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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
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Bills

Native Vegetation (Road Verges) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 4 June 2015.)

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (10:32): I am grateful for the opportunity to briefly conclude my remarks and refer people who are interested in this issue back to the comments I made on 14 May. I do wholeheartedly support the member for Morphett on this issue. There are many facets to it, of course, but it is not about trying to damage native vegetation and it is not about trying to affect any other type of native vegetation or change any other rules to do with it.

I do accept that native vegetation on road verges can form a very supportive habitat for native fauna, but it is also true that it causes a great deal of difficulty with regard to visibility, the likelihood of a fire starting from a road accident, and, perhaps most importantly, it can significantly diminish the capacity for a road to act as an effective firebreak. Of course, if native vegetation, and non-native vegetation for that matter, is cleared from road verges in fire-prone areas, then that road, including the cleared verge, will offer a much better firebreak if (and unfortunately when in many places in South Australia) a bushfire breaks out.

They are the reasons why the member for Morphett has introduced this bill and why I support it. It is about grasses and low shrubs. It is not about trying to cut down significant trees or anything like that on the road verge. There are rules and regulations with regard to offsets which still apply to that. There are council regulations in council areas where that would apply. I think this is unlikely to be an issue in out-of-council areas and regions. I think this is a very sensible proposal that provides some safety to the community in a range of ways which would not be detrimental to our environment or support for native vegetation across the state in general.

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (10:35): I rise today to support this bill. It is something very dear to my heart, in light of the numerous fires that my electorate has been through over the past two years. At the core of this bill that the member for Morphett brings to the chamber is an amendment allowing property owners to clear road verges around their properties to reduce fire risk. This is something hugely important in the eyes of South Australians, especially those who have had to deal with fire recently.

In an article in The Advertiser on 3 March 2015, entitled 'Lives Before Trees', comments made by the Motor Accident Commission chief highlighted issues around roadside vegetation. The state Liberals will investigate opportunities for strategic clearing of roadside trees following the deaths of 10 people in tree impacts during the past year. So, that is dealing with it not from a fire perspective, but from a road safety perspective. We understand the environmental and aesthetic value of roadside trees; however, making South Australia's roads safer and protecting lives has to be a greater priority.

I know trees are very important, and I know that native vegetation is something that it is important to South Australians, as is the idea of keeping as much of the pristine environment as we can. Unfortunately, our presence on this earth and the evolution of man means that our environment is not always pristine to the extent that it looks like what it was before modern human civilisation and habitation. This means that we need to work in concert with the land—humans and the environment working in a beautiful symbiotic relationship.

In this case, I do believe that, even though it has been said to me, 'Well, the trees don't move; it is the people who run into them that are doing the moving,' as humans and as users of road vehicles, and until we can find a better mode of transport (especially in regional areas), it is very important that we value a life to the highest degree. Something as sensible as clearing trees on roadsides seems eminently sensible to me.

Indeed, it is something that people in my electorate have brought to my attention, including a constituent from Williamstown who contacted me earlier this year. He has trees alongside his roads which have been able to overgrow and overhang onto the road, and have been brought down in high winds. He has gum trees that are notorious for dropping branches in drought and in good seasons due to leaf and branch overgrowth. Without maintenance, it is a danger to the public. It is something that my constituent was really worried about, and this was actually pre the Sampson Flat bushfire that went reasonably close to his property.

Leaf and bark build-up is a fire danger, as well as a hazard to other road users. Tree roots running under roads expand and contract with the water supply and can cause bitumen and road problems. Trees regenerate, which results in thick overgrowth that cannot support all the trees, therefore leading to dead trees along the roadside and more fire hazards along the road verges. The clearing of trees and undergrowth away from roadsides is needed, especially throughout forestry areas, to a distance my constituent says 'of at least 30 metres, and preferably 50 metres,' with these areas turned into low-combustible native grasses which could act as both feed and coverage for native wildlife.

My constituent had some very legitimate concerns, and when I investigated and looked through this matter, there was not actually much that we could do. I am excited by the bill that the member for Morphett brings to this place, because this is a very sensible proposition. Can I say that the government and councils, in clearing road verges, do not always get it right, but I would trust property owners in front of their own property to care about their little patch of the earth and to do a good job in making sure that those areas are safe. I think giving them the option to do that is eminently sensible.

