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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
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Motions

World Environment Day

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (10:42): I move:

That this house—

(a) acknowledges that 5 June was UN World Environment Day;

(b) acknowledges the importance of a healthy environment in South Australia; and

(c) commits to protecting South Australia's environment.

In moving this motion, I would like to talk about just how serious the challenges facing our environment are and how important it is that we use every measure we can, particularly an appreciation of the importance of science, in dealing with the challenges of the environment. Let's talk about why we care and why it matters. We are utterly dependent on this planet. We are utterly dependent on a number of the features of this planet and the environment within it for the way in which we sustain our lifestyles. Predictable weather is one of those elements.

The last glacial period ended about 10,000 years ago, and we have had what is in world history a relatively peaceful and stable 10,000 years of climate. That has enabled humans to establish agriculture. It has led us to be able to have settlements, to not have to lead peripatetic lifestyles, where we are hunting for food that moves and exist through famine and drought, but to establish and rely upon agriculture to sustain settlements, which means that we have been able to create the immense complex civilisations that we now live in. I suspect that, until very recently, we have taken that for granted—10,000 years is a long time—and humans have become accustomed to being able to expect the seasons and the rainfall within a tolerance of variability.

We are utterly dependent on plentiful fish stocks. The oceans have from time immemorial supported human existence through the bountiful and plentiful supply of fish stocks that have fed us. We are dependent on pollination services performed by bees, other insects and birdlife, which have enabled us in this agricultural revolution to be able to sustain the health of the plants on which we depend and with which we feed the animals that many people eat. We have become utterly dependent for the same reason on arable soil, soil that is healthy, that is able to be tilled and that is able to sustain repeated use by humans for crops.

We are dependent on clean water, water that does not poison people, that may require some purification or effort but is healthy and potable. We require clear air. If anyone thinks back to what London was like in the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution or looks at the way Beijing has been until very recently and sometimes still is, we see the impact of not having clean air on the health of the population. Coal has killed countless numbers of human beings through their lungs both in mining and then in living too close to unhealthy factories.

We are dependent on renewable resources being plentifully available, such as timber for manufacturing our settlements and for creating heat. We are dependent on the service of carbon sinks: the capacity that this planet has shown to absorb the amount of carbon that we have been releasing since the Industrial Revolution, to absorb that and recycle it.

There are many other services that the planet provides to us, but these are just a few of the very significant ones on which we are dependent. That is what we need. There is also the question of what humans love. Humans love the wilderness. Humans love to see and experience nature. If you have had an opportunity to go snorkelling over a coral reef, you know what that experience is like; not only is it important to the health of the ecosystem in the ocean on which we are dependent for food but it is a pleasure that is hard to compare.

Humans are inspired by nature, some less than others. Some like to see nature through the television screen and some like to know that nature exists but not have to experience it themselves, but there is something fundamental to being human to appreciate the value of nature and to experience it. That is why World Environment Day exists, because at least on that one day across the planet we acknowledge and celebrate what the environment gives us. However, there are many serious threats, and I have discussed these previously, glancingly, in this session of parliament, but I would like to go into a bit more detail.

I know that not every person in this chamber accepts the reality of human-caused climate change, but I think the vast majority do, and that pleases me. Let's look at some of the evidence. The 2016 year was the warmest year on record. The record started about 1880. Within that year, eight of the months were the warmest months on record for each of those months. The planet's surface since about 1880 has, on average, risen by 1.1º Celsius. Sixteen of the last 17 years were the warmest on record. We have seen an increase in extreme weather events, some of which are extreme cold some of which are cyclones, some of which are droughts, which this state in particular has suffered from, and of course droughts and hot winds later in the season also beget the most awful fires of which we live in constant fear.

We are also seeing mass extinction. Most scientists now concur that we are experiencing for the planet, since life began, the sixth of our great extinctions, and this one it seems is almost completely, if not completely, caused by human activity. The loss of habitat, the increase in feral or pest animals and plants, excessive hunting and the poisons that we are putting into our planet all have contributed to escalating the natural rate or the non-extinction event rate of extinction.

Some scientists estimate that we are now at a thousand times the natural rate between mass extinctions of losing our animals and plants on which we are so dependent. If this sixth mass extinction conforms to the experience of the previous five, we are likely to lose something like 75 per cent of our species. We see fisheries collapse, fisheries that are not managed the way we manage South Australian and Australian fisheries, where we manage for sustainability. We see in some other countries the catastrophic collapse of fisheries where the taking of the animals is done recklessly and without a view towards sustainability, towards making sure that the next generation can be born.

The threat of pollution and the concomitant threat of waste is absolutely to be taken seriously. While in Australia and in many advanced industrialised economies we have enormous gains in our standards, regulated through the EPA, of what is acceptable in pollution, we are all interconnected on this planet. Those countries—many from where we buy products—that are polluting their rivers, their air and, of course, the ocean, are causing difficulties, challenges and the threat of catastrophe for the whole earth.

I recently saw a documentary called Blue. It was shown at Semaphore at the Odeon, a magnificent cinema if you get a chance to pop by. It was a fundraiser for a local estuary group. Blue is all about the challenges and threats to our ocean. One that we do not talk about nearly enough is the way that plastic has made its way into the waste stream and out into the ocean such that shearwater babies on Lord Howe Island are having plastic given to them by their parents. They are trying to fish for squid, but are force-feeding their chicks with bits of plastic.

Scientists are able to manipulate the stomachs of these birds and hear the rustling and crunching of plastic. Those birds are not thriving. Those birds are not migrating successfully. To see a chick having to regurgitate a pen nib or the cap of a bottle says everything you need to know about how wanton we have collectively been and what we have taken for granted. These products make our lives easy but are not necessary to us. We must get on top of our management of waste.

That can sound gloomy—and it is. We face very serious challenges, but we have a state and a nation full of people who care about this: people who have gone before who have established environment agencies, environment protection agencies and environment laws; landholders who have gone from being paid to clear to understanding the importance of native vegetation to the health of their farms; and Aboriginal people, who have learned for tens of thousands of years to live peacefully and sustainably within this environment and who have so much to teach us. We see in the effort of NRM the way in which landholders, Aboriginal people and people who just care about the health of the environment have been able to work together.

I pay tribute to all those people who have worked so hard on NRM. I pay tribute to people who are part of a local planting organisation, who go down to the Semaphore dunes, say, and help make sure that those dunes are kept coherent and in place through vegetation. I pay tribute to the people who work in the environment department, who are often criticised—and often in the past, when I have been sitting here, criticised in this chamber—but who have dedicated their working lives to making sure that our environment is as healthy and sustainable as possible and that landholders and land users are able to extract maximum benefit and so, too, their children, their grandchildren and so on.

I would also like to pay tribute to those who advocate for the environment, those who are in environment groups that pester politicians. It can be a thankless task. I was very active in the environment movement when I was a university student. Although I was a member of the Labor Party, under the end days of the Bannon government lobbying did not feel any different whichever party I was lobbying. It was about making government change its mind on an issue.

While we in this chamber can sometimes be irritated or dismissive of people who lobby us, we should never allow ourselves to feel that way. People who have dedicated their working lives, their volunteer lives or their professional lives to trying to make our laws and institutions stronger are doing all of us a service.

I would particularly like to acknowledge the importance of the Conservation Council as the umbrella body in South Australia. Many years ago, I was on the board of the Conservation Council and I know that it is a very broad church. It covers a very wide range of environmental organisations, each one of them dedicated to sustaining our lives in the best possible way alongside the ecosystems and individual species that we share this planet with.

