification and making sure that we are not inadvertently putting people at risk of breaking the law when they do not have the information. But that is confined to the question of fungi and is something that will be worked on over the next couple of years.

Mr TELFER: Looking at clause 7(a), the statement at the very start speaks about biodiversity conservation and restoration as a 'responsibility equitably shared by all of society across all sectors and supported by individual accountability'. I find it a little bit concerning when the obligation of so much of the operation of this bill in particular pertains to regional South Australia. How can this be a value, an object of the act, when there are significant swathes of the population—and obviously in the metropolitan area they are actually exempted from responsibility under this biodiversity act?

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Brown): Minister, I think you have addressed some of those sentiments earlier. Do you have anything else to add?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I am largely going to take that as comment. I appreciate that that is the member's focus. Just a reminder again that this is not just a native vegetation piece of legislation; it is broader than that and therefore does affect everybody. It is also the case that even people who live in the city have an interest in and care about the health of all of South Australia.

Mr TEAGUE: Just a question of structure: we are at clause 7 where we are dealing with objects and at clause 8 in a minute we will deal with principles, and there is some overlap. I just make the observation that this is a bill that lots of interested parties have really observed is placing a lot of power in the hands of the minister and specifically insofar as it goes as far as in clause 13 to carve out certain ministers that are not to administer the act. There is a lot of power in the minister and then in turn in those that minister chooses to comprise the relevant newly created groups that will do a lot of the determining of what is to be applied in the body of the act.

So, if it is about power and control—and I just make it clear that I raised fungi as a matter of detail by way of important example. I think the minister has indicated that not a lot is known about the range of fungi and therefore the fungi that might be prescribed for the purposes of clause 25 of schedule 2 might be a work in progress, but it is a question of: trust us until then but those things will be determined as and when they are identified as being sufficiently valuable to be carved out of the general permission to clear fungi in due course, but none are identified yet.

In terms of the objects in clause 7, and paragraph (c) in particular, if a primary object, an overarching object, is to achieve the protection, restoration and enhancement of biodiversity in the context of a bill that is all about decision-making and the exercise of power in that direction, if push comes to shove and there is an expert view that in fact all of that is wrong and consistent with the objectives—and particularly objective (c)—the protection, restoration and enhancement of biodiversity is best achieved by doing something entirely contrary to whatever the specific group has determined is the right thing to do, or what is left by the bill, absent the prescription of certain fungi, to take that example, surely the interested party is going to want to have recourse to that very general provision if someone is interested in achieving those ends before they are provided for specifically.

Otherwise, we are all left to sort of say, 'Right, well over to you, minister, and over to those who are going to make decisions in due course.' There might be a whole lot of interested parties in the meantime who would be interested in getting ahead of the game. Are they going to be able to rely on clause 7 in order to achieve those outcomes?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Again, it feels more like a vibe comment. I am sure the member is not asking me for a legal interpretation, of a hypothetical court case maybe, that relies on a particular clause.

Mr Teague: No.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: There is the language used of power and control coming from the minister, which does not appear in object 7, and I am aware that we are trying to hasten along—not least because my good shadow minister is increasingly suffering as we are talking.

I have explained in some detail that there is a significant amount of subordinate legislation that is attached to this act and that I have given a commitment about the engagement of stakeholders in its development. I am not sure who the hypothetical third party would be, or interested party who would lean on this clause in the act in order to say that we should be going faster or slower. I am not certain that everyone on that side of the chamber would want to see something going further.

It is such a vague question that I am really struggling to give a clear answer, but I will leap to—and doubtless we will come to this question—who is appointed onto the various councils that will give significant advice and the manner by which that occurs.

I can say that although I have no amendments here, I am aware that there will be amendments in the upper house that will look to give greater authority to the council in determining when a species might be regarded as a threatened species that the scientific committee ought to be able to be in a position to make a scientific judgement about. I am perfectly prepared to entertain that kind of proposal. I think it was the shadow minister for police, the member for Bragg, who raised that specifically as an example of a change that he may like to see.

These clauses are the objects of the act. They are objects that are entirely about better protecting the environment. They do not mention the minister, they do not give any particular power to the minister and therefore I think perhaps the sentiment of the question is misplaced at this clause.