However, if I look at it from a fire perspective, this was something that was really brought home during Sampson Flat early this year, especially around national parks. So, out in Humbug Scrub, north of where my grandparents' place is, is an abundance of native forests. There is a road between the fence and the native forest on the inside of the fence line, but just outside the fence line, in between the internal road to the national park and the road, is a series of trees. So, the fire was coming along the range, was burning through all the native vegetation, but because there was not enough distance it actually jumped the internal road, started burning along the road verge and, because of the overhang of the trees, was able to skip to the other side of the road and continue burning on that other side.

The concept that roads should be used as natural buffers to stop fires being able to spread is eroded by having huge overgrowth that allows fire to jump from forest to road verge vegetation to the other side of road verge vegetation, and the fire can continue on its merry way. This is something that will help fix this issue.

I know that it is giving power back to landholders to be able to manage their own property, and I know that that is a very liberal philosophy and very liberal thing to do. I trust and have complete faith in landholders to be able to do the right thing. It is their land, they are the ones who will have to feel the consequence of the pruning they do. If they do a decent job, they may be able to save their house, maybe save their own lives or the lives of their neighbours who may happen to be driving down the street and lose control and crash into one of these trees.

The landholders are the ones with the most to lose in this instance, and they are the ones with the most to gain, so would be the people with the exact motivation to be able to properly deal with roadside vegetation growth in this way. With those few words, I again congratulate the member for Morphett on what is an extremely sensible amendment. It is what private members' time is for, and I urge the government to support the motion so we can see more sensible outcomes and fewer deaths and can reduce the fire risk in country South Australia.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (10:42): I certainly support the Native Vegetation (Road Verges) Amendment Bill 2015. It is an excellent bill that has been introduced by the member for Morphett. This bill has been introduced to give management of overgrowth of roadside vegetation, and also works alongside the fact that many home owners and property owners do not do proper fire preparation on their properties. This puts more pressure on CFS firefighters when there is an alert, and people need to be aware that we need to have proper restrictions in place but also need proper legislative processes so that people will clear native vegetation on a road verge, especially for safety purposes, and to reduce the fuel load on the road verge. The definition in the bill states:

road verge means the area of land adjacent to a public road bounded by—

(a) the edge of the carriageway of the road; and

(b) —

(i) if the boundary of the property adjacent to the road is not more than 20 metres away from the carriageway of the road—that boundary; or

(ii) in any other case—a line running parallel to the edge of the carriageway of the road at a distance of 20 metres.

In the bill there are prescribed limits for the clearing of native vegetation. Any time we talk about native vegetation, whether in this place or out in the community, there are many and varied views. Some people would like to think we live in a pre-farming world and they want native vegetation to be everywhere. We do have a lot of national parks full of native vegetation and we have plenty of roadside mallee, not only in my electorate and into the electorates of MacKillop and Chaffey where I do a lot of my travelling but all throughout the state there is roadside bush and trees. There would be thousands and thousands of hectares of it, if it were put into a measure.

In recent years, we have seen much safety roadwork being done around the place where, perhaps instead of moving some vegetation, Armco barriers or wire rope cabling are put in place on roadside edges. I think it is time we became realistic and realise that perhaps, for safety reasons and fire control reasons, we do have to have some serious and sensible management around native vegetation. I think this is an excellent move by the member for Morphett.

I want to make this point about fires. We had a fire about nine years ago in front of our property at Coomandook and it burnt through a heap of roadside vegetation because it actually burnt through parts of our property. The fire was lit by a lightning strike in scrub behind our property, then it crossed the road and the Melbourne-Adelaide rail line and came over the other side, so trees were burnt on either side of the road. It was a fairly wild thing to control, but we got there, thanks to the CFS and other volunteers.

Dr McFetridge: Hear, hear!

Mr PEDERICK: Absolutely. The smart thing in latter years, and even now, would have been to cut out those burnt sticks where the mallee was coming back—and a good fire makes mallee come back brilliantly—but you could imagine the howls of people coming down the road, especially if they saw a local MP with a chainsaw cutting down some of that wood. I am sure that is probably not politically correct.

