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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-05-19 Daily Xml
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STURT'S DESERT PEA

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (12:22): I move:

That this house urges the Premier to write to the Prime Minister to ensure the South Australian floral emblem, Sturt's desert pea, be excluded from any regulation to ban their sale from plant nurseries.

It is with pleasure that I inform the house not only of my support of this motion, but also that I had an opportunity to canvass this issue when I attended the Rotary Club of Burnside Leadership in Conservation and Volunteer of the Parks evening, which the Minister for Environment and Conservation also attended. We were very pleased to have his presence there on that occasion.

The Volunteer of the Parks award went to Mr Alan and Mrs Lorraine Hancox from Friends of the Simpson Desert Parks. Additionally, the Leadership in Conservation award went to Seiji Iwao, who is a liaison ranger in the department for Friends of Newland Head Conservation Park. They are both worthy awards, and the recipients this year were outstanding.

Unfortunately, the minister had to leave because he had other commitments, but on that occasion I did raise my concern that our state floral emblem, Sturt's desert pea, is about to be added to a long list of plants which are prohibited under a federal government law which purports to limit the propagation, sale, cultivation, etc., of certain plants essentially because of particular matter they contain. The basis of this is that anything that might contain a drug, or a particular piece of plant matter in it that could be used to make illegal drugs, needs to be considered very seriously.

However, what has happened is that a number of species of wattle, our Australian floral emblem, and many other popular plants, including ornamental cacti, etc., but most importantly for the purpose of this motion, and for my request that the Premier act on it, is that Sturt's desert pea, our beloved state floral emblem, is to join that list.

I have consulted on this matter with Mr Ralph Bönig, who is the President of the Law Society. He has provided me with quite an extensive submission from the Nursery and Garden Industry Australia on this matter, because of their concerns as to how it would have an adverse impact not only on the propagation, but also on the availability of these particular items of flora.

I will refer to those in a moment but, can I say, the Law Society of South Australia have said that while the possession of these plants would not actually be illegal, the nurseries selling them would face the same penalties—that is, up to life imprisonment—if they are caught with any quantity of these plants (even the seed) and they fall within the same category as offenders who traffic large quantities of marijuana. I cannot think that any sensible person would have actually wanted to impose this.

I am just very surprised that we have not had a response from the Premier at this stage to say, 'Look, I have dealt with that matter; we have resolved it, and we are going to make sure that we are not caught up in this.' However, in the absence of having this reassurance, I press the house to support a motion that he does so—not only so that our nurseries out there are not prosecuted for these things, but also that we protect our state floral emblem.

I regularly give out packets of Sturt's desert pea seed. It is featured not only here in our bloodline, in the parliament, but it is also of course completely across the floor of the Legislative Council. I mean, this is something that we are very proud of. I actually ask school children to have a go at growing them. I hate to think about whether I am going to be an accessory to a major crime and face imprisonment for trading with a plant which contains the drugs which have been caught up in this.

Essentially, it is to cover plants that contain mescaline, or dimethyltryptamine (they call it DMT for short, thank goodness), but that is specifically in the Sturt's desert pea, and that is the offending ingredient. So, the CEO of the state branch of the Nursing and Garden Industry, Geoffrey Fuller, has asked the government to use their common sense and review this. I am told anecdotally, by the Law Society President, that about a thousand acacia trees have to be harvested to get enough of their content to create one pill.

So, we really are dealing with a situation where I think somebody sitting in Canberra—some mental giant over there—has decided that this should apply. It may have been inadvertent, but it does concern me that it is not only a dopey idea, but one that has not been redressed, and has not been attended to. So, I ask the parliament here today to protect our state floral emblem.

Can I just say, in the submission that was presented to the Attorney-General's Department of the Parliament of Australia (that is, the national body) they also raised a number of other issues about the removal of these plants effectively from the broader environment—not just the gardening community and those of us who might grow these in our own gardens. We are all trying to be water wise and grow things that are going to be consistent with our natural environment. But, in the broader environment, the impact is quite severe, because if there is to be no assistance in the broader parks and environs for the propagation and development, and even research into the protection—and, in some areas, expansion—of these plants, then ecosystems out there are also under threat.

So, it is important that we look not just at the question of how the industry itself might suffer in respect to prosecution, but how our researchers and our parks and wildlife people may be inadvertently caught up with this procedure if they were to, in some way, disperse what effectively is potentially a precursor for a drug which, under our Controlled Substances Act, is illegal. So, we are looking for some relief. If the minister is able to provide that, then we would welcome it. There are some other options to be able to say we will leave them on the list, but we provide for a defence that is a legitimate use defence.

I simply say, why should we in any way be having our state floral emblem, or our national emblem for that matter, on this sort of list, then having to backtrack with defences to be able to say why one is lawfully in possession of a seed of a national or state floral emblem. It is just completely absurd to think that we should have to take that course.

If there is a circumstance where someone who did harvest, propagate or cultivate plants for the specific purpose of harvesting substances to create drugs, and it could be established that that was for the purpose of creating drugs that are unlawful or for the purposes of onselling those precursors, then sure, let us look at amending the criminal law to deal with that. Let's not mark and demean our state or national floral emblems in such a draconian way. So, wake up, somebody there in Canberra. If they don't, please, Premier, address this matter post-haste.

The SPEAKER: This is very interesting, member for Bragg. I will have to change all my stationery unless something happens about this. All my stationery features our beautiful Sturt's desert pea.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

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