Mr TEAGUE: I guess it comes down to the variety of custodians of the land over time. To take one example: in the southwest of Western Australia, in the 1980s, it was discovered among farmers, in a fairly broad-ranging district, that there was a rising salt problem. It was the farmers, working together with those who were thoughtful about the problem, who worked out the means by which to dig and develop drains and make certain plantings that then had the effect of lowering the salt table and restoring the land for the purposes of agriculture and for the purposes of enhancing the capacity of the land in all sorts of ways. That process was one that was discovered in the course of that custodianship of the land well ahead of what might have found its way into the specific provisions that, according to the structure of this bill, might meet certainly the criteria of the objects of clause 7(c).

That is one form of custodianship. Another one is to look at a local friends group. I have been at the Mylor reserve where there is work done to single out the local wattle from the endemic interstate wattle and take away those interstate versions, leaving the myrtifolia to thrive in the reserve, and so on. The point I am getting to, I suppose, is that there is capacity for a variety of custodians to determine what might constitute the restoration of biodiversity that might get ahead of and/or be contrary to what might emerge more specifically from the structures provided for in the bill.

I have belaboured fungi in the early stages because that is one that is just a completely blank page at the moment on the face of the bill. Fungi is included in plants. There is then a complete carve-out for the removal of fungi and then there is the capacity for prescribed categories of fungi to later find their way into the statute by the minister's dictate.

Focusing on the effect of the objects, are we going to head down a pathway where it is going to become less and less possible for those who have a specific local knowledge and interest to be able to take action without having to refer to a body of direction that will be built up over time but which is not at the moment particularised in the many variety of ways, but including in relation to fungi?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: The simple answer is no. Of course, these objects do not prevent people from acting locally to help protect the environment or to restore elements of it. In the case of fungi, if the effort is to identify fungi, to draw to people's attention their existence and their rareness, that is only to be encouraged and celebrated. However, if what is being looked for is the protection status of that species and therefore its consideration in clearing consent, that actually requires lawmakers to be involved, and for the first time that pathway is available.

In no way does that mean that actions on the ground which have happened before and will continue to happen are somehow stifled by these very pro-environmental objects. The state biodiversity plan, which will be written as a result of this legislation requiring that one exist, will in fact be able to prioritise where there is the greatest advantage in being able to put big effort into restoration, which may then direct even more investment into that area. This can only add to the efforts of people on the ground, who I think in many cases have been waiting for a piece of legislation that more firmly places before us a prioritisation of finding investment pathways to help restore nature.

Clause passed.

Clause 8.

Mr BASHAM: I have a quick question in relation to clause 8 and the principles, particularly clause 8(b). How does the minister envisage the community knowing about and participating in decision-making in the environmental space?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: This is where I was making reference earlier to the requirement for the minister to really gather and make public data that is held by government about what nature, what biodiversity, what threats and what opportunities exist. That includes investments that this government has already made in BioData SA, it will exist in the state biodiversity plan and it may exist in the form of threatened processes being identified or management plans for threatened species. All of that needs to be made public in order to assist with decision-making.

The principles are that the community does have a right to know so that they are able to participate. Where they do not know that there are threatened species that exist, or that there is a stand of native vegetation, if they do not know they are less able to make wise decisions. So that is one of the guiding principles of this legislation.

Mr TELFER: This is obviously principles talking generally about the aim and, as has already been spoken about, with the objects as well—the principles of this bill; what it is aiming to do. There are a few aspects within this that I find a bit uncertain because of the lack of definition. In particular, I have a couple of questions around how you, as the orchestrator of this bill, see how this would actually work in practicality. Clause 8(d) provides:

(d) that decisions should be based on the best available evidence—

and talks about including local knowledge—

…and be made having regard to the potential long-term, medium-term and short-term impacts of climate change.

I get that this is only a principle, but how in practicality are you going to garner local knowledge to be able to have that input into what are significant community impacts, potentially, which have been put out in this piece of legislation?