Without naming anyone, a constituent of mine had a fire around the same time, and this was not on that major road. He got out there very quickly to rip down all the burnt sticks, and it looks absolutely beautiful where the mallee has been recharged by that fire going through. However, I guess it is all in the eye of the beholder and how you value that vegetation. It was interesting that I did see a bloke collecting firewood on the edge of the Mallee Highway the other day, but I do not want to get him into trouble.

Dr McFetridge: Doing a very good job cleaning it up.

Mr PEDERICK: Doing a very good job cleaning it up. We do need to have some sensibilities about native vegetation. Yes, it is a great thing to have. We have not been able to clear in South Australia since around the late seventies, and that is a fair point; it has been pulled up. In farming land, there was some overclearing on some sandhills but then, sadly, we have some very good country we have not been able to clear. However, that is the way it is and people accept that, and there are heavy penalties.

However, in relation to our roads and native vegetation on road verges, there are a range of safety issues, whether it be vision or the fact that people could run into this vegetation and get injured or, worse, killed. Also, in regard to firefighting, it creates that extra fire threat for people when the Country Fire Service and volunteers have to pull into gear and save lives and property.

I have talked before in this place about where I have seen overtaking lanes on the Dukes Highway put in the wrong place because they did not want to clear native vegetation along a straight, so they would put them on corners, and that has caused many, many accidents. I know one south of Ki Ki, which I have talked about here before, where there would have been at least seven or eight deaths since that was put in. I know it has been there a while.

People just get confused. Not only are they involved in a three-lane highway for a while, but then it just comes to an end as you are coming around a corner. There could be some confusion with overseas drivers who are used to driving on the other side of the road or there could be fatigue, but I do believe it has contributed to road deaths and that is a very sad. I talk to my friends in the CFS who have witnessed these and they are traumatised by them, I must say.

I believe this is very sensible legislation from the member for Morphett. Sometimes you have to take on these tough environmental matters, and I am certainly taking on a couple at the moment. This is something we need to be have some sensibility about. I think the Native Vegetation Council many times gets a little bit excited and says, 'No, you can't do that,' but people need to be realistic: these are only roadside verges.

I know that, when councils go trimming roads and use a machine called the Hydro-Ax, they are very particular about where they go to cut out those roadsides, and they are very nervous about going too far because of the penalties. That is fair enough, but there needs to be some latitude. It does not just relate to whether it is a safety issue or whether it is a fire risk issue. There is also the simple fact that, for towing agricultural implements in this day and age, you need to have a decent, wide roadway.

I know what it is like when you have a wide line folded up behind your air seeder, you are going down a narrow road and you have collected a bit of eucalyptus by the time you have come to the end of it, but that is just the way it is. You have to transport your machines. If people do not take the right action and reduce the scrub affecting the road, that is just simply what happens.

We need to have more sensibility about this. We cannot just have this archaic idea that we are going to save every bit of mallee or every light tree along the edge of our highways and roads. We need to be realistic, we need to do it for the people of the CFS and other rescue agencies who have to deal with the trauma of road accidents, whether they be death or injury, and we have to do this for the families of people who have been killed or injured due to the way it has been in the past. It is sensible legislation. I commend it, and I hope it has speedy passage through this house.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (10:52): I would like to support the member for Morphett's amendment to this. The member for MacKillop, the member for Mount Gambier and the member for Flinders in the southern portion of his electorate, and I are all in high rainfall areas, and the problems that are brought about by roadside vegetation are a nightmare for us. I have lost count of how many fires have gone along the roadsides through the wick vegetation, but I have also lost count of the idiocy that has been brought on by state government agencies in not realising the common-sense solutions that can be put in place.

A couple of years ago, Mr Peter Whitford, a former mayor of the District Council of Yankalilla, was driving to one of his properties on Pages Flat Road when he came across a group of young people on the side of the road with secateurs. He stopped and asked them, 'What are you doing?' They said, 'We are clearing the blackberry bushes so that we can reduce the fire risk.' He said, 'Why are you doing it with secateurs?' They had been told by the NRM official or whoever was running the program that it was impossible for them to spray along there and that they had to cut the blackberry bushes away one by one. He thought he had never heard of such a damn fool reason in all his life.

It is precisely that sort of thing which has brought about the situation we have today. Right across the Fleurieu, the roadside veg is dense, particularly down along the Range Road section. You only have to go down there and have a look. Over on the other side of my electorate, on the other side of the water, it is even worse. In the last few years, we have seen a program of targeted burning with some fire trials through the Eucalyptus cneorifolia or narrow-leaf mallee which has been reasonably successful, but by and large the sides of the roads are untouchable.

