Environmental Degradation

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (15:10): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation regarding departmental responses to environmental degradation.

Leave granted.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: Recently my office has received numerous phone calls regarding the repeated and wilful trashing of native vegetation and important natural habitat in the Upper Spencer Gulf region. One constituent, in particular, is very diligent at reporting the weekly goings-on in the Port Augusta region, and he informs me that local people with four-wheel drives and dirt bikes are ignoring gates, fences and the instructions of rangers and driving over dune and bushland near Port Augusta and Stirling North.

I brought these matters to the minister's attention before, and I thank him for his previous response which invited this particular constituent to participate in the Living Flinders community action planning program. By way of update, this morning I received a phone call from this constituent who is most concerned about the fact that a bulldozer appears to have been driven through precious mangrove and samphire habitat in the North Basin beach area, and this is adjacent to the place where the Stirling North drain empties into the Gulf.

I understand that it was reported in The Transcontinental paper and on local TV station Channel 4 recently that a bulldozer had been stolen from a machinery yard nearby, and my constituent suspects that it may be the machine involved. My questions to the minister are:

1. Is the minister aware of the situation and, if so, what action has been taken to deal with those involved in what, at face value, looks to be criminal behaviour and, in particular, have the police been notified?

2. Given the massive reductions in departmental staff over the last several years, what other strategies is the government adopting to detect environmental damage and deal with those who cause it?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (15:12): I thank the honourable member for his most important follow-up questions from one he has asked me previously. I am advised that concerns have been raised by two members of the local community regarding crown land located near the township of Port Augusta at Yorkey's Crossing, about two kilometres outside of the township. These concerns relate, as the honourable member has said, to the impacts of off-road vehicles driving over these parcels of land, including an area which has been referred to as the Arid Lands Conservation Park.

I am actually advised that there is no arid lands conservation park gazetted as a reserve under the National Parks and Wildlife Act, and that the area in question is, in fact, a parcel of crown land that is leased to the Port Augusta City Council for conservation purposes.

I understand that this piece of crown land has undergone a range of land management and conservation works in the past few years as part of a TAFE training program, including fencing, track closure, revegetation and erosion control, and that signage is in place which identifies it as a conservation zone. This parcel is part of a larger area of the land that is made up of road reserve, crown land and inundated coastal land. The majority of the area is under the care and control of the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure, I am advised, and also, as I have just said, the Port Augusta City Council.

The area referred to as the Old Salt Works is unalienated crown land, and management responsibility rests with the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources. I am also advised that on 9 February departmental staff conducted an inspection of the site and the surrounding land and invited the community member to attend so that their concerns could be highlighted in further detail and a further inspection was undertaken by departmental officials to clarify tenure issues.

I understand that staff are working with the local council and DPTI to determine the sections of crown land for which they are responsible. These agencies are investigating appropriate long-term management options for the area.

The Yorkey's Crossing area is in the Northern and Yorke NRM region and is within the footprint of the Living Flinders: from peaks to plains program. I am advised that the Living Flinders program is a comprehensive plan for protecting and restoring the landscape and creating new sustainable opportunities for local communities. It also provides a tool which brings valuable local knowledge, together with contemporary science, and puts the community at the forefront in developing solutions to issues such as this. The successful program has been in operation for two years.

In relation to the control of off-road vehicles, as the honourable member would be aware, it is quite a complex issue. In some areas of the state, local councils are actively promoting off-road vehicle experiences, with their associated tourism benefits. However, some local councils are finding the control of off-road vehicles an increasingly difficult problem to manage. We as an agency have an important role to play in managing off-road vehicle access to coastal parks and reserves across the state in areas of high biodiversity.

I am advised that, in dedicated reserves, National Parks and Wildlife regulations make it an offence to drive or tow a vehicle in a reserve, except in an area set aside for that purpose. Fines up to a maximum of $1,000 may be imposed for breaches. I am advised, in regard to crown land, that it is outside land dedicated under the National Parks and Wildlife Act. Most of the state's beaches are under the care, control and management of local councils, which administer the land pursuant to the Local Government Act 1999.

Additionally, the Road Traffic Act 1961 applies to any vehicle on roads or road-related areas. Road-related areas are defined in the act and can include beach, foreshore and adjacent public coastal land. Vehicles driving on these areas must comply with the requirements of this act and those of the Motor Vehicles Act 1959, including speed limits, registration, licensing and roadworthiness. Police officers have power to enforce the prescribed provisions.

I understand that staff of DEWNR are photographing and mapping with GPS some of the areas impacted by off-road vehicles and we will be liaising with our department about who has responsibility for policing these crown lands areas. I am happy to say that local involvement has been ongoing in terms of people who have taken the time to contact my department about this matter and, if the person who is talking to the honourable member is not a person who is contacting my department, I invite him also to do so.

I am advised that at this stage (and this is very early preliminary advice) it does not appear that the damage was caused by a bulldozer. It does not appear at this early stage that it is an illegal clearance type of situation. It may very well have been someone who was being irresponsible with a four wheel drive vehicle; we do not have sufficient information to say any more than that at this stage. I am also advised, from a preliminary investigation of the site, that there does not appear as yet to have been extensive damage to the native vegetation of the area.

Nonetheless, the important point is that, whilst some councils are doing their best to control inappropriate access by off-road vehicles to areas under their control or under my agency's control, there are a limited few people who persist in doing the wrong thing, who drive over gates and fences, who cut bolts and chains, who break padlocks and pull up bollards. This is a problem around the state for councils, for my agency and for other agencies that own sensitive land properties, and it is something we continue to grapple with.

Some of the responsibility is with police, some with DPTI, some with my agency and some shared with council. We are pursuing an across agency and government response to this, but the difficulty is how you manage in very large land areas for the few people who disregard the importance of the areas, disregard the legislation and the by-laws appropriate to those areas and cut bolts, drive over fences and do other things that are obviously illegal but which they feel they can get away with.

The department will be pursuing these issues and putting in place new tactics, and they may include some of the tactics that were alluded to in the crossbench anecdotal joking, but at this stage I do not wish to advise just yet what those approaches will be. We need to consult with the community, which is doing the right thing, and get a concerted approach where we can catch these people, name and shame them and, hopefully, educate the community as well through those four-wheel drive owners who do the right thing, who use their vehicles in sites allocated for them—

The Hon. G.E. Gago: It is so important to them.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Indeed. Hopefully they will also be very helpful in educating their own community of four-wheel drive users and applying peer pressure on those who do the wrong thing.