Through all of this, the frustrating part for me—reflected in both my second reading speech and also some of the questions—is that there is this disconnect between those, especially those who are actually living out in regional areas who are managing the local environment in a practical way and an ongoing day-to-day way. This talks about a principle of leaning into local knowledge. How is it actually going to be achieved by the government?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: It is interesting to marry up the two questions, where the member for Heysen has given some examples of the way in which local knowledge adds value to understanding what can be done for the environment. This is probably best read not as guiding whether or not a piece of native vegetation can have clearing consent, because that is fairly rigidly determined already, but is most useful when looking at the state biodiversity plan, which will look at prioritisation for investment in restoration where people on the ground best understand land that has the opportunity to be developed, to be revegetated, to be protected and where both ecological and climate credits—carbon credits—can best have value. Local knowledge also in terms of management of salt is often more clear than remote knowledge about that.

One of the reasons that we have the natural resources management system is to have the landscape boards who are located out close to the community, people of that community working on ground, working with landholders who know best what is going on. That is the reference for that principle.

Mr TELFER: Subclause (c) under 8—Principles talks about 'Aboriginal people with a strong connection to Country'. Once again, I get that it is a principle. Who is going to be making the determination about whether an individual or a group have a strong connection to community? To add that as an extra definition, I think actually adds ambiguity rather than certainty. Can you give me some insight into how you believe that that will be a process which will be forthright and able to be proved, this strong connection to country?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Although the member has also referred to the fact that these are principles, this is a principle of approaching how one ought to engage in order to make this act work in the best way possible. It does not in itself confer any particular rights, and so there is no question of proving connection to country. This is acknowledgement that for most, if not all, of South Australia there are Aboriginal people, Aboriginal groups, native title holders, traditional owners, who do have connection to country, who, when they are being engaged, it ought to be done in a respectful way.

Mr TELFER: Just one more on this. I am not trying to be pedantic about it, but you used the word. It is not trying to infer any particular rights, yet subclause (b) actually states in it that the community has a right to know. There is this ambiguity. I get the overall umbrella principles of an act, but on one hand you are saying a principle of it is that there is a right and on the other hand it is not a right. Can you just provide some clarity for the committee?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I spoke a little loosely in the sense that I was talking about subclause (c), saying that the question was: how would it be proven that an Aboriginal person has a connection to country? We are not talking about whether or not there is a history in the connection to country that would then confer any right or entitlement to do X or Y when it is engaged in the principles. It is perfectly true that the language has been used in terms of that the community generally, as a principle, has a right to know, and generally has a right to participate in environmental decision-making. That is separate to the language that I intended to use when I was speaking about Aboriginal people or traditional owners.

Mr PEDERICK: Subclause (c) talks about the 'historical and persisting impacts of colonisation' on Aboriginal people. I find it an interesting comment. Can the minister describe what positive impacts that colonisation has had with Aboriginal people?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I do not think that is something that needs to be canvassed in this piece of legislation.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Brown): Any further contributions?

Mr PEDERICK: I missed that.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Brown): The minister has given a response. If you want to ask the question again, you can go ahead.

Mr PEDERICK: Seriously.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Brown): I cannot force the minister to answer another way you might like.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I can repeat it. Sorry, I was just distracted by a message. I said I do not think that question is something that belongs in this piece of legislation, and so I do not think we need to engage in it.

Mr Pederick interjecting:

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Brown): Order! Member for Hammond, do you want to make a further contribution?

Mr PEDERICK: No.

Mr TEAGUE: The member for Flinders might have already put it better than I can, and I have sort of gone there in the context of clause 7. But can we turn to subclause (d) and its reference to local knowledge or subclause (b), the community having the right to know about and participate in environmental decision-making.

The concern that I have is it is a sort of an indignation that, when we are talking about community and we were talking about local knowledge in large areas of the state—as we all know, I have talked about the band getting back together—we are talking about people who live and work and manage and preserve parts of the state, that without their presence and activity would be suffering all kinds of failure to manage degradation, the overrunning by a pest species, etc., and yet we see a structure in terms of the principles for the purposes of this clause.