I would also like to pay tribute to the Wilderness Society, an organisation that I was very involved with many years ago. They brought in an act called the Wilderness Protection Act—our predecessors in parliament brought in the act, but they lobbied for it. It happened in a bipartisan way because of the effort of that organisation and the fact that the community agreed that there should be parts of this state that are completely protected.

Here is the challenge to the present government. Although it was brought in immediately before the previous Liberal government came into office, it was not once used by that government. The state Labor government then used it and declared many areas protected. The challenge to the new government is whether they will add to the wilderness protection areas, and whether they will make sure that no threat is ever made to those areas. Without making sure that the very best of our wilderness is protected, we will be unable to sustain that complex network of ecosystem services and landscape protection on which we—farmers, Aboriginal people, people who live in regional communities and, of course, we in Adelaide—are all so dependent.

Adelaide would be nothing without the bush. Adelaide would be nothing without primary producers. We all have a stake in that being healthy, not just now, not just for this time, but forever, and that means dealing with climate change, dealing with ecosystem destruction and dealing with extinctions. I have high hopes that across this chamber we will be able to do that together.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (10:57): I thank the deputy leader for bringing this motion to the house to recognise World Environment Day and, more broadly, to reflect on the value and the importance of our natural environment here in South Australia and across our nation and internationally. We should never underestimate the value of protecting our natural environment. Our environment not only sustains the health and wellbeing of our society in South Australia, but the sustainability of our environment also underpins a significant portion of our state's economy.

I believe that for a long time we have overlooked or perhaps not placed enough value on the sustainability of our agricultural landscape in this state. We need to place value on the knowledge and understanding of those who manage that landscape on a day in, day out basis. We need to partner with those people around the concept of sustainable agriculture. We need to recognise that those people who manage our landscape for the production of food and other resources have the most to lose when it comes to the potential decline or collapse of the productivity of those landscapes.

The new government does place significant value on our natural environment, but perhaps our approach will be slightly more nuanced when it comes to valuing the knowledge and understanding of those people who work our environment day in and day out. The new state government has made it very clear that natural resources management in our state is an area in which we want to undertake some significant reforms. We believe in integrated natural resources management, the bringing together of water catchment management, the work around sustaining the quality of our soils, and dealing with pest plants and animals. That is a good approach, and the first principles of that approach are incredibly valuable.

However, what we had real concerns about under the previous government—and I am not taking away from the first body of work to create integrated natural resources management—what I am critical of, is the increasing centralisation of decision-making around natural resources management that took place in the previous government and a feeling, intentional or not, that the knowledge and understanding, particularly of regional communities and of people working on the ground, was diminished. This led to a reduction in goodwill and a reduction in healthy, successful working partnerships with people working on the ground, not just farmers and land managers but also friends groups and conservation organisations.

It has been really interesting to hear the across-the-board, united resolve from the environmental sector—from producers right through to advocacy groups which may or may not be seen to be aligned with my side of politics—the united concern that under the previous government that centralised approach to environmental management got worse and worse throughout the 16 years of Labor government. There is an opportunity to reset that with the repeal of the Natural Resources Management Act.

This is a reform that I hope can work across the chamber in a bipartisan way and across politics in this state to create a piece of legislation which is more likely to cement, in legislative terms, those partnerships with our communities and with key stakeholders in the community, from conservation groups to friends groups to ag bureaus to NRM groups and Landcare groups. In particular, it is important to value the role of local government when it comes to on-the-ground environmental management and try to cement those relationship in legislation, valuing those partnership and realising that those partnerships can potentially deliver more bang for the buck, more effect of use of resources on the ground.

Our NRM reforms will be worked through in a detailed engagement process across the state, particularly focused on regional communities, and done in a way that respects those who use the land on a day-to-day basis, acknowledging that they have the most to lose by the failure to sustain our natural environment and creating a framework in which they can sustain their livelihoods but also feel that their input into environmental management is valued. I want that to be the hallmark of my time as environment minister, and I hope it is the hallmark of the time the Liberal Party spends in government in this state.

I also hope that the reforms we undertake when it comes to natural resources management in our state are undertaken with a bipartisan spirit and that I can work alongside the deputy leader in developing those reforms in a way that underpins those first principles of integrated natural resources management, which I believe was actually the aim of the previous Labor government when they brought these into being in the mid-2000s.

Much of our approach to environmental management in this state will be based around practical environmentalism. We are very keen to partner with the community to undertake work from which our communities can see tangible outcomes. NRM reform forms a significant part of that, but so does our focus on coast protection. I see—and many people share this view—our coast as the first frontier when it comes to climate change adaptation and mitigation in an immediate sense of what happens in our state.

So the new government is looking very closely at how we manage our 5,067 kilometres of precious coastline in this state and has made a very clear commitment to increasing investment in the preservation and management of that coastline. In the short term, we will be looking at more sand replenishment, but in the medium term we will be looking at a significant increase in research and development along our coastlines, specifically looking at how we can sustain our beaches and particularly our metropolitan beaches, because that is the real pinch point when it comes to the pressures of climate change due to the significant population of Adelaide which uses and enjoys those coastal environments.

There is also an opportunity through our increased funding to restore seagrass meadows, and trigger potentially a blue carbon industry as well, and enhance the opportunities for carbon sequestration. It is thinking which had begun under the previous government to an extent and which I am certainly keen to drive forward.

I want to talk briefly about the creation of Glenthorne national park, the valuing of a huge open space corridor which stretches from the foothills behind Happy Valley through to the sea at Hallett Cove and Marino. It is an area that has languished for a couple of decades with no clear vision for it. This government is absolutely committed to saying that that land must stay as open space. It must be invested in when it comes to revegetation.

The community must be able to access that land, to enjoy it, to help us with that restoration work and to be able to create a corridor of some 1,500 hectares of open space which is preserved for future generations. I think the previous premier two premiers ago, premier Rann, described that site as the 'lungs of the south', and what an opportunity that creates for the urban environment to have a lasting tract of open space created.

The Liberal government is going to have a significant focus on valuing our national parks, putting them at the forefront of the work of my department and of the government. We will be investing in national parks, looking where we can create opportunities for the community to value those where possible and to really push forward those natural assets and say, 'We value these. We want to invest in them. We want to build them up. Their preservation is critical.' Wilderness areas form part of that. The deputy leader mentioned the value of wilderness areas, and that will be part of the focus of this government as well.

We will be increasing the number of rangers by more than 20 per cent in the coming years, valuing coalface environmental activity. Our focus is unashamedly around practical environmental outcomes. I look forward to updating the chamber on those and working with the opposition in a bipartisan way to sustain our natural environment.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (11:07): I rise to support this motion. I congratulate the deputy leader on bringing this forward to acknowledge that yesterday was UN World Environment Day, to acknowledge the importance of a healthy environment in South Australia and of course other places as well and to commit to protecting the environment. I think it is a terrific motion that we all support. It is a pleasure to follow also the Minister for Environment and Water, who is off to an outstanding start in this new role. It is a pleasure to work with him. He brings genuine interest, genuine care for the environment and also a very important practical approach to the job.

In the electorate of Stuart, every day is Environment Day. It is not just 5 June; every day is Environment Day in our electorate. I have never actually counted them up, but I suspect that in our electorate we would have more national parks, conservation reserves and other types of public land set aside with protections focused on the environment than probably any other electorate in this state. I value that and the people of Stuart value that very highly. We have some extraordinary places in the outback, in the Flinders Ranges, in Upper Spencer Gulf, and moving down into the Mid North, some very large and very well-known and some very small places like Appila Springs near the small town of Appila between Booleroo and Jamestown. It is a remarkable and very special and very small protected area.

