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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-02-19 Daily Xml
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NATIVE VEGETATION (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 5 February 2009. Page 1209.)

The Hon. M. PARNELL (16:27): The Greens will be supporting the second reading of this bill, which contains a number of sensible reforms. The issue of native vegetation has been put on the national agenda by the Victorian fires. Clearly, people are focusing themselves on our relationship with the natural environment, and natural vegetation in particular.

In South Australia we have led the nation in the protection of native vegetation. It has got to the stage where, when I was working in conservation groups, interstate colleagues were very jealous of the fact that we had broadacre clearance controls. They found it somewhat amazing that we would have debates and arguments over individual trees, rather than entire forests that are still under threat in many other states.

I think that on the whole our native vegetation laws are accepted and welcomed in the community. That is largely because we as a society have, over decades, cleared most of the vegetation in our settled areas. When you have, as on, say, Yorke Peninsula, less than 5 or 10 per cent of the vegetation left, the need to protect what remains becomes overwhelming.

This legislation is now about the detail of protecting native vegetation. Broadscale clearance has effectively been banned but, as with any regulatory regime, there are always exemptions and loopholes that need to be addressed. One area of the legislation which was very unclear, and which has now been clarified, is a fairly fundamental question that goes to the heart of this legislation, and that is: where does the act apply?

Generally, we know that the Native Vegetation Act applies outside the metropolitan area, but the act is worded in such a way that it applies to some parts of the metropolitan area, namely, areas that are to the east of the Hills Face Zone.

When those provisions were drafted, I imagine that it was assumed that the Hills Face Zone was a continuous and contiguous strip, where it was very easy to determine who was to the east of it. However, if I take the example of my local neighbourhood, if I were to draw a line due west from my house, I would not hit any part of the Hills Face Zone, but the people in the next street, if they were to draw a line due west of their properties, would hit the Hills Face Zone. So, I am not to the east of it but my neighbours are, which means that the act, in my interpretation, does not apply to me but does apply to my neighbours.

The government has clarified that situation by making it quite clear that the bush suburbs of the Mitcham Hills area in particular are covered by the Native Vegetation Act, and the act lists those suburbs, including Belair, Bellevue Heights, Blackwood, Coromandel Valley, Craigburn Farm, Eden Hills, Glenalta and Hawthorndene. The fact that it includes Belair, I guess, was brought to our attention in relation to the fires, with the recent Sunday Mail article referring to some of the dead-end streets in the bush suburbs which fire trucks would not even attempt to get down in the event of a fire. So, I think it is an important clarification. Ignorance is no excuse when it comes to breaking the law. If it is unclear where the law applies, it puts citizens at a distinct disadvantage.

I want to make just a few more comments about the relationship between native vegetation and fire, because it is so topical. When we are faced with the overwhelming tragedy of situations such as the Victorian fires, there is perhaps a natural reaction for people to see anything flammable, whether it be native vegetation or a poorly designed house, as a problem that has to be addressed. We could make Australia completely safe from bushfires by clearing everything, but no-one is calling for that. It is all about where we draw the line. It is all about where the firebreaks go and how wide they are, and it is about controlled burning regimes—and I put on the record now that the Greens support controlled burning regimes. All we have ever asked for is that they be done on an ecological basis, not random, unscientific and unplanned.

These are some of the debates we have to have. But, ultimately, the fact is that in South Australia, especially in the settled areas, we have cleared most of the vegetation. We were known as the mammal extinction capital of the world. An academic from Flinders University coined that phrase. More mammals became extinct in South Australia after settlement than anywhere else in the world, and that was largely a consequence of the patterns of settlement and, in particular, the vegetation clearance. So, we should never lose sight of the fact that in South Australia we are starting from a fairly low base in terms of the remaining vegetation and the need to protect it, and that is why I think the Native Vegetation Act is so important.

In relation to some of the other provisions of the bill that relate, for example, to what we might call offsets or environmental benefits, clearly, the regime that is being proposed is becoming more sophisticated as we follow the rules, in some ways, that were established under planning laws in relation to car parks—for example, if you are building a facility that is going to create vehicular traffic, the state expects you to provide car parking. Similarly, if you want to be able to clear native vegetation, the state expects that you will put something back in return. The debate that we can have is whether that replanted vegetation should be in the same area, the size it should be and questions like that. Most of the detail will eventually find its way into our law through the regulations but, nevertheless, the act does set out the regime. I will have more to say about that in committee, when we look at some of the changes in that area.

Getting back to the coverage by the legislation of the Mitcham Hills area, members may have received correspondence from a fairly new group, the Grey Box Community Group, based in Eden Hills and Blackwood. These people point out that the grey box, or eucalyptus microcarpa community, if not listed probably deserves to be listed as an endangered ecological community. Because of the increasing urbanisation of the Mount Lofty Ranges, the tree is increasingly under threat, and that is why it is important for those bush suburbs to be covered by the Native Vegetation Act, because that tree rarely gets to the size necessary to achieve significant tree status.

The Hon. P. Holloway interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I am giving you credit for it, and I will declare an interest: I have attended meetings of the Grey Box Community Group, and I have grey box in my backyard. I know how important they are to wildlife and how hard they are to grow. With those brief words, I will have more to say when we get deep into committee on this bill, but for now the Greens are happy to support the second reading.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.

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