The sad reflection of that is that the dead material—the grasses and everything else—builds up so, when a fire goes through, it is very, very difficult to stop. As I said, they act as wicks along the road and these wicks go for 10s and 20s of kilometres and trying to put them out is an absolute nightmare. The only way you can really do it is to bulldoze a pretty large break in and remove vegetation along the side of the road in a hurry to try and break it up. Of course, if some sensible work could be performed on this vegetation, it would make it a whole lot easier.

Mr Andrew Gilfillan of the Cape Willoughby area and Antechamber Bay has started a road safety committee on the island after the death of a lad on Willoughby Road where the driver got out of control and, sadly, a lad from Mount Gambier was killed. The road was that narrow because you could not clear the trees. It has been taken up, and Mr Gilfillan and his group have pushed extremely hard and some work is taking place along that road.

There has to be a common-sense solution to this problem—there has to be. The days of these lunatics in native veg, etc. need to be superseded by common sense. I take my hat off to Mr Dennis Mutton who was there and who did a lot of good, but there are some supercilious, academic, idiotic geniuses in the native veg authority who cannot see the wood for the trees, so to speak, and they cannot see the requirement to make these roadsides safe. They are corridors.

I refer to a case around 20 years ago called the Tin Hut Road case, where the eco action group on Kangaroo Island took the Kingscote council to task for clearance with a bulldozer. The judge or magistrate at the time—I cannot remember which—but the judicial process found in favour of the council and in favour of road safety. Indeed, that was a milestone over there: they have since changed roadside clearance using the Hydro-Ax, which operates, as the member for MacKillop knows, down in the South-East and other places. I took Percy Roberts from Millicent and the current Premier on a road tour a few years ago—

Mr Treloar: I think it's where he grew up.

Mr PENGILLY: Well, there you go. I took the current Premier when he was minister for the environment for a tour on the island a few years ago and we saw the Hydro-Ax in operation. Percy Roberts nearly had a stroke when the minister got out of the car with me and saw what was going on at the side of the road. But we need a common-sense solution, sensible clearance, reasonable clearance, and I hope that the house supports this bill.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (10:57): I rise today to give support to this amending bill and congratulate the member for Morphett. The bill will allow property owners to clean up road verges without having to go through the red tape of cumbersome state government and local government regulations when applying to remove native vegetation.

The aim of the bill is to remove the confusion in relation to where property owners apply so they can clean up road verges and allow them to get on with protecting their properties and, I might add, protecting the entire community by reducing the chance of bushfire and increasing the chances of bushfire survival. Considerable confusion exists because of the current application process, which prevents people from doing the right thing at times because they become too scared to clean up, adding to an already considerable fuel load after a wet winter and above average spring growth. Let's hope that is not the situation again this season, member for Morphett.

This bill allows for what is reasonably required; it does not give a defence for removing significant trees or for desertification of the road verge. I think it is eminently sensible. None of us on this side who are in support of the bill—and I certainly hope the government also see fit to support the bill—denies the importance of roadside vegetation. Those corridors provide for native flora and native fauna biodiversity; sometimes it is also a haven for weeds, but landowners have some obligation to control those weeds and feral bushes. They do provide that corridor for biodiversity.

They also enhance the visual amenity of the landscape, aesthetic appeal, if you like. The loveliest thing about our farm landscape is to see a scattering of trees and often that is along the road corridors, but it is also critical that these corridors are managed appropriately. It has much to do with the risk of fire, but it is also about road safety. I would suggest that a wide road is a safe road on all counts, but I will come back to that later in my contribution. Specifically, this is about fire management and fire control. Often, the native vegetation along roadsides was surveyed in early days and they were generally one, two or three chains wide. It is an old term, I know, but generally they were 20, 40 or 60 metres wide, so there was ample room for a road and some native vegetation as well.

As well as providing a corridor for biodiversity, it also provides a corridor in which to carry a fire. I have seen how this can occur firsthand. Anybody who has been involved in battling a bushfire in a rural landscape understands full well how quickly a fire can gain control and literally roar along the roadside corridors. Many of these fires start on the roadsides, and I suspect that should we be better able to manage the vegetation and have it in a clearer state, then the risk of those fires proceeding to become greater would be even less.