As the member for Stuart, I wholeheartedly support this. I also recognise that the most important people, in regard to humans having a connection with the environment, are Aboriginal people, who hold a long-term and ongoing connection to their country. They are people whose immediate families, recent predecessors and ancestors for tens of thousands of years have had a connection to their country and their country going back more than a couple of hundred years ago, when it was actually pure country with no weeds, no feral animals and the environment was as we would expect it to be.

Those people lived in, worked with and were part of that country in a pure way, which, unfortunately, we will not see again on our planet. We can work to restore things as much as possible and working with Aboriginal people, to understand and benefit from their knowledge to make that restoration as successful as possible, is very important.

The deputy leader mentioned climate change. I agree with her when she says that most people here would believe that man-made impacts are changing the climate. The reality is, though, that even if a person, hypothetically, does not believe in that, we should reduce pollution as much as we can anyway. Even if we do not think that pollution is changing climate, guess what? It is still making a mess. It is still damaging our environment even if, hypothetically, it is not changing our climate. Let's just put that stuff aside, which can be a divide in society and politics—not much in this chamber to be quite blunt—and let's commit ourselves to reducing pollution as much as we possibly can. I will come to a few practicalities about that in a few minutes.

I would like to touch on our government's intention to rearrange the way the environment is dealt with from a government perspective, at least, and the move away from the existing NRM boards towards more of a landscape and integrated approach. That is our government's intention. It is what we are doing and it is what we support for a range of reasons, because we want to get some better results and we want to have a government-led process that contributes to communities as well.

In my discussions with the Minister for Environment and Water, I made it very clear that, in my experience in my electorate the people who work in NRM boards are overwhelmingly appreciated by the communities, no more so than in the pastoral area, where, at times, there is some friction about business objectives and environmental objectives. It is not that environmentalists deny the importance of commerce and not that business operators deny the importance of the environment, but sometimes it is challenging to address both simultaneously and get results for both.

Even in the midst of those discussions, pastoralists in the north of our state, and I am sure it is true in the electorate of Giles as well, genuinely appreciate the work that the people on the NRM boards are doing. That is true in the southern parts of Stuart as well. I know that the people who are skilled, capable, focused and making a terrific contribution under the system that we are moving away from will have an important role to play in the system that we move towards over time, albeit a system that we think will be better for our state.

I would like to come back to the issue of balance and practicality. I am not a purist in the sense of saying we should surrender everything to benefit another side of the argument as much as possible. We are humans, we are living on the planet, there are some realities about us being here and we just have to find the very best way for us to get on in a comfortable, productive, socially responsible and sustainable way that damages our environment as little as possible. A varying range of views on where the balance should be is really what creates most of the debate around the place.

I touched on pastoral people before and the benefit that they see in existing departmental staff. They and I and my colleagues on this side of the chamber had been very disappointed in the centralisation of NRM boards. They were distinct, individual organisations with their own operating responsibilities. They still maintain some of that but within what has until now been the Department of Environment, Water and National Resources. That centralisation has not helped the environment and has not helped communities in the country either.

The Minister for Environment and Water touched on landholders, farmers, graziers, croppers and pastoralists. They are the people most in touch with the environment in a commercial sense. They are the people living on it; they are the people who require it. Let me say that responsible farmers and responsible graziers overwhelmingly make up farmers and graziers. Where would we be without them in an environmental context, particularly in the pastoral zone? Where on earth would we be with regard to protecting our environment if it were not for pastoralists operating in that part of the world? I can tell you: we would be overrun with weeds and we would be overrun with feral animals. We need those people and we appreciate those people.

There are some really practical opportunities that have been missed, though, by the previous government. I remember that one of my colleagues put forward a bill to allow freehold landowners to clear the vegetation between their fence line and the roadside, which would reduce fire risk and improve visibility for drivers. That was knocked back. I do not think our environment is going to suffer at all if an adjoining landholder is allowed to clear the vegetation, native and otherwise, between the fence and the road for those benefits—that thin, thin strip. That is something that I think is important.

I think there are other road clearing issues from a safety perspective, particularly on the outback highways: the Barrier Highway, the Stuart Highway and the Eyre Highway. Some greater clearance of the vegetation on the sides of those roads would not damage the environment but it would make travelling on those roads, particularly at night, much safer. As the Minister for Energy and Mining, of course, this is a very important issue for me.

In my short time in this role, it has become clear to me that the department of energy and mining has a very good constructive and positive working relationship with what has been DEWNR and is about to be the Department for Environment and Water. We value that relationship. We value the contribution of that department towards the work that we do to try to responsibly unlock the resources that we have in our state—mining, petroleum and otherwise—for the benefit of South Australians.

We on this side of the house will never support projects that are environmentally irresponsible, and we welcome the contribution of people both when it comes to an operational aspect and what is actually happening on the ground in those industries, but also with regard to their impact on pollution more broadly. I wholeheartedly support the motion and I thank the deputy leader for bringing it to the house.

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (11:18): I also rise to support this motion. In doing so, I feel somewhat conflicted. When we look at the environmental challenges that we face, there is a part of me that is a pessimist but there is also a part of me that is an optimist. I know that the intelligence and creativity of people as a species is almost infinite, but because we are flawed I know that there are parts of our character that find it very difficult to get beyond the short term, to get beyond the desire, if you like, for convenience, for profit and for a whole range of things that have the potential to put at serious risk the biosphere that we are so dependent upon.

It was one of my incredibly pleasurable duties, when first re-elected, to visit just beyond Olympic Dam to Arid Recovery. Arid Recovery is an example of a small area of land that has been dedicated to the reintroduction of species that used to be rampant in South Australia and elsewhere in Australia: the bettongs, the bilbies, the stick-nest rats, and a range of other species.

Part of Arid Recovery has an electrified fence, and there is another fenced area where there is an attempt at the reintroduction. In about 1996, when the calicivirus was released, which reached up into the Roxby Downs area, it provided an opportunity to do some real work when it came to feral animals, especially when it came to rabbits, but of course there are also cats and wild dogs. We actually support the initiatives that have been taken by the new government when it comes to the wild dog baiting program and the employment of two extra trappers. I think that is a worthwhile initiative.

This small area near Olympic Dam is a demonstration of the sorts of challenges that we face because it is just a small area. The impact of feral animals and feral flora has been incredibly significant in this country. We should be out there supporting these efforts. It was good to go up there to open the education centre. The Arid Recovery is an example of the private sector, the public sector and non-government organisations working together to get good results. We see that sort of effort all throughout our state.

However, the pessimistic part of me comes back to the sheer scale of the challenges that we face, and these are global challenges. We can talk about doing the small practical stuff, but there are major systemic issues that we have to address. There have been some recent biomass studies carried out on a planetary level, and there is always a significant margin of error in these studies, but as a species, when it comes to biomass, we represent 0.01 per cent of the biomass of the planet.

This 0.01 per cent of the biomass has managed to destroy 83 per cent of the wild mammals that existed on this planet. That is a profound impact and we are going on having these profound impacts. There are now 7.6 billion of us on this planet, and that number is going to grow to just under 10 billion, possibly over 10 billion. In countries like Australia and the United States, in Europe and Japan, we do live in a way that places enormous strains on the planet. This is not getting on a soapbox and saying, 'Aren't we terrible?' because in a way we are all part of this. I look at my household and the material demands that we have. All those material demands come at a cost if we do not get sustainability right.

The impact is profound, and the environmental questions that we face as a species are the most profound questions that we face. Increasingly—and we have already seen it when it comes to climate change—there is going to be a clash between the accumulation of the scientific evidence about our impacts and the economic and the social systems that we have developed in recent centuries. That is going to be a profound clash, because there are incredibly powerful vested interests that will want us to continue on the path that we have already adopted.