There is a reference to local knowledge, there is a reference to community participation, but there is not the sort of overt recognition that these people know best in many cases and have demonstrated that over time because it is their life and livelihood, and yet we see specific reference to Aboriginal cultural practice, and otherwise then very much a disposition in the bill that is about directing what people who live and work on the land are going to be permitted to do and prevented from doing. So I couched it in terms of clause 7 in terms of the overall tension.

If somebody who has local knowledge, who is a member of the community, spent their entire life in a local area and knows how that ought best be managed in accordance with the words of these objects and principles, and takes that view contrary to what might be particularised by the committee process that is the subject of this bill, then what are we left to do? It is really left in terms of the exercise of power by a government over those communities and those with local knowledge, notwithstanding these statements in the principles. So the question I suppose is that the principles are liable to be overruled by the particular provisions that follow clauses 7 and 8 in particular, is that not the case?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I mean no disrespect, but it is sometimes really hard to understand what the question is.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Brown): I can ask the member for Heysen to rephrase it if you wish.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Can someone with local knowledge be overruled by the provisions of this act? There are provisions that have come from the Native Vegetation Act and provisions that have come from part of the wildlife part of the National Parks and Wildlife Act that prevent people from doing some things. That has long been the case in both acts. So maybe someone with local knowledge who does want to catch all the snakes and sell them to Europe is not allowed to—yep. But is this about depriving people who well understand how to well manage their land from continuing to do that? Nope.

I am not sure how else to answer this, because what I love is amendments that answer what the opposition would like to see, because trying to get this party room to agree any amendments to this act would be quite the popcorn event because the questions are coming from such different perspectives. I understand there may be some that will happen in the upper house, and I will be fascinated to see how they address some of these questions.

Mr TEAGUE: Perhaps to put it simply, is the best and only way to interpret the legislation in terms of the overarching expression of objects and principles in clauses 7 and 8, and the restrictions in 42 cross-referenced against the general exceptions in schedule 2, the way that the whole thing is going to be run? That is what is going on. We see a whole range of carve-outs in schedule 2 that run as exceptions to prohibitions in clause 42 and that then interpret, it would appear, the objects and principles in clauses 7 and 8.

If that is the case, then at least people know what they are dealing with. If they need to rely on, in the case of fungi, for clause 25 of schedule 2, the prescription of certain fungi, or in the case of clearance for fire, fence management or track management, they need to go and refer to a particular carve-out in schedule 2, what further work has local knowledge to do? What further work has community participation to do? Do they need to get themselves a gig in schedule 2 before they get a look-in in the bill, and if not, what other general work do clauses 7 and 8 have to do?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I understand, thank you. I believe the member is describing the way that native vegetation has long operated since 1991. This has tidied up some of the complexities so that it is much easier to understand how native vegetation works, and in that sense is doing, I think, the state a service to make things more straightforward, with less having to refer to lots of different places. But by no means is that the entirety of this piece of legislation, and that is why there are these objects and these principles, because this is more than the Native Vegetation Act tidied up a bit.

This is a biodiversity act, and it is an act that is new to this state and is doing work that we are expecting will evolve over time because we are watching increasing pressure on biodiversity, not least, but not exclusively, because of climate change. We are creating a piece of legislation that accepts that this is a field that is changing before our eyes. We are setting up wise counsel through the biodiversity council and the committees, and we are setting up objects that recognise that biodiversity is important to this state and principles that recognise, amongst other things, that local knowledge does matter and that people should know what is happening with the environment.

Then we are setting up various mechanisms, including a state biodiversity plan that will be able to further elaborate and articulate what the priorities are at any given time. That will evolve over time as we deal with new circumstances, new priorities or new opportunities. If it were just the consent requirements for native vegetation clearance, then I would understand the puzzlement of why you would bother to have these principles and these objects, but it is more than that. Not only is it providing an explanation of why we require careful consent for any clearance—because biodiversity matters—but also it is doing more work than that, and that work will evolve.

I appreciate the frustration that members of this chamber will feel and that members of the community may feel that we are not fully defining everything in a fixed piece of legislation. We are creating a legislative architecture that will first of all be filled out through the development of the subordinate legislation and that, through instruments such as the state biodiversity plan, will evolve and adapt over time because we are dealing with changing circumstances when it comes to the environment.