For me, it is as much about road safety—and I have to say this because I said earlier that a wide road is a safe road and that goes without saying. We are confronted these days with the difficulty in clearing native vegetation. We are confronted with overhang. We are confronted with blind corners. We are confronted with narrow roads. We are confronted with significant trees. Certainly, councils do have some ability to make some roadside clearance, but it comes at a great cost to councils and ultimately a great cost to ratepayers because they have to pay to manage the vegetation on their roads to make them safe, which seems a rather bizarre way of doing it.

I think this bill is very timely because I have been thinking for some time, in fact, that we need to, as a parliament, have a broad review of the Native Vegetation Act. I think it is in some ways a hangover from the mid-1980s when broadscale land clearance was banned, and for better or for worse that is what occurred. Other states have followed, although I think in Queensland some land is still being brought into production. That is what we have, but I think since then we have seen successive governments become progressively more authoritarian and flexible with regard to native vegetation. They wield the big stick and woe betide anyone who bowls over a mallee because it is almost a hanging offence. It is not a hanging offence, but it can cost you thousands of dollars.

I do not believe that we can ever not manage our environment again. I think our species is in such numbers and we make such demands on our environment and our landscape that we can never not manage our environment again, but the days of managing the environment by shutting the gate are well and truly over. I believe it is an outdated notion. Examples of that exist both on land and sea, and our marine park sanctuary zones are a classic example. They have been discussed in the parliament and on the news in recent days, but they will not achieve any environmental outcomes. They will simply have a negative impact economically and I suggest the same occurs on land. I know the member for Stuart has properties in his electorate where the government has brought pastoral properties and literally shut the gate on them.

Mr van Holst Pellekaan interjecting:

Mr TRELOAR: Yes, the point I was getting to, member for Stuart, is that there is no management whatsoever on these properties. There is no production, nor is there any management, so feral animals, weeds and what have you run rampant. It must be about active management of the environment. It is possible to manage the environment and keep the landscape productive and I have seen this work. It can be productive and sustainable at the same time. Much of our farm landscape has more native vegetation or more vegetation on it than it did 30 or 40 years ago because land managers, landowners, and farmers in particular, have been very active in their revegetation efforts.

I believe a lot of that was down to the Landcare movement, which began in the 1980s and progressed well through the 1990s. It is somewhat sad for me to see that movement decline. Farmers are very conscious of their environment and how important it is to their businesses, so they have been active in fencing off creek lines, revegetating lower producing areas and conserving native vegetation that exists.

A lot of our landscape has more vegetation on it than it did 30 or 40 years ago, and I believe the time has come to give some credit for that. It is time to give credit to land managers, and I include farmers, local government, state governments and even developers who are looking to develop property in this definition of land manager. It is time to give those managers more flexibility and more credit for the work they have done and can do.

Dare I suggest that it may even be time to establish a system of credits. The member for Finniss mentioned Andy Gilfillan. Our Natural Resources Committee visited Kangaroo Island not too many months ago, and Andy was one of the local producers whom we met with. He flagged this idea, a system of accreditation whereby farmers could be rewarded for the environmental work that they have all done. I must say that the Kangaroo Island landscape is a productive and particularly pretty part of our state.

I think it is worth considering giving accreditation. It could result in greater market access and premiums for produce, and it might even establish a system of credits which can be accrued, banked or even traded. I think we need to develop this into a mature market. Theoretically, such credits could be bought and sold and the entire community would benefit. Offsets are often used by developers to achieve their native vegetation requirements, but by the use of such a system we could achieve a practical solution and deliver practical outcomes.

Ultimately, this could evolve into an environmental stewardship scheme, where producers can gain an advantage in marketing through their accreditation. I think it is worth exploring. I think we need to take any advantage we can in this competitive world and I can certainly foresee a day when our landscape is not just preserved but enhanced, and is productive, sustainable and safe as well.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (11:07): I rise to speak on the Native Vegetation (Road Verges) Amendment Bill introduced by the member for Morphett, which has been admirably supported by members on this side of the house to date. There are a number of things I want and I am going to list them, because it is budget day. I have spoken at length on each of them over the last 13 years, not much of which has been listened to, obviously.