Back in 2009, in order to assist with decision-making processes, a group of scientists got together and started working on what the planetary boundaries are. They asked, 'What are the things we cannot pass or if, we do pass, there will be incredibly negative consequences?' They came up with nine of these planetary boundaries. Climate change was the first, and that is a boundary that we have already passed. In their work, they said that we have to try not to go past 350 parts per million of CO2 equivalent in the atmosphere, and we are well beyond that now.

The empirical evidence is out there in the changes that we are starting to experience. These are unprecedented changes. It is incredibly disturbing. The merchants of doubt are still out there doing their incredibly destructive work. Climate change is one of those boundaries. The change in the biosphere integrity was another one, and that was about habitat loss and species loss. We are entering into the sixth great species extinction. The rate of species loss is massively beyond the normal background rate that you would expect. This is potentially going to have profound consequences.

One area where we are having a bit of success is stratospheric ozone depletion. We are slowly turning that around with some of the international agreements that were entered into. God knows, if we had had the Trumps of the world in power back then—because it was Margaret Thatcher and others who were heavily involved in this, some with a scientific background—we would have got absolutely nowhere. Ocean acidification, of course, is really related to climate change.

Another planetary boundary is biogeochemical flows, essentially, those great cycles, the phosphorus and the nitrogen cycles. Nutrients are incredibly important. We put a lot on the land, but the plants do not get to use most of what we put on the land. Most of it ends up in riverine systems, ocean systems or the atmosphere. A lot of land system change is being driven by agriculture, especially in countries overseas. We are starting to get on top of that in Australia, but we still have some way to go. Freshwater use was another one of the boundaries. Atmospheric aerosol loading and submicroscopic particles in the atmosphere affect climate and also health and organisms. There is also the introduction of novel entities: organic pollutants, radioactive materials, nanoparticles and microplastics.

On a number of these boundaries, in fact four of these boundaries, we are already exceeding what the science is saying. I will say that there is a degree of uncertainty about that science. It is not black and white. So when I say that we are facing incredibly profound challenges as a species, we are. We can come back to that local level. We can do a lot of things that are good on that local level, but if on a state level, a national level and a global level we do not have robust frameworks that we can really implement then we are going to hand this world on to our kids and their kids in a highly degraded state.

I do not think there is any question about this. I think scientists are tearing their hair out because our political system is not responding in the way that it should. It is not putting the long-term public interest ahead of some of the shorter term gains to be generated.

Mr DULUK (Waite) (11:28): I also rise to speak to this motion, and I thank the deputy leader for bringing it before the house. I will talk a bit about the environment and the importance of the environment and open space to my community, which is home to so many wonderful reserves and places such as the Belair National Park. I will also talk a little bit about the new government's agenda and the new minister's agenda in this space. I must commend him for his zeal for protecting the environment and ensuring that South Australia has the best environmental policies going forward.

In the lead-up to the 2018 state election, the Liberal Party took a comprehensive suite of practical environmental policies to the people of South Australia. I think it is very important, as we continue through these debates over the coming years, that the hallmark of the Liberal government in this policy space, I hope, will be practical environmentalism. We took reform of natural resources management to the people of South Australia: coastal protection; more park rangers, which is really important in my electorate; and, of course, the establishment of the Glenthorne national park.

In watching the debate over previous years, I was reminded that the then Labor government was more about noise, platitudes and appealing to the PC brigade than actual practical environmental outcomes. As I said, we are going to be very much dedicated to practical environmental outcomes. The one that sticks out to me the most is when former minister Hunter made all this noise about the River Murray and used foul language at a restaurant in Adelaide to get a headline.

That is what the former Labor government was about: it was about a headline on the River Murray, a headline on climate change or a headline on so many issues. Of course, the biggest hypocrisy of the then Labor government was in energy when they backed up South Australia's energy system with dirty diesel generators, the dirtiest of energy producers known to man. But this new government will not be focused on PR: it will be focused on practical environmental outcomes

World Environment Day began in 1974 and is now celebrated in over 100 countries. The theme for World Environment Day 2018 is Beat Plastic Pollution. I think the deputy leader, in her contribution, had some very wise words about what we can do to tackle plastic pollution in our environment, especially our waterways.

The Department for Environment and Water has a three-year grant agreement with the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society to stage the World Environment Fair and this year it was held last weekend. I know that the minister was at the Royal Showgrounds for the fair, spruiking the important work that it does. The first World Environment Fair was held in 2017 in Adelaide and held again, as I said, on 2 and 3 June. About 10,000 people attended the fair in 2017.

The World Environment Fair aims to promote lifelong positive engagement with our environment; celebrate our environment on local, national and global levels; promote consistent engagement with our local environment throughout the year; increase awareness and understanding on conservation issues, which is so important; provide accessible and effective actions for positive contributions to the environment; and highlight environmental initiatives in South Australia, including the activities of the department.

Something that I want to touch on at a local level is the establishment by this government of Glenthorne national park, which is so important, and also the investment in more park rangers. That is something that will really play out in my community, as I said, with Belair National Park, Wirraparinga and Warriparinga reserves, Brownhill Creek reserve, Sturt Gorge and many other fantastic reserves in my electorate.

If there was ever a group of people who provide solid, community-focused, practical environmental support and expertise to people of all ages it is our park rangers. The previous government's obliteration of the number of park rangers damaged our national parks—something the new government now needs to fix. The Weatherill government slashed the number of park rangers from over 300 in 2002 to only 93 in 2018, leaving our national and conservation parks open to a range of problems.

In a park of such importance as the Belair National Park, if it were not for the dedicated work of the Friends of Belair National Park—led so well by their president, Mark Pedlar—who on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays do working bees to eradicate feral pests and plant species from the park, work that in previous years would have been done by rangers, we do not know where we would be at the moment. I am very proud that this government will increase the number of rangers by 20 per cent across South Australia.

I am also pleased that this government will be responsible for establishing another national park in our southern suburbs. I can attest to the value of having open space in my community and I, like most South Australians, am extremely excited by the prospect of a new national park at Glenthorne. I must commend the minister, the member for Black, for his efforts in prosecuting this case. An amount of $10 million has been committed over four years to make the new Glenthorne national park, which will link a number of discrete but geographically linked portions of land in Adelaide's southern suburbs that have the potential to be converted into an environmental and recreational community asset.

It is good that the Labor Party has finally come to the table in supporting this program because I can remember when the member for Bright—now the member for Black—at the time proposed this and we heard very little from those opposite.

The Hon. D.J. Speirs: Silence.

Mr DULUK: It was a deathly silence and then we had a quasi policy rollover and then a half-baked, half-pregnant hopeless, as the minister would say, Glenthorne Farm plan. Finally, we have seen them capitulate and realise the benefit of supporting our policy idea. If only they had been so bipartisan earlier, we could be talking about different things and not about Labor's failures.

Another important reform will of course be the reform of natural resources management and the introduction of the landscape SA act. Natural resources management is being reformed to increase community ownership, decentralise decision-making and focus on practical programs to deliver tangible results for landholders and key land players. This follows significant centralisation over previous years, a lack of community focus and increased NRM levies under the previous Labor governments. The existing NRM boards will be replaced by eight landscape boards and Green Adelaide.

The new landscape boards will have seven members, with three of these members to be elected by the community. I think it is really important that community members have an opportunity to partake in grassroots action, direct and viable action, because it is people who live in communities and volunteer who know what is best for their communities. It is not bureaucracies in the CBD that know what is best for our communities. So a $2 million grassroots grant program will be established to enable on-ground works in local communities.