This is seeking to futureproof, in the bad sense because we worry about the direction of biodiversity and in the good sense because we are certain that there will be more and more opportunities, particularly in attracting finance from elsewhere to invest in the way in which we can conserve biodiversity in a way that is sound and reliable. That will help businesses, particularly primary producers who export, who will increasingly be subject to requirements from export markets to demonstrate ESG credentials. We are creating the architecture to help them do that, and in doing that we need objects and principles like these that guide future governments in the way in which that occurs.

I think that at least attempts to answer the questions that have challenged the member. As I say, if there are specific amendments that the member thinks might make this still more clear, then I would be interested in seeing them.

Clause passed.

Clause 9.

Mr TELFER: Minister, do we have a state biodiversity plan?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: No, that is one of the elements of subordinate legislation that I have described and have mentioned several times.

Mr TELFER: Yes, and that was what my understanding was. Is it a strange process to go through to create the legislation specifically referring to and obligating a piece of legislation to act consistently, in this case, with the state biodiversity plan when the state biodiversity plan is not actually in existence? It is sort of a bit—

Mr Pederick: Hypothetical.

Mr TELFER: No, it is just a bit backwards as far as process goes because this is enshrined in legislation and there may be an assumption and a plan to do a plan, but you are putting in a piece of legislation in reference to something that does not exist.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: With respect, I think it is entirely in the right order. This legislation creates a requirement that there be such a plan and articulates the role that that plan plays. So you need to require something to exist in order to then make it exist. It will also change over time, and that is why you would not put it into the legislation as a plan, but you say that it exists, then create it, and you know why you have created it: because the legislation has dictated that.

Mr TELFER: From my reading of it, you do not know what you are creating. It is referring to something that will be created. It actually does not add any specificity as to what actually is included within a state biodiversity plan, from my reading. There are 175 pages of it—I get it. The plan itself will be something which I am sure there will be a vast array of consultation on throughout the process. Clause 9 talks about:

…act consistently with, and where appropriate give effect to, the State Biodiversity Plan in making decisions under this Act.

It seems like it is a strange framework to be putting in place. Once again, it is more a comment, an observation, but that is my perspective on it.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I just refer the member to clause 173 that gives much more detail about the characteristics of the plan.

Clause passed.

Clause 10.

Mr BASHAM: Can the minister just explain what 'Aboriginal knowledges' are in the context of this bill? I guess to put it in context, I will ask the other part of the question in this clause as well at the same time, and that is if in the state biodiversity plan there is a conflict between Aboriginal knowledges and where the plan lands, does the state biodiversity plan take precedence over it? I guess an example of that is in thinking what might be Aboriginal knowledges—for example, camels and donkeys are appearing in storytelling now, whereas they are considered pests.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: This requires us to respectfully seek the knowledge, but the biodiversity plan is not dependent on that knowledge.

Mr McBRIDE: In regard to clause 10—Aboriginal knowledges, with the engagement and discussions around Indigenous and Aboriginal knowledge and perhaps what is considered sacred or important to their culture, is the minister, and then perhaps even the government, aware of what extra costs will be involved in either changing activity, acknowledging what might be considered sacred or important and what sorts of behaviours might change in the way of fencing, building, road infrastructure and the like around these Aboriginal knowledges? Is there any sort of budget awareness of the costs involved here, minister?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: We are just struggling to think of examples that might cause a financial consequence—and I think again we might be straying a little bit into the Aboriginal Heritage Act more—but no, we do not anticipate any budget impact.