Let's start with the parameters of the failing of the government to actively manage our environmental space and that includes our native vegetation. The overzealous determination to ensure that each tree, although it has a life, is somehow or other sacred and cannot be replaced adequately with other trees being grown I think has been a danger to our environment. I think it has been a danger to our road users. I think it has been an unproductive and unhelpful contribution to those who are trying to work the land for productive purposes, whether that is in farming and agriculture or other value-adding to the land.

These are the things that I want. Firstly, I want there to be sufficient clearance of the road verges as identified for road safety purposes to ensure that, particularly on narrow roads, people can easily traverse those in modern vehicles. Many of them are narrow in the Adelaide Hills area that I represent and in the Kangaroo Island area particularly, from which I have come. It is unacceptable that we have overhang and have to have a fight each time it is necessary to remove a tree to safely deal with that issue.

Secondly, fire management in the Adelaide Hills particularly is a problem, because of the incursion of urban space and urban dwellings and infrastructure flush up against national parks and road verges. That has to be dealt with, otherwise we continue to have unkempt growth and areas along road verges which only hasten both the fire travelling across the precinct and the capacity for people to get access.

Thirdly, I want decent division between national parks and built-up and urban areas. I think there should be at least 100 metres at the edge of those places. I have said this before: it is dangerous to expect our people to go into our emergency services areas without having sufficient area to pass other vehicles or to turn around safely. In the modern large vehicles that we are asking them to take into these areas—including tractors and the like, to clear, when necessary, and to put in firebreaks—it is just unacceptable. That must be dealt with.

For weed and pest management, but weed management in particular, road verges are again places in which there is a multiplication of this problem and a transfer of the problem without management. Why? Local councils say, 'Look, it's not our problem anymore,' and NRM says, 'We haven't got enough money to manage it,' so what do we have? We have a transfer of the uninvited and invasive pests and weeds in our area.

In terms of access through to the paddock, gates have to be sufficient. We now have this nonsense where there can only be access to a farmer's rural property at certain intervals, when there are already established fences and gates onto the road, usually for the purposes of stock transfer or access. It is just a nonsense to expect landowners, whatever they are doing on their land, to have to go miles around to access their property. It is just unacceptable.

Furthermore, where they do exist, these already provide a helpful firebreak to the road verges for people to be able to perform management with access for those vehicles through a gate, so that you do not have to unnecessarily cut down fences. I have raised all of these things before. I think the time has come when we just have to be able to review that issue.

Secondly, again, this has gone unheard, but I will say it again. I want access to roadside verges for councils to be able to harvest gravel and soil for road building. It is just ridiculous to think that councils—that is, ratepayers—are having to pay for access to landholdings to be able to take gravel where it is on the surface ready to be scraped up, pay money for it, pay for access to it and to remediate the land, to be able to put it on roads, sometimes hundreds of kilometres away. It is just absurd.

They ought to be able to take gravel and soil from the road verges. Sure, they should rehabilitate when the top gravel has been taken and moved along to another spot. I do not have any issue with that, but make it proximate to where the roadworks are. These works are not just one off. The roads have to be maintained regularly, and there should be accessibility and availability for councils to be able to take material from the road verges.

Finally, I want a space in the width of clearance between the boundary fence along the road verges from private or public property into the road verge area. The extent to which the metreage is allowed for the clearance either side of a boundary fence that abuts a verge, which is less than a tractor width, is absolutely ridiculous. How can you possibly build it and maintain it? You can build it just within the limit, but not maintain it and have a reasonable firebreak around it to protect it. It is utterly ridiculous and I want that fixed. That is just my list for this year.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (11:13): I am pleased to support this matter brought to the house by the member for Morphett. Roadside vegetation has become a real bugbear for people, particularly those living in rural areas. It has become a battleground for the environmentalists. Let me inform the house that some 20 per cent of South Australia is already locked up in our national parks and conservation park system. The Green movement and the conservationists have, over a number of years now, stopped sensible use of our roadsides, because of their desire to preserve native vegetation.

Let me tell the house that I am a strong supporter of preserving our native vegetation. I would hazard a guess that I have probably planted more native vegetation and broader species of native vegetation across the landscape in South Australia than anybody else in the parliament. Some of my farming colleagues may choose to differ on that, but I have spent a lifetime raising native species from seed and planting them, particularly on my farm, where I am undertaking that work continually. Indeed, there will be a lot more native vegetation on the land that I manage and have had the pleasure of managing during my lifetime at the end of that lifetime than there was at the beginning.