One issue that is of big concern in my electorate at the moment is the ongoing viability and sustainability of the Belair golf course, which sits within Belair National Park. It is another issue that highlights the inept attitude and the lack of proactive management by those opposite when they were in government. Despite signs of financial difficulties, surely apparent to the previous cabinet when the deputy leader was a member, no action was taken by the then Labor government to be proactive in the management of the Belair golf club site within Belair National Park.

After the private group running the course and function centre went into voluntary administration, there was no plan in place to keep the greens alive. Instead, as with many things in this area, the previous government has left the new government to fix it up; it was in the all-too-hard basket for that government. That is what we are doing now. Last week, I attended a round table of like-minded community groups who are keen to see the Belair golf club revitalised and that asset restored. It was a very informative session, coordinated by the department because we are committed to it.

There are so many things that are important to my community that we are getting on and fixing. I will touch on some others, including the Wirraparinga Trail Loop in Brownhill Creek and our $100,000 investment, over the next five years, in the nature trail, which will become the focus of Indigenous tourism, recreation, heritage and education.

In and around my electorate of Waite, the grey box grassy woodlands are a feature of the foothills, which provide a natural habitat for native animals and plants and which also need to be protected. Unfortunately, due to clearing, the woodlands are now endangered. I welcome the work of the City of Mitcham along with the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges NRM Board and their efforts to protect those woodlands by removing weeds in the Mountbatten Reserve and Randell Park most recently.

Something the City of Mitcham is doing really well is water sensitive urban design. It is involved in an innovative technology program around this design in the City of Mitcham. The program is designed to manage stormwater through rain gardens, reserve soakage trenches and permeable paving. We will see this in areas such as my electorate, in Kingswood, and in the member for Elder's electorate, in Melrose Park. If we can get this right, in terms of sustainability, with water retention and urban design, I think we are going to go a long way to providing practical solutions for our community as we promote the importance of our natural environment.

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (11:38): I rise also to support this motion brought forward by the deputy leader, acknowledging that yesterday, 5 June, was World Environment Day and the importance of a healthy environment here in South Australia and our obvious commitment to protecting South Australia's environment.

The new government has already started important work to secure the future of our natural environment. Yesterday was not only an opportunity to celebrate and recognise the importance of our diverse natural environment here in South Australia and in the great electorate of Colton but also an opportunity to look forward to how we can all, each and every one of us, take ownership and responsibility for protecting our local environments.

I am extremely proud to be part of a government which took to the last election a comprehensive list of practical environmental policies, policies that have the potential to make real differences to the lives of South Australians and to the many people in the electorate of Colton. Coastal protection is an issue that is very dear to my heart, something I care deeply about and something my electorate cares very deeply about. I know that it is also extremely important to our Minister for Environment and Water, the member for Black, and I thank him for his time and commitment to improving our coastline.

This government recognises that our coast and our marine area are precious assets, assets that need to be protected for the present and, importantly, for future generations. This government also recognises that there are better opportunities for properly managing these assets so that they can support more jobs and economic activity as well. Unfortunately, our coasts—particularly the coastline in my electorate, most notably West Beach—have suffered from almost two decades of mismanagement.

The natural processes of sand transport along the coast have been disrupted and this has made our coast vulnerable, particularly to storm damage and winds. Natural seagrass meadows have been damaged, and often polluted water is discharged from our rivers into the sea, leading to local beaches having to be closed frequently. I recall two or three years ago one instance of this when the Pink and Blue Swim that the West Beach Surf Life Saving Club runs every year to raise important funds for both breast cancer and prostate cancer had to be cancelled. The whole group of 400 people instead walked the coastline instead of the traditional swim, and it is just one occasion where this discharge has caused issues with water quality at West Beach and Henley Beach South.

These coasts are important resources, obviously made clear by that example, for my local community which uses them often for recreation. Our community feels an enormous connection to our coast's beauty but the coast is also a hub for tourism, local business, biodiversity and our fishing industry. The coast truly is the economic driver underpinning my local community. As the member for Black has informed the house previously, our coastlines face mounting pressures, particularly our metropolitan coastline, from increasing urbanisation and population, foreshore development pressure, climate change and visitors.

The new government has committed $5.2 million over four years to coastal protection for a range of important initiatives. The investment is focused on five platforms: sand replenishment, research and development, seagrass meadow restoration, wetlands, and artificial reefs. It will be directed towards practical measures as well as important research and development, acknowledging that things must be done differently to sustain our coastal environment.

This government will be increasing funding for sand replenishment in the short term by $500,000 per year on Adelaide's beaches, particularly at West Beach which has been vulnerable in the past, as I have said before, to winds and storms. Clearly, the sand pumping line that was put in place by the previous government was completely inadequate for solving this issue. We must also continue to make decisions into the future. For this reason, we have dedicated $1 million over two years for research and development, particularly around coastal processes. We must take a fresh new approach to coastal management. We need to continually innovate and, at the very least, try something different and attempt to do better.

This fund will enable the government to further maximise the research effort and opportunities for protecting our coastline into the future. Seagrass is incredibly important for marine life habitat and protecting our coastlines from damage, which is why the government is providing $1 million towards seagrass restoration. As the member for Black informed the house recently, seagrass restoration may also present some opportunities for a blue carbon industry in South Australia which is an exciting opportunity for our economy—yet another example of how the government that I am part of is taking a lateral approach to maximising environmental protection but also adding value to our economy.

In regard to artificial reefs, I am aware that the government is having productive discussions with stakeholders, other levels of government and the not-for-profit sector on how to best leverage the $1.2 million that the government has committed to new reefs, particularly shellfish reefs. This is yet another excellent example of policies which not only improve the environment but also benefit industry, jobs and recreation. The government has also committed $1 million to a plan for new wetlands in the metropolitan area to improve the water quality of run-off entering Gulf St Vincent from our urbanised areas and minimise the damage to the fragile marine environment from sediment and pollutants.

Another exciting initiative this government is committed to is the introduction of Green Adelaide, a new natural resources management body for Adelaide. The creation of Green Adelaide is an important part of the government's landmark reforms for this state's broken natural resources management system. Green Adelaide represents an exciting new vision for connecting Adelaide residents with their natural environment. A central focus of the government's reform is empowering local communities to be directly involved in sustainably managing their region's natural resources, something that I believe is incredibly important and something that was sorely missed under the previous Labor government.

Coastal management is one of seven key priorities for Green Adelaide and recognises just how important the coastal environment is to many of our metropolitan residents and, as I have said before, many of those living in my seat of Colton. It is just so important to all metropolitan residents, local businesses and tourists alike.

It must be said that there are so many people who care about this issue, so many people who advocate strongly for the improved condition of our metropolitan Adelaide coastline. I wish to thank so many of those people who have loudly and very proudly advocated for the improvement of our coastline. Their calls have certainly not landed on deaf ears, something that frustrated them for many years previously.

I would also like to take this opportunity to indicate my support for other significant environmental policies soon to be introduced by this government, including the incredibly popular and, ultimately transformative, Glenthorne national park policy, opening nearly 1,500 hectares of land to the local community and keeping it as open space in the future. The Landscape SA reform agenda, harnessing and increasing nature-based tourism opportunities, is something that I think is an incredibly large opportunity here in South Australia. We have seen over the years an increase in tourism numbers coming into South Australia, many of those around nature-based tourism.

We have so many great regions in South Australia, whether that be across our metropolitan coastline—I know the member for Schubert often takes his family holidays in Henley in my electorate—or others far wider, including Kangaroo Island, obviously our peninsulas and the Flinders Ranges, just to name a few. We have so many great regions, and nature-based tourism is something that we have seen increase particularly from European markets. It is a huge opportunity for our state into the future.

