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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-12-01 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Environmental Decisions

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (16:36): I would like to turn today to the question of the gentle art of capitulation, the question, as Kenny Rogers put it so well, of knowing when to hold them and when to fold them. We all know that in government sometimes you make decisions that on reflection or with more information you determine need to be reversed or altered in some way. Of course that happens. Ideally, you do not wait for an outcry of public opinion, the risk of embarrassment in the media, before you come to the sudden realisation that there might be a better way to do it. But, unfortunately, that appears to be largely the way in which the Minister for Environment conducts the acrobatics of the so-called backflip.

Possibly my favourite one of these, because it is my local one, was the sand carting, where the minister wrote a letter to me—he says personally, and I believe him—saying that he absolutely refused to send anyone from the coast protection branch to a public meeting (200 to 300 people attended that meeting) because it was a 'waste of valuable departmental time', to quote him in that letter. That meeting was particularly concerned about our road being put through very precious and very important dunes in Semaphore, a road big enough to take substantial trucks that would cart dozens and dozens of full loads of sand off the beach every day.

That absolute determination that we were wrong and he was right lasted about a week of the locals standing there with placards saying, 'Please don't destroy our dunes!' and the media turning up and the media taking a lot of footage of a woman who bravely had her car locked in by fencing—and, suddenly, there was no need to do that after all. Then there was the permit to cull wombats that was granted, which after a vigorous Facebook campaign was suddenly not required and not necessary.

Then, most recently, on the weekend we had the perplexing situation where an organisation that had a permit from the department, which presumably was a sound permit, because I trust the department manages its permit system well, to care for koalas that required some rehabilitation before being released back into the wild would not have the permit anymore because it was moving to another location. That would cause those koalas to have to be dispersed elsewhere to other carers, if there were some. Some, I understand from that organisation, were in fact already euthanised in the days leading up or would be prematurely, in the minds of the organisation, returned to the wild before they were quite ready for that, although we all agreed that is where they belong.

A letter had been written in early November, I believe, by the organisation saying, 'Minister Speirs, we are moving. You know that we are moving because the Department for Child Protection is kicking us out. Could you please make sure that the permit is updated?' That letter was not replied to. I think we have all had that experience on this side. It was not until the media came, started taking footage and asked for comment that suddenly it was fixed: 'That's alright, perfectly happy to extend a permit to allow the transition.' Again, late, late, late waiting for media attention, but if this is the practice of the minister, excellent, we have some things we would like him to consider.

There is the PFAS dump, which is going to be located in a prime agricultural area. There is the marine parks destruction, where very precious sanctuary zones are going to be torn up without any scientific validity, including from the minister's own review he commissioned that asked, 'What do you think about these sanctuary zones?' The report says, 'They're excellent. They're doing a good job. We can find no evidence of any harm on the socio-economic front and biologically they're doing well.' He's going to tear them up anyway. Ninety-five per cent of people who responded on YourSAy said, 'Please don't do this.' So maybe we are waiting. Maybe there is just a little bit more attention that needs to come and then we can get the right answer.

What I would really like, though, is a rethink of the River Murray. That is where the great capitulation happened, the wrong one, the one that was capitulating to people outside South Australia, as was found by the River Murray royal commission. But, if he wants to change his course, come and have a chat here first. We will advise him and then he can find the right path.

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