I am a strong supporter of replanting native vegetation, and I have argued many times in this place that without managing the existing native vegetation—and some of my colleagues have used the term 'by locking the gate'—when those species come to the end of their natural life, they will not be replaced, particularly on roadsides. In my part of the world the roadsides have been invaded by Australian phalaris and I can assure you not too many native species can compete with Australian phalaris. They just do not germinate and, even if they did under surprising conditions, they would not compete and they would not survive.

The reality is that we can do a much better job managing the roadsides. The member for Morphett brought this matter to the attention of the house mainly because of the fire danger. I recall that many lives were lost in 1983 in my part of the world and some of those were as a direct result of the amount of fuel on the roadside. In subsequent disasters across the state, I believe that has been repeated. I am not sure whether other members have mentioned this, and I apologise if they have, but when I talk to crash repairers in my part of the world—and I do that fairly regularly out of necessity—in the two major towns in my electorate, Millicent and Naracoorte, all of the crash repairers I talk to suggest to me that about 85 per cent of their business is directly related to feral animals jumping in front of cars—

Mr van Holst Pellekaan: Native animals.

Mr WILLIAMS: Native animals—feral native animals. I know they are native but they are bloody feral.

Mr Pederick: Don't worry. I got rid of one of them.

Mr WILLIAMS: Yes, Peds cleaned one up near my place—kangaroos in particular, wallabies to a lesser extent, but also feral animals on the Coorong—and I say to people these days I reckon I see more feral deer than kangaroos. Whatever it is, it is an incredible hazard on our roads in country areas and it is exacerbated by the fact that the native vegetation has been allowed to grow close to the road verge, and that causes huge problems for people in most country areas.

There are a number of reasons why this matter should be taken seriously by the house. It would certainly provide an opportunity for us not only to make our roadsides much safer from both fire and native feral animals but also it will give us an opportunity to manage the roadside vegetation in a way that ensures we have a better representation of the native vegetation that was endemic in the various regions across the state before white settlement, and I think that is a very important thing to do.

These ideals are not mutually exclusive. The way that we manage roadsides now assumes that they are mutually exclusive. I can assure the house that they are not. The cost to road building authorities, whether it be the state government, federal government or more particularly local councils, is huge because of the obligations they have in regard to native vegetation. I think that is an outrage, too, and a number of my colleagues have already mentioned that. I give this matter my full support. I would like to see the bill broadened out to achieve some of these other worthwhile outcomes.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (11:19): I too rise to give support to the member for Morphett's bill, along with many members on this side of the house who have demonstrated their concern about what unregulated native vegetation does on our roadside verges in particular.

In my electorate there are a number of highways, both federal and state, that have native vegetation issues. In particular, our local government roads are continuing to see more and more native vegetation grow, unregulated and out of control in a lot of cases, not only because of their budget constraints but the regulations, particularly from native veg authorities, the EPA and the greenie groups. I notice there are a number of them that get around. They think they are the custodians of keeping our roads, essentially, unsafe, creating bushfire hazards, creating habitat for our native animals.

Just as importantly, and as I think some have mentioned, it is the line of sight, particularly on the local government roads. They are narrow. We are seeing, particularly in my electorate with the closure of grain on rail (it is now going onto road), more pressure on our smaller roads, particularly with transport operators getting from farm to receivals. Without responsible native veg clearance we are going to see more and more accidents.

During my time on the select grains committee there were a number of transport operators who had grave fears for their drivers' safety, particularly trucks passing one another on roads, taking one another's mirrors out, sideswiping one another because they cannot see. There is native vegetation encroaching onto the verge, encroaching almost onto the shoulder of the road in some cases, and that could be alleviated by this simple amendment to the act.

I think it is a sensible amendment. I am disturbed that I have not seen any government members get up and make a contribution because I am sure they would be saying to their constituents that they would like to uphold road safety, they would like to uphold the fire hazards that encroaching native vegetation does have. This is something that has been tried to be addressed many times. I know the member for Morphett has brought this amendment to the house before. As we know, he is a very persistent member and I think he will continue to push this case until he actually gets the amendment up.