Lastly, we will be increasing the number of park rangers who care for our national parks, our reserves and other areas that are just so important. It was obviously a great loss, under the previous government, to have those numbers dwindle, but I think all on our side of the chamber are excited about seeing those numbers rise in the future.

Ms LUETHEN (King) (11:48): I rise to support the motion raised by Dr Close:

That this house—

(a) acknowledges that 5 June was UN World Environment Day;

(b) acknowledges the importance of a healthy environment in South Australia; and

(c) commits to protecting South Australia's environment.

I want to take this opportunity to reflect on World Environment Day and outline to the house how the new government is already working further to build up our environment through common sense, practical and environmental policies. The new government, of which I am part, recognises that here in South Australia we are extremely fortunate and privileged to have on our doorstep a wide array of stunning natural resources that we need to steward, support and grow.

The new government is committed to protecting our environment through practical environmentalism that ensures the long-term sustainability of our precious natural habitats rather than creating unnecessary challenges for our environment and resources, as occurred with the previous Labor government.

The new government's policies include a commitment to nature-based tourism, more park rangers, increased coastal protection and a vast reform to the broken natural resources management system. We are committed to ecologically sensitive development in our parks and more nature-based tourism. A key example of the Liberal Party's commitment to our environment and the economy is the focus of growing our state-based tourism industry, while seeking ecologically sensitive development. This is important to drive sensitive investment that will deliver high-quality, nature-based tourism experiences that visitors can see and experience, while protecting our environment.

I note the recent upgrades undertaken by the Department for Environment and Water to our local Para Wirra Conservation Park in my electorate of King. They have recently been completed, and I know the new government is keen to further progress important works in this regard. It is such a beautiful park, one that I grew up in. Our whole family made annual visits to use the tennis courts and have lunch together, and there are many families in South Australia who made an annual pilgrimage to do the same.

These days I go up with our local walking group to walk around the stunning lake, and in the near future I will be making use of the new camping grounds with my friends, but what is really important is how we go about using that park and leaving it intact, not disturbing the habitat around us, and that is what I will be focused on protecting.

While the previous government may have made some upgrades to the Para Wirra Conservation Park, it failed dismally with its slashing of park ranger numbers, which has been to the detriment of our precious park regions. Over the last 12 months, numerous concerns were raised with me about how we would protect the environment there. I ask why a government would seek to invest significant amounts of money, only to take away the very people who can keep these investments safe and help everyday South Australians access and enjoy these benefits.

The friends of the park have raised concerns with me about the risk to the natural habitat of introducing new visitor activity without any ongoing governance. Only a couple of weeks ago, when walking around the lake in Para Wirra with my family, I came across a new camp fire set up right next to the lake, which we reported to the Friends of Para Wirra. This is the kind of irresponsible stewardship we saw time and again under the previous administration. To resolve this, the government is committed not only to reinstating park rangers but also to increasing ranger numbers by over 20 per cent. More park rangers will ensure the parks across the state will be better preserved for generations to come.

Rangers have been trusted by South Australians and visitors to our state over generations, and they play such a valuable role in managing our parks and caring for our wildlife. They build partnerships with community groups and provide leadership for programs and projects, which in turn leads to more volunteer hours and financial support from community organisations that are invested in our parks. Despite this, the Weatherill government slashed the number of park rangers, from over 300 in 2002 to only 93 in 2018, leaving our national and conservation parks open to such a range of problems. I am proud to be part of the new Liberal government, which will increase the number of park rangers by 20 per cent and by 20 people.

I am proud to live in the electorate of King, where our conservation parks have the opportunity to thrive while strong and sensible protections are put in place to ensure their longevity. I commend the member for Black for his vision to see practical and sensitive development in our regions, and greatly look forward to seeing his vision realised for the state's beautiful parks. In addition, I applaud the member for Black for the collaborative way he is advancing plans for our parks.

The natural resources management policies established by the previous government resulted in ridiculous levels of bureaucracy and added cost-of-living pressure for households through levy increases. When I was campaigning in the rural region of King, high levels of frustration and concern were raised with me over the NRM board and the way staff went about their local activities. Concerns were raised that generations of knowledge amassed by local families working on the land were being overlooked. Concern was also raised over the cost of the solutions being imposed by the NRM staff.

Our government will act to reform natural resources management to increase community ownership, decentralise decision-making and focus on practical programs to deliver tangible results for landholders and levy payers. This follows significant centralisation, lack of community focus and increased NRM levies under the previous Labor government. The existing NRM boards will be replaced by eight landscape boards and Green Adelaide. The new landscape boards will have seven members, with three of those members elected by the community. A $2 million grassroots grants program will be established to enable on-ground works in local communities. These changes will overhaul a broken system that Labor introduced.

The Liberal Party has undertaken an extensive statewide consultation prior to the election regarding the NRM structure, how land and water levies should be calculated, and where the levy money should be spent. From consultation, it was clear that people in our regional communities want more of the decisions affecting them to be made by the people who live in and understand their communities.

The desire across our state for people in South Australia to be heard and consulted with on key issues is confined not just to NRM, and I will be proud to be part of a team that will not only deliver landmark reform but will listen and act in the best interests of our constituents, including those in King. We demonstrated this very clearly during my campaign, with the member for Black coming out to listen to my community as these issues were being raised.

Through the new government's environmental policies and a commitment to practical environmentalism, we want to restore, protect and enhance our natural and built environment. We also want to look at ways to open up our environment for greater access that allows South Australians, as well as interstate and overseas tourists, the ability to experience and enjoy. Done sensitively, this will drive further economic benefits, which is a key commitment of our new Marshall Liberal government. The new government is focused on delivering improved environmental outcomes—not empty symbolism and token gestures but real lasting results that people of South Australia can see and experience.

Furthermore, the new government's policies will create jobs and growth in South Australia. Nature-based tourism contributed to $1.3 billion to the state's $6.6 billion visitor economy in 2017 with more than a 40 per cent visitor expenditure occurring in the South Australian regions, making a real contribution to regional economies. The Marshall Liberal government will work on delivering nature-based visitor experiences in Adelaide and regional South Australia that are unique to our state. In closing, I congratulate minister David Speirs on his plans, leadership and policies.

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (11:58): I rise also to support this motion, and I thank the deputy leader for bringing it before the house. I want to take the opportunity to reflect on World Environment Day and outline to the house how the new government has already started important work to secure the future of our natural environment at the state level, and how it will apply to Morphett.

World Environment Day began in 1974 and is now celebrated in over 100 countries. Since it began in 1974, it has grown to become a global platform for public outreach that is widely celebrated across the globe. The theme for yesterday's World Environment Day was Beat Plastic Pollution. Of course, we are always encouraged to think global and act local, so it is worth reflecting that Morphett is bordered on the western boundary by approximately five kilometres of pristine coastline, which takes in the coastal suburbs of Glenelg, Glenelg South and Somerton Park.

When residents of these suburbs and adjoining suburbs even, such as Glenelg East, are surveyed on what they most enjoy about living where we do, a significant majority list the beach as a key factor in the enjoyment of the area so, understandably, maintaining this coastline is very important to those who not only live in Morphett but also visit.

Worldwide, the continuous growth in the amount of solid plastic waste that humans produce and the very slow rate at which this waste degrades are together leading to a gradual increase in the amount of plastic litter that is found floating not only in the sea but also on the sea floor and along coastlines around the world. Human activities on land are really the biggest source of this marine pollution. These include not only dumping the waste along the coastlines but also littering on beaches.

