National Parks

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Hanson.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (14:50): I am glad that the opposition is actually paying attention to this vital question. My question goes to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: Point of order: the honourable member didn't seek leave before making commentary. He simply had to ask the question. He didn't seek leave to do anything but go straight to the question.

The PRESIDENT: If the Hon. Mr Hanson would follow standing orders that would be good.

The Hon. J.E. HANSON: My question is to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation. Will the minister inform the chamber about how the government is protecting the state's national parks and protected areas with rangers and regional staff?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:50): What an outstanding, prescient question from the new member, who has taken his seat behind me. I think it is a fantastic question. Clearly, he has been following the debate in the media this week, when the Liberal flagship policy on the environment was somehow leaked to the media. One cannot imagine how that terrible leak happened, but I think it shows the honourable member's interest in the political subterfuge on the other side, the internal ructions, the leadership challenges.

I will come back to those points in a little while but first, not to test your patience, sir, I will address some of the substantive parts of the question asked by the Hon. Mr Hanson. As members know, our system of parks and protected areas provide protection to South Australia's unique landscapes, our flora and our fauna. Our parks help to create recreation and tourism opportunities for our state. In the lead-up to the 2014 state election the state government committed $10.4 million to help ensure our state's national parks are cared for and used by our community.

In South Australia we have a whole-of-landscape approach to environmental and park management, and it has changed quite significantly over the decades in terms of how we manage our park systems. We utilise the best science, we talk to other jurisdictions about innovations they are making, and we change our practices and behaviours, so it is no surprise that the way we manage our parks today is very different from how we did it even just 20 or 30 years ago.

I think it is important to recognise that many of the critical issues do not, of course, start or stop at park boundaries. Pest plants, pest animals, endangered species, fire management all require an approach much broader than just our parks. We need to talk to the communities that live around our parks and also the communities that enjoy our parks. Consequently, we now have a regional workforce, one that delivers a more efficient and effective range of services than was previously possible. They range across a number of parks; indeed, they range across a larger area of the state than what they would normally have done 20 years ago. This has resulted in a significant increase in the number of staff looking after our outstanding national parks and protected areas.

As part of our election commitment we asked local communities—and I think more than 11,000 people participated at some level in terms of this discussion—what they wanted to see for the $10.4 million investment in parks. Five new dedicated park rangers were employed on the back of that consultation, bringing the state's total number of rangers to about 93. Of course, we also have our graduate ranger program that has been in place since 2006, with four new graduate rangers recruited into the program in 2016. Another four will be recruited in 2017.

This contrasts completely with the plans that have been elucidated this week in terms of the Liberal Party's so-called flagship, leaked party policy. It just shows the Liberal Party's complete misunderstanding when it comes to the environment; in fact, you could probably sum up the Liberal Party's environmental policy with a big lump of coal dumped on your desk in federal parliament. That is their policy on the environment, that is it, that is all they've got: 'Let's go back to coalmining. That's our environmental policy. We won't talk about any of the difficulties involved with coal generation.' Of course, they cover that up with a fig leaf of rehashing the Hon. Michelle Lensink's policy from the last election of hiring more park rangers.

When you look at the leaked details, you come to the little disclosure that in fact they are not actually going to employ anybody new, they are just going to re-badge existing staff. That's all they are going to do. They are going to get rid of administrative staff and call them rangers. Goodness gracious me, what a con job that is!

The state Liberals, just like the federal Liberals, have revealed a total lack of any serious policy for the environment. The Liberals have abandoned any pretence of a commitment to the environment with their ideological support for coal, totally beholding, totally in the pockets of the coal industry in this country. They can't squirm out of it and so they are trying to make a virtue of it by saying, 'Coal is our environmental policy.' Fantastic, just fantastic. This policy further demonstrates—

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: You ran Alinta out of town. How's the closure of the Port Augusta power station going for South Australia? Thanks for that.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Well, again the Hon. Michelle Lensink invites me to talk about their privatisation of ETSA and another wonderful policy of the Liberals visited on South Australia, and we have seen how well that has gone for them—higher prices, no control over power in our state, at the behest of officers in Melbourne and in New South Wales. That's where South Australia's interests are now considered, under the Liberal Party policy of privatisation. Well, let's go there if you like, Hon. Michelle Lensink; there's a long, long story we can tell there.

The Australian Labor Party is absolutely committed to the protection of our state's natural resources and environment. We are home to more than 356 national parks and reserves. At the last state election, we dedicated an additional $300,000 over two years to increase our system of parks and reserves.

Since coming into government in 2002, we have proclaimed 73 new parks and made 84 additions to our parks. It is worth remembering that when we came to government in 2002 there were just 70,000 hectares of South Australia that had wilderness protection status. Now, we have more than doubled that, with the protection of about 1.8 million hectares of land. I have the very firm suspicion that if we go back and examine the records about that 70,000 hectares of wilderness that was in place when we came into government, I would hazard a bet that not one hectare of it was added into wilderness protection under the Liberal government. I think they inherited that from a previous Labor government. That's their level of commitment to the environment.

We have now the largest percentage of land area in both public and private protected areas of any Australian mainland jurisdiction—a total area around the size of the state of Victoria, I am advised. Since coming into government, we have undertaken significant reform to improve the delivery of environment services across the state, including in our national parks.