So, for those who are listening to these contributions, I think they should be taken on board. They should give consideration to the outcome. It is about responsible vegetation clearance. I have seen the member for Morphett's wife's property at Meadows and the immaculate condition of his roadside verges and areas. They are clean and they are maintained. It is all about pride. It is all about safety. It is all about reducing fire risk. It is also about helping out CFS volunteers because anyone knows that in fighting a fire, when it comes up to road verges and onto road areas, if that fire hits that road area that has native vegetation and undergrowth it is almost an accelerant. It helps it jump the road and move on into the neighbour's property. So, that is another consideration.

One issue I do have, particularly with one of my federal highways that has, obviously, private property adjoining it with fence lines, is that we see federal highways and state highways actually deviate around native vegetation. In contrast, we see the installation of NBN cables on the sides of all sorts of highways and they just bulldoze straight over the top. I would like to know what the difference is there that they have to build a road (at the cost of millions of dollars) around native veg and yet the NBN just bulldoze straight through.

I know that many people, particularly in my electorate, were the recipients of a lot of firewood, a lot of stumps, a lot of mallee, all for the reason of putting a cable in the ground, and yet when we build a road we go around those same trees. So, it is about responsible clearance. It is about responsible ownership of land. It is about engaging landowners to undertake being tidy and reducing risk. It is about helping out our local government and it is about helping out our state government. It is not just about helping them out and keeping our road verges clear, it is about helping them out with fire safety, that line of sight and, in particular, hitting native animals.

I note that the member for MacKillop is a regular native animal splitter, because he has many native animals down there. I have hit native animals down there, as has he, as has the member for Hammond, as have many people on this side because—

Mr Pederick interjecting:

Mr WHETSTONE: Well, even the bull bars cannot keep up with it sometimes. As I keep on saying, it really is about responsible land clearing of native vegetation on road verges. It does provide people with the ability to undertake reasonable fuel load reduction; in this case, on those road verges.

As I have said, the road safety issue cannot be talked about often enough. I think we need to keep reminding government, the legislators, particularly people making decisions on the other side of this house, sadly, that the use of hydro axes, the use of rotary saws and mulches, the commercial sector are doing a great job, but there is more to be done and that can be done by private landowners. Giving them that responsibility, there is a sense of pride and a sense of keeping our roadside verges tidy, keeping native animals from breeding and hiding in there so that when the member for MacKillop comes along he does not hit and split another one.

I guess there are many issues when it comes to keeping our roadside vegetation tidy and regulated. I do accept the fact that road verges can provide very important habitat, but we have to have regulated habitat. We can actually keep our roadside verges tidy and we can also have a habitat that is a great home for animals, a great home in the right places, and keep bushfires to a minimum and those fuel loads to a minimum. Again, it is about that line of sight. Those who drive trucks or semitrailers on narrow roads will know how scary it is approaching another semitrailer with overhanging native vegetation, making sure that you do not take one another out on those narrow roads.

Without further ado, I give my full support to the member for Morphett with this amendment to the Native Vegetation Act. If the government were serious about engaging landowners to be responsible, to help reduce the costs of those road verges, to make our state a better and safer state with less fire risk, they will support this motion.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (11:27): I am pleased to speak in support of the bill the member for Morphett brings to the house. Representing an electorate based predominantly in the Adelaide Hills—which, as we all know, is regarded as a high fire risk region, and not only in this state; the whole of Australia regards the Adelaide Hills as a high fire risk region—I like to speak to matters that come before the house that relate to fire management and other issues.

The member for Morphett brings a reasonable proposition to the house, a sensible approach to bushfire management issues. I know that this particular matter, relating to the sensible clearance of road verges, has been raised by a number of CFS brigade captains within the Adelaide Hills and down the northern part of the Fleurieu. I think the member for Morphett and I have had a conversation with a particular CFS volunteer who has very strong views in relation to this issue.

I recall having meetings and briefings and gathering information, particularly from the previous chief officer of the CFS, Mr Euan Ferguson. Mr Ferguson spoke at length about the need to manage the smaller level of fuel that would allow a fire to catch on and continue, particularly clearing around home properties and things of that nature. The small fuel is probably the diameter of a pencil. Mr Ferguson used to hold up his pen and say, 'This is the sort of level of fuel that will continue a fire burning.' I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

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