Additionally, floods and other storm-related events flush waste from further inland into the sea where it sinks or is carried away by currents. A number of members have spoken about what this contaminated material does to the ecosystem, with marine animals and birdlife seeing this as a food opportunity, which is eaten and deposited in their stomachs, to all intents and purposes, for all their life, and how this contributes to the health of that ecosystem because of humankind.

If I reflect back on Morphett, constant attention needs to be paid to managing the impacts of this stormwater run-off that comes from inland because in Adelaide, South Australia, we live in a heavily urbanised area. In Adelaide itself, the stormwater can come from streets and households within the electorate but, because of Sturt Creek, Keswick Creek and Brownhill Creek, a lot of waste can find its way into the Patawalonga Lake system, which is on the boundary of Morphett and feeds into the ocean via the Barcoo Outlet.

This means that the coastline effectively is at the end of Adelaide's drainage system, meaning that litter, cigarette butts and chemicals that people dispose of incorrectly often make their way to the coastline. This stormwater carries not only litter, including plastics, but also nutrient-rich and oil-based pollutants that end up in the marine ecosystem. In response to this issue, attention needs to be paid to conducting a thorough foreshore and beach cleansing program, which includes litter pick-up and reduction.

One example of how to minimise litter is the ban that is currently placed on smoking in Moseley Square, Glenelg, which I touched on last week here in the house when I referred to World No Tobacco Day. That ban has the impact of fewer cigarette butts being thrown onto the ground that then find their way as litter into the ocean. Other aspects to help maintain the beach cleansing program is to try to make sure that the beach sand itself is levelled not only for safety but also for events, such as the volleyball events we hold at Glenelg.

We have held national and state championships there, as well as surf lifesaving events. This year, we held the junior state lifesaving championships and the senior state lifesaving championships. The world lifesaving championships were held in 2012, and we are looking forward to them returning to Glenelg beach in 2018, so maintaining the environment is important not only for the health of our ecosystems but also for tourism.

Touching on that further, there also need to be education programs that can be run in our local schools and kindergartens where children can be taught how to recycle and manage waste in a manner that will help reduce their impact on the environment. Inspectors can also patrol the beaches and foreshore, educate beachgoers and enforce littering laws. An important initiative that has really cut down on waste entering into the ocean is gross pollutant traps. The local council, the City of Holdfast Bay, can be commended for their work in this area. They currently have seven traps in place, which remove over 400 tonnes of litter per year, so that is litter that does not find its way into the oceans.

I heard just recently that a whale washed up dead on a remote coastline. The radio commentators asked whether the Museum would go out to inspect and try to do an autopsy on this whale. While the answer was no, in previous cases the Museum had gone out and performed autopsies. One of the comments was about the small amount of plastic waste found in whales in South Australia, so there has to be a commendation for the small amount of plastic waste that reaches our oceans compared with what we see in other places around the world.

Street sweeping also helps to reduce the amount of waste entering our oceans, as do community events that help to protect the coastline. These events include National Tree Day and Clean Up Australia Day. It is worth stating the effects of these programs, both of which I have participated in. National Tree Day events can be held in the dunes. Each year, they attract approximately 100 community members, volunteers and school groups as well as local businesses to help rehabilitate the coastal ecosystem by planting indigenous coastal trees and shrubs in the dune system. These sessions also serve to educate participants about the coastal ecosystem, beach amenity and coastal protection.

I have also participated in the Clean Up Australia Day event each year, which again encourages the community to participate in cleaning up our beaches. Clean Up Australia Day groups along the coast collected many bags of litter from the beaches and dunes and from under the Glenelg jetty. One of the most common items of litter was cigarette butts, and I previously referred to how we can reduce those.

World Environment Day is an opportunity not only to celebrate and recognise the importance of our diverse natural environment in South Australia but to look forward to how we can all take responsibility and ownership of protecting our environment. I am very proud to be part of a government that took to the previous election a comprehensive list of practical environmental policies that have the potential to make a real difference in the lives of South Australians, including the people in my electorate of Morphett. The environment minister touched on his passion for those policies. I share his sentiments and those of the previous speakers who, in their commentary, acknowledged the importance of coastal protection to the state.

The environment minister said that the coast really is the first frontier of our climate change adaption plans, with over 5,000 kilometres of coastline in South Australia. We need to recognise that our coastal and marine areas are precious assets that need to be protected for both present and future generations. We also need to know that there are better opportunities for properly managing these so that we can support more jobs as well. In this house, the environment minister has talked about how environmental tourism can help grow the economy.

Our coasts are an important resource for our community, who use it for recreation and also feel an enormous connection to its beauty. Coasts are important for tourism, biodiversity and supporting our fishing industry, but the coastline faces mounting pressures, particularly the metropolitan coastline. The new government has committed an initial $5.2 million over four years to coastal protection for a range of important initiatives. This investment is on five key platforms, which are sand replenishment, research and development, seagrass meadow restoration, wetlands and artificial reefs. Right now, the government is engaging with the community, and we look forward to delivering on these plans over the next four years.

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (12:08): I am pleased to rise today to speak on the motion that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has put forward. That motion is that this house acknowledges the importance of UN World Environment Day on 5 June and the importance of protecting South Australia's environment so that it continues to be healthy and productive for generations to come.

I am particularly pleased to speak on this motion as, being a rural member, I am well versed in the important role our seas and soils play in sustaining life as we know it and ensuring demand for food and water is always outstripped by supply. The Marshall Liberal government took numerous policies to the election under the environment portfolio, as outlined by minister Speirs, whom I know to be a strong and powerful advocate for the environment, none more important than the reform plan for natural resources management and coastal protection.

A plethora of issues is being experienced in Narungga, and they need to be addressed. Needless to say, they are issues which would also prove challenging around the world. Coastal protection is vitally important, particularly in Narungga, with its Yorke Peninsula leg of three coastlines totalling 485 kilometres in the Yorke Peninsula council area alone and with more in neighbouring councils, including the Copper Coast, Barunga West, Wakefield and Adelaide Plains.

Narungga is an electorate bordered almost exclusively by its coastline. There are issues up and down that coastline, with sand drift from Wallaroo to Black Point and Fisherman Bay, and I look forward to working towards a sand replenishment solution with this new government to ensure that our beaches continue to be pristine and beautiful tourism attractions. Unfortunately, I have come across a number of examples of coastal protection which have failed their communities throughout my campaign and my very short time as a member.

The beach at Wallaroo, which I mentioned earlier, in front of Otago Road, is suffering from a drift sand build-up at one end and a severe shortage of sand at the other. The shack holders, some of whom have been coming for generations, blame the poorly managed and designed rock groyne as the source of the issue. I touched on the Fisherman Bay issues yesterday, with their boat ramp, and there is a similar issue being experienced at Black Point. One wonders about the record that the Coastal Protection Board has managed to accrue.

Thankfully, the new Marshall Liberal government has committed an extra $5.2 million for practical measures to ensure our beautiful coastline and included in this extra investment is a sand replenishment and sand retention scheme, which will be of wonderful benefit to the beaches of Narungga. We are also committed to establishing three more artificial reefs, after the success of the shellfish restoration reef constructed at Ardrossan, which went on to be named Windara Reef. Of course, Windara is the Narungga name for the eastern area of Yorke Peninsula and is a truly fitting name for that new reef.

Other significant projects include the International Bird Sanctuary and the Rewilding Yorke Peninsula project. I was in beautiful Thompson Beach recently, in front of the bird sanctuary, and I was fortunate enough to be welcomed into the home of a constituent. Karen Malthouse was a most hospitable host and the view from her balcony, out over the bird sanctuary, was truly a sight to behold. However, for me, the most breathtaking thing about that view was the sounds that were coming from the birds that inhabit that sanctuary. It was wonderful to see a beautiful habitat and environment working well.