Mr TELFER: Minister, this aspect is a little bit roundabout because it is referring back to definitions that have preceded this clause. Regarding 'the identification, approval and management of Culturally Significant Biodiversity Entities'—and it is in capitals, it is a formal process and it is referred to in the definitions—in the definitions it is a little bit circular as well, which is why I am trying to get a little bit of clarification. It is defined as:

Culturally Significant Biodiversity Entity means a native species or ecological community—

a native species or ecological community—

to which some or all Aboriginal persons—

some or all—

attribute cultural value and which is critical to their relationship with, and adaptation to, Country that is—

(a) identified by the relevant Aboriginal persons as a Culturally Significant Biodiversity Entity in accordance with the biodiversity policy relating to the identification, approval and management of Culturally Significant Biodiversity Entities; and

(b) approved by the Minister as a Culturally Significant Biodiversity Entity in accordance with the biodiversity policy referred to in paragraph (a);

It refers back to paragraph (a), which talks about 'the relevant Aboriginal persons as a Culturally Significant Biodiversity Entity'. So when I am referring to some clarification about the identification, approval and management of culturally significant biodiversity entities, which is paragraph (a) within this definition, for my understanding and for the understanding of the committee can you try to frame out a process for what this might look like step by step? I am struggling to work out the circular nature of where a starting point is to identify, approve and manage a CSBE in reference to the definition that is provided in an earlier clause.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I appreciate the question because this is a new concept, so it is complex. The intention is that the Aboriginal biodiversity committee will propose a policy that would then be accepted by the minister as a guideline on what constitutes a culturally significant biodiversity entity.

There will be a biodiversity policy that will be for culturally significant biodiversity entities that will be approved by the minister but will be developed by that committee. Once that exists, an Aboriginal group might say to the minister, 'I would like to have this particular species or this plant community recognised as a culturally significant biodiversity entity,' and if it conforms with the policy that has been established, the minister can approve that.

Part of the question is probably: what is the consequence of that? There is no consequence in terms of it then crops up in planning legislation that therefore something can or cannot happen because of that existence. It is not like the Aboriginal Heritage Act where there are planning considerations that are required, consent that is required. This does not have that weight.

We are allowing a community to identify that this is important. It might well be that in a landscape plan, when they are proposing to undertake some work, they would be interested to know and therefore approach that work in a particular way knowing that that is culturally significant to that community. It might be in a national park. I was just down at Dhilba Guuranda-Innes National Park a couple of weekends ago and the co-management board there has commissioned a number of statues celebrating important species to the local Narungga people and they are now part of a tourism trail and they will be regarded as culturally significant biodiversity entities. It creates a category that enables planning decision-making to be aware of them rather than constraining in any way.

But as I understand the question, and trying to understand how this works, it is new and it will be worked out over time. I think that probably suffices for now.

Mr TELFER: So, minister, the committee which will be formed to make recommendations will make recommendations broadly about parameters, outlines, scopes of what a culturally significant biodiversity entity could be, broadly. They will make that recommendation to you, or the minister. The minister will agree to or alter or will set the parameters for the culturally significant biodiversity entity and then there is a capacity for a relevant Aboriginal person and whatever relevance is going to be—that is for later to be worked out.

But a person can then come and say, 'You have set a culturally significant biodiversity entity as this genus of mallee tree,' and I come in from my area and say that I want the specific type of mallee tree that fits under that umbrella to be specifically defined as a culturally significant biodiversity entity under the umbrella framework which has been formed as a policy—I will use the right noun—which has been formed after the decision from the minister after being informed by the committee which has been formed by the minister.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Essentially. I do not want to constrain what it might be in speculating, but I will just go a little bit into that territory to help explain the way I understand it to be. So the committee might determine that culturally significant entities would need to be agreed to by the native title holders or the traditional owners. They might define who might be in a position to make that kind of recommendation. They may or they may not choose to do that. They may or they may not say that they would only consider entities that are native to South Australia or native to Australia, so that might appear as being one of the items that would guide the policy.

So then you have a policy that says, 'If you are going to suggest a culturally significant biodiversity entity, it needs to be that that policy gives permission for that.' So the minister having accepted that the policy is an appropriate one then individuals could, given that that policy exists, propose individual entities such as the emu in a particular area. That is the way that it would work.