Our shift to a fully integrated whole-of-landscape approach has resulted in a significant increase in the staff looking after our environment. We have increased the numbers of staff carrying out vital work for our national parks. This includes an additional:

148 authorised officers—these are staff who are involved in low-level investigation of wildlife offences and they often, I am advised, issue expiation notices when required;

14 dedicated compliance staff. This is a highly specialised compliance unit led by a very experienced, I think, former detective, which provides high level investigation and prosecution services across the state;

118 staff supporting iconic commercial sites such as Cleland and Seal Bay on Kangaroo Island;

30 assets services staff. These staff look after the infrastructure throughout our national parks and reserves, including roads, trails and visitor centres, I am advised;

six marine parks coordinators. These staff lead community engagement and volunteering activities, assist with research and monitoring activities, support marine protection and marine mammal interaction activities and coordinate signage and compliance activities.

None of these incredibly important people doing incredibly important jobs are even contemplated in the Liberal Party's draft 'flagship policy'. All they want to do is try to convince people that there are a certain number of rangers—and that has been decreased over a number of years—and goodness gracious, they are going to increase those rangers by getting rid of administrative staff and making them rangers—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: I have just listed for you what some of these administrative staff do on country. You have no idea about the work that is involved—

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: Point of order, sir: yet again we have the minister giving an eight minute answer to a Dorothy Dixer and taking up the time of the council. I ask you to conclude his answer.

The PRESIDENT: Will the minister, after eight minutes, finally come to some sort of finality for that answer.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Well, Mr President, had they asked me this question, I could have given them a much longer answer myself—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: —but, of course, Mr President, I abide by your counsel. We have the Hon. Terry Stephens saying, 'Administrative staff, sack them, sack them. Paper pushers.'

The Hon. K.J. Maher: That worked well last time, 30,000 of them.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: That's right. That was their last promise: 'Sack public servants.' Even though I have just—

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS: Point of order, Mr President.

The PRESIDENT: Point of order.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The member is on his feet.

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS: At no point did I mention the word 'sack'; I said 'Paper shufflers, transfer them into being rangers,' so don't lie.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! Will the honourable Leader of the Government please desist. Allow the minister to continue.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: The Liberal's secret agenda to sack public servants exposed once again. Out of their very own mouths in this place, the Hon. Terry Stephens has belled the cat. Thank you, Terry.

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS: Point of order.

The PRESIDENT: Point of order.

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS: I ask the President to get the minister to withdraw. At no point did I say anything like that, and he can stop lying to the chamber.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! Unfortunately, I didn't hear what was said—

The Hon. T.J. Stephens: Well, try Hansard.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Now listen, I think it is important that you treat each other civilly, and I will look at Hansard tomorrow and see what they have printed and if it doesn't say what he said I will bring it to the attention of the chamber. Minister.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Thank you, Mr President. And thank you, the Hon. Mr Terry Stephens, for belling the cat about your secret plans to sack public servants.

The Hon. T.J. Stephens interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: We have significantly increased our prescribed burning program. Hansard are not required to take down that interjection from the Hon. Mr Stephens—you can if you like. Before we came to government in 2002, there was no prescribed burning program at all, none, nothing, the Liberals had no commitment to that either. Not only has this government created the program, we have also grown the program, more and more each and every year. Since 2003, we have more than quadrupled DEWNR's budget for conducting prescribed burning, more than doubled DEWNR's budget for training firefighters and more than doubled the number of DEWNR brigade members. The 2016-17—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: The 2016-17 operating budget employs 144 specialist fire management staff, including 72 seasonal project firefighters who are employed for nine months of the year over the fire danger season to assist with prescribed burning and bushfire response activities. More people that the Liberals want to rebadge or sack, more people.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: Point of order, sir.

The PRESIDENT: Point of order.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: I ask you to ask the minister to conclude his answer because he has now been 11½ minutes on this answer to a question that was obviously written in his own department because the member asking the question did not even have it when he started.

The PRESIDENT: How the minister concludes or finalises his answer really is one for him, but I do ask to the minister to remember that there are a number of crossbenchers who are down here for questions, if you could please come to a conclusion—

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: This chamber's not your own private play thing.

The PRESIDENT: —without interjection. The honourable minister.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: We have hundreds of staff working in our national parks, our conservation parks, our recreation parks, our reserves and our marine parks. The Liberal Party's only plan for the environment is to employ 20 more rangers by sacking administrative staff, so called, regardless of what work those administrative staff do. Are they going to sack compliance officers? Are they going to sack the specialist firefighter administrative staff and rebadge them as rangers?

That is their plan because they are not going to actually appropriate any more, that is what it says in this leaked document. I am sure had the document not been leaked, they would have redacted that part because it exposes their plan completely. This is a very old way of thinking about parks. Parks should be managed in a fully integrated, whole-of-landscape approach. The state Liberals do not understand what is needed for good park management. They do not understand there are hundreds of staff in our regions. They do not understand we have hundreds of staff in our regions working in our parks.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: Sit him down.

The PRESIDENT: I will not sit him down. He will answer the question the way he sees fit. I have asked him to come to a conclusion. It is up to the minister now to come to a conclusion. Minister.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Absolutely, Mr President. I will finish on this point. The leaking of Liberal Party flagship policy, which frankly doesn't achieve a single bit of environmental good or outcome for our state because it doesn't understand how modern park management works, is a symptom of this new stoush where they want to try to get rid of the Hon. Steven Marshall, member for Dunstan, the Leader of the Opposition—'Downer SA push fails to fire again':

With the next election scheduled for March 2018, sources have told The Australian Financial Review—

The PRESIDENT: Minister, really that has nothing to do with the answer.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: It has everything to do with it, Mr President, everything to do with it.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: It has nothing to do with it.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order, order! I think it is important you have conclusion.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Because this leaked policy document is a symptom of Liberal disarray, Mr President.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Liberal disarray. They are divided, they have no idea about leadership and they are trying to dump Steven Marshall eight, 12, 15 months out from an election campaign. It failed in November, 15 months out, and they are trying again.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Brokenshire.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Brokenshire has the floor.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Brokenshire.