Innes National Park is also within the electorate of Narungga and nature-based tourism is an opportunity which is ripe to grow our state's economy. In 2017, it contributed approximately $1.3 billion in tourism visitation value to our state and it is worth nothing that more than 40 per cent of visitor expenditure was spent in the regions. I am pleased with the plans to open up this beautiful part of the world to increased visitation and it is important to note, as we are acknowledging World Environment Day, that this will be ecotourism.

I will not stand by and sacrifice the beautiful Innes National Park without significant assurances that the environment will be preserved, for that would be counterintuitive—people would stop coming if the environment were tarnished in any way. In this case, the tourism centre will be located on the existing footprint of the town of Inneston at Stenhouse Bay. This means that there will be no impact on the environment and I look forward to welcoming increased patronage to Innes in the future.

I also use this motion, acknowledging the importance of environmental protection, to highlight constituent concerns around the collection and use of the natural resources management levy. The concerns have been significant in recent years, leading to the development and announced reform plans which we took to the election and which were, by and large, welcomed by the constituency. Indeed, a statewide survey launched in April 2017 by the Liberal team prior to the election revealed an overwhelming majority of people are dissatisfied with the current natural resources management system, which was introduced back in 2004 after the amalgamation of 27 soil boards, 27 pest animal and plant boards and 8 water catchment boards.

The results labelled the NRM dysfunctional, with 'wasteful administrative bureaucracy, which has disenfranchised effective local volunteer groups such as Landcare', as quoted from the media at the time. The conclusion was that levy payers did not think the structure was working well in their region, and anger only mounted with the unjustified NRM levy increase of $6.8 million last year, and this was after a 26 per cent rise the year before—shameful.

People in my electorate understand the importance of looking at the environment, given that our region relies heavily on tourists visiting our pristine beaches as well as on agriculture, which requires effective pest and weed control. Issues were highlighted as long ago as February 2014 by then acting president of the LGA Lorraine Rosenberg who said, in local media, that 'the complexity, inefficiency and inequality of the NRM levy is creating barriers against positive outcomes and must be addressed'.

As stated prior to the election, the Marshall Liberal government plans to abolish NRM boards and replace them with a new agency, Landscape SA, which will have a Northern and Yorke board in the Narungga electorate. We will also be capping levies and ensuring that money collected locally is spent locally—a novel idea. It is also recognised that so much of the groundwork is done by volunteers, and we will be increasing the amount of grant funding to be made available to smaller, local groups for environmental projects.

The NRM cannot continue to be another taxation source for the government, and we will be restoring independence and putting control of natural resources management back into our regions. Our farmers and regional communities have been the hardest hit by this arbitrary tax increase in recent years and the reforms will give local communities more control. The $2 million in levies to be quarantined each year will help community organisations and not-for-profit groups on Yorke Peninsula to deliver on-the-ground environmental projects for better outcomes.

It is recognised that managing our natural resources is a mammoth job, with the NRM responsible for not only weed control but also all pest plants as well as soil, water quality, native vegetation and native animals. There has been success with fox baiting, rabbit control, controlling boxthorn and weeping broom, and various revegetation projects and there is so much more to be done.

The new government is committed to the protection and restoration of the environment through our significant reform program. The Liberal Party took a comprehensive suite of policies to the election covering key areas including natural resources management, coastal protection, more park rangers and the establishment of a new Glenthorne national park. Done sensitively, this will drive further economic benefits, which is a key commitment of the new Marshall Liberal government.

The Liberal Party is focused on delivering improved environmental outcomes; not empty symbolism and token gestures, but real and lasting results that the people of South Australia can see and experience. I am excited about playing a part in introducing this reform and look forward to supporting the new Minister for the Environment, the member for Black, in doing so.

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (12:17): I also rise to support this motion and thank the deputy leader for bringing it to the house. As a farmer, this is an area in which I have had a lot of interest over the years, the environment and managing the environment in a sustainable manner. In one of my roles in the dairy industry, it was my privilege to chair the Australian Dairy Industry Council's Sustainability Framework working group, and I managed the whole framework from that chair.

The environment is a very important part of agriculture. Here in South Australia, 53 per cent—or significantly over half—of the land mass is managed by farmers and 42 per cent is managed by national parks and conservation areas, meaning close to 95 per cent of the area is managed by farmers and the parks. So farmers are a key part of the management of our environment, and I thank the minister for his efforts in this space in developing the policies we are implementing to support our farmers to manage their environment. It is such an important role, and we need to give those farmers the resources to do what is needed, to manage things like noxious weeds on their farms and to manage erosion.

We also need to manage various aspects of greenhouse gas emissions, a big part of the issues the dairy industry faces. The dairy industry has a nice, ambitious target of reducing greenhouse gases by 30 per cent by 2020 from the base year of 2010. They have done about 10 per cent of that so far, so they are getting there. Whether they make it by 2020, it is an ambitious target, but they are working on it. The big gains that can be made in the dairy industry are certainly about feeding animals. Methane is certainly a significant contributor to greenhouse gases, and that is probably the area where we can most improve our impact in that space.

One of the great things about the work that has been done in this space by the research and development corporation Dairy Australia and particularly by the team leader in sustainability, Helen Dornom, whom I acknowledge for her amazing efforts and leadership in this space, is the work around the greenhouse gas management that is going to reduce methane from cows, but at the same time, by changing feeding methods etc. of cows, will actually end up leading to greater productivity outputs. So, it will actually increase milk yields, so there is a double benefit by actually pursuing this avenue of feeding. The dairy industry is working hard to make this work to achieve the outcomes it is looking for. It is something I have been very proud to be part of and continue to watch from a distance now I am in this house.

It is not just the big picture stuff; we also see the management of farmers themselves, managing their individual properties well. The majority of properties are managed well. One of the concerns I do have is in the peri-urban areas, which the seat of Finniss covers a large section of, where we have many hobby farmers who do not quite understand the need to actually manage their environment as well. I think that somewhere we need to actually focus on is making sure they understand the importance and implications to the whole environment going forward and what is needed to be done.

We have a very important role here in helping direct where investment etc. goes into the environment, but we should always keep in the back of our minds that sustainability is the right approach, making sure that we are not just looking at the environment alone; we also need to look at the other aspects, the three pillars of social, environment and—

Dr Close: Economics.

Mr BASHAM: Economics, thank you; it slipped my mind. I thank you for your time here in the house and commend this motion.

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (12:22): I would like to thank everybody who has spoken today, on both sides of the chamber. We are at least united in sentiment. We will discover whether we are united in practical policy as we start to see that roll out from the government. I hope that we substantially will be.

I would just like to make a comment that the geological age we are in at present is called the Holocene. There has been a debate for nearly 20 years now about whether it ought to be re-named or to find a marker to start the Anthropocene—that is, we are now in an era where the fundamental influence on the shape of the earth is our species. Whether ultimately that name comes to be agreed upon by scientists, I think the concept confers a huge amount of responsibility on us.

We are here, we are not going away, and what we need to do is determine the way in which we best manage this planet. The non-native pests, plants, the abundant native species are not going anywhere either. What we need to do is understand how to best manage and be actively engaged in ecological management so that we can at least have competent ecosystems that are functional, if not pristine.

To do this we have really three tools: we have science—we need to listen to the science even when it is inconvenient. We have community care and engagement. While we must of course prioritise local communities, we should not suggest that people who do not live in a particular area have no interest in that area being well managed. And of course our third tool are our laws and institutions for which we in this chamber are ultimately responsible.

Motion carried.

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