Mr TELFER: When we are talking about a specific native species, within the definition it also talks about an ecological community. Can you provide a bit of clarity for me on what you would envision as the minister an ecological community might be? Can you give me some parameters, because an ecological community in my mind—it is a pretty broad definition, it could be across a pretty broad land area potentially. Can you give some clarification and certainty to the committee as to exactly what is envisioned by the terminology of 'ecological community' and perhaps, without being too specific, give an example of what you envision an ecological community might be under the definition of the culturally significant biodiversity entity?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I can imagine that it might be a spring that has an ecosystem built up around it. That might be an ecological community, so it is an interdependent biodiversity forming an ecological community that is regarded as being culturally significant to the people who live there. That may well be something, if it conforms to the policy that will exist under the policy, where we would say, 'Yes, we recognise that that is the case.'

Mr McBRIDE: Just picking up on the question from the member for Flinders about this and your example then, minister, where you talked about a spring, which then tells me it is about water, I am going to talk about arid lands and I am going to talk about pastoralism. Perhaps I will imagine that the member for Hammond owns a big pastoral lease out there where he is running a few dorpers, unfortunately, and he needs some stock water for his dorper ground lice, and the Aboriginals obviously may have come across somehow this spring of sacred significance.

Does that mean that they will have the powers to say to Mr Pederick, the member for Hammond, the pastoralist, that he has got to fence this area off, he has got to find some water somewhere else to keep the dorpers out and obviously stop the use of such an important sort of area? I just wonder if that is the way that this could be used, as an example. That could threaten some valuable resources in our regions.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: A culturally significant entity does not imply any change in lawful activity, it does not constrain or alter any decision-making process in that sense, unless someone would like to if they choose to because they are aware that it is a culturally significant entity.

Mr McBRIDE: This one is a really good interesting one, and I hope I actually get a positive answer to this. At clause 10 where it talks about Aboriginal knowledges, we talk about preparing and implementing plans following the listing of native species, so we can talk about pelicans and the native fish on the Lower Lakes, and we can talk about the introduction of, and now seeing, the New Zealand fur seal. We could have the Raukkan Aboriginal community suggest that fur seals are an animal and species that was never there in their time or knowledge, and they wish now to put a plan in place to have the New Zealand fur seal removed from the Coorong, Lower Lakes barrages and the like.

To do that we are going to turn these New Zealand fur seals into hamburgers, and we are going to have barbecues and whatever it is so we can turn this resource into a money-making venture. It will be backed up by an Indigenous cultural invasion by these New Zealand fur seals. If you go to clause 10(e), it talks about carrying out an extinction inquiry. We could turn it around and say we want the fur seals extinct from the Coorong and we will not stop until all these New Zealand fur seals are gone because the Indigenous populations around the Lower Lakes say, 'They were never there, but they are now causing a massive nuisance to us.'

I do know, and we have heard, that Indigenous Aboriginals have got themselves into a spot of bother taking out the odd seal. If they could work through this process, as an example, could they do what I have just suggested?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: There is a lot in there. If I just take the question as relating to culturally significant entities, again the answer is no, because it does not make a legal difference. We could go down the pathway of acknowledging that the animals to which he refers are regarded as native species to Australia regardless of the name, but that may be a diversion that I will regret, so let's stick to no.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Brown): Does the member for Hammond want to ask any questions about seals?

Mr PEDERICK: No, I think Nick covered it exceptionally well.

Mr TEAGUE: A question for completeness: other than pursuant to section 39(1) of the First Nations Voice Act notification of the introduction of the bill, has the State First Nations Voice been consulted on the bill and, if so, has it expressed a view? Are we likely to hear further, including by way of contribution to the debate?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Yes, I think we were the first to use the template that they derived. We were not the first bill, which was one that the Minister for Education had, but after the template was derived we were the first, I think, to use it. They said that they did not require any further engagement on it. Therefore, we take from that they felt that the consultation that we had extensively undertaken with Aboriginal people had been sufficient.

Clause passed.

Clause 11.

Mr BASHAM: My understanding of general duty is that it is trying to bring in effectively a way of making sure people do the right thing, as a general way of describing what is implied here. There are technically no penalties, etc., here directly, but there is the ability for corrective action to be directed to be taken. Am I right that, if people fail to follow those directive actions, there would be penalties in relation to them?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Yes, that is right. Breaching the general duty itself does not constitute an offence, but if the minister says that you now need to fix what you have done by replanting, say, then if you do not do that you have committed an offence.

