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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-11-28 Daily Xml
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State of the Environment Report

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (14:34): My question is to the Minister for Environment and Water. Can the minister update the house on how the Marshall Liberal government's environment policies and platforms are responding to recommendations of the recently released State of the Environment Report?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (14:35): I thank the member for Morphett for his excellent question. The State of the Environment Report 2018 was handed down last Monday afternoon by the Environment Protection Authority. The report provides a mixed response in terms of environmental status for South Australia. What it does do is it gives us a very good benchmark for measuring progress over time and also building strategy for environmental protection and recovery going forward.

The previous report in 2013 presented quite a bleak outlook for the state's environment and, while the current report is not particularly rosy in some respects, it does show that some aspects of our natural environment are showing some recovery. Of course, a report like this, and the trends that it sets and patterns that it outlines over time, extends far beyond one government or one party of a particular political persuasion. The trends and recommendations in this report really need to be seen in a generational context and responded to accordingly.

Some of the aspects of the State of the Environment Report that are showing upticks in terms of their trends and showing signs of positive change include water quality, aquatic ecosystems, coast and marine environments and air quality in the state. We see these are all things that are heading in the right direction. Some of them still have a substantial way to go and some of them still face very significant threats, but we are seeing positive trends in these areas.

This connects quite closely with the environmental report cards that the Department for Environment and Water handed down a few months ago. The two bodies of work—the State of the Environment Report and the environmental report cards—are very closely linked and enable us to build that really strong understanding of where we've been, the current status and where we might need to head in the future.

The more worrying aspects contained within the State of the Environment Report this year are probably of no surprise to the people in this chamber today. They include climate change, and the trends continue to be extremely worrying for our state and obviously at a global level as well. That is something that this government certainly recognise we need to respond to. We need to respond in a practical way and we need to invest substantial effort towards dealing with the effects of climate change, as well as mitigating the causes of climate change here in South Australia.

That's a big challenge for us because it is a substantial policy area that is not only state-based but national and global and presents us with particular challenges. But this government has put a number of significant climate policies on the table, which will not only mitigate but help adapt to the effects of climate change as well.

Another very significant area, which has unfortunately been a trend of these report cards for many years and generations in Australia, is biodiversity decline. We are suffering very significant biodiversity decline. That continues to occur unabated, and so we do need to focus on projects that have that landscape recovery, and look at preventing native vegetation clearance, and particularly get the basics right when it comes to predator control—dealing with the pest plants and pest animals in the landscape, which is if course a very significant part of the natural resources management reform that I look forward to bringing to this house next year.

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