Mr BASHAM: In seeking to understand what trivial or not trivial means in relation to this clause, I note that I have had some stakeholders particularly raising questions about camping, fishing or mountain biking leading to something that may cause harm that is not trivial. Would they be caught up in this just through their activities?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: The advice I am receiving is no, they would not be caught up in this.

Mr TELFER: Looking at clause 11—General duty, specifically I am looking at what potential impacts or otherwise there might be on local government in particular, and at what point councils need to act in the public interest and be protected from administrative actions against them for potential biodiversity loss. This is this balance of obligation. Would a clearance approval be required from the Clearance Assessment Committee if a native tree was deemed unsafe in a council reserve where the act applies and require removal?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: This clause does not refer to that, because what the member is asking about is exemptions from having to apply for consent for clearance, which is quite a bit later in the legislation. The general duty does not cover the circumstances that the member is describing. Rather than hold people up now, I can perhaps draw to the member's attention when we get later into the bill where that kind of exemption would sensibly work.

Mr TELFER: Thank you, perhaps I will just follow on a little bit then. The general duty says:

(1) A person must not carry out or undertake an act or activity that harms or has the potential to harm biodiversity unless the person takes all reasonable and practicable measures to prevent or minimise any resulting harm.

This is around the circumstances where the obligation—once again, it is on local government and it is obviously on officers within local government in particular. Under what circumstance could a tree be removed if it is not an immediate hazard but likely to become a hazard to the public—a tree that has been recognised and identified as potentially weakened and at the next soaking rain or the next storm that comes over the risk is that it would be an immediate hazard? We see plenty of examples of this where there are preventative measures put in place. Are there circumstances here in which a tree could be removed if there is a likelihood of it becoming a hazard?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Clause 20 in schedule 2 identifies where there is the safety of persons and property that enables the removal of a tree. But just to take us back to clause 11, you cannot be accused of having breached a general duty of care to not hurt biodiversity if you are acting in accordance with the act or any other act. So if you are doing something lawful, which clause 20 of schedule 2 enables you to do in the circumstance you have described, then you cannot be got on the general duty of care breach.

Mr TELFER: Just for clarification, because if there is some crossover between the two I do not know when we will get to schedule 2, clause 20, how does the general duty operate to provide for councils to act to remediate risks to the public without the possibility of being sanctioned for potential biodiversity loss?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: If we look at schedule 2 clause 20, there is a list under 'Safety of persons and property', a number of instances, where the plants are able to be removed because of danger. If you look at clause 11, which is the one that we are discussing, subclause (4) says a person will be taken not to be in breach of the duty if they are acting in accordance with the requirements under this act or another. So what prevails is that it is being done lawfully under an act, and therefore that subclause (4) means that the general duty of care does not apply.

Clause passed.

Clause passed.

Clause 13.

Mr BASHAM: Can the minister explain why the Minister for Mining and the Minister for Planning cannot administer this act; and, in the same context, for example, why can the Minister for Primary Industries?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: The reason that the Mining Act minister is in this is that they are in the National Parks and Wildlife Act. So the Hon. Tom Koutsantonis can never act for me while we hold the two positions that we hold, because I hold the National Parks and Wildlife Act. That is why that has come over. The reason for that and the reason that we have now proposed to add in the planning minister is the abundance of caution to ensure that there is no perception of conflict of interest in the duties of the minister. There are exchanges of decision-making that occur between the planning minister and this minister that it is better if they are clear-sighted about the objects of the act that they are applying in their decision-making and, therefore, that the two sit separately. That is why we have included both of them.

Mr BASHAM: Again, why not primary industries, for example?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I think it is because the responsibility of the primary industries minister does not involve making legally consequential decisions under an act that have an interaction with this act. There is an interaction over biosecurity, and that is carefully mapped out with the Landscapes Act because there is overlap, but with this piece of legislation there is no formal legally sanctioned decision-making that would see that it would be impossible. It is not necessarily that a conflict of interest exists, but there is just the necessity to ensure that there is the perception that decisions are being made fully within the terms of the act that the minister holds.

Clause passed.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.

At 22:04 the house adjourned until Wednesday 4 June 2025 at 10:30.