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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-11-30 Daily Xml
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MARINE PARKS

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. J.M.A. Lensink:

That this council calls on the Minister for Environment and Conservation to place an immediate moratorium on the imposition of the draft sanctuary zones contained within the marine parks' outer boundaries for South Australia.

(Continued from 23 March 2011.)

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO (20:45): I advise that the government will not support this motion. Marine parks have been widely debated in this place previously, and I do not intend to revisit matters that have already been addressed; however, I would like to make some comments in response to the Hon. Michelle Lensink's contribution to this debate.

At the outset, it is important to place on the record that the government has made no decisions in relation to draft sanctuary zones. I will repeat that: the government has made no decisions in relation to draft sanctuary zones, and they are not currently being imposed in marine parks, as this motion incorrectly suggests.

The process to determine the size and location of sanctuary zones within marine parks is ongoing. The minister for environment and conservation has informed me that, while much progress has been made, there is still more work to be done. A number of other announcements have overtaken this motion, or indeed the calling of this motion, since it was moved by the honourable member. Whilst the government did not agree with the establishment of yet another select committee, given the numbers in this chamber it was established and, of course, we will all have the opportunity sometime I suspect early next year to have our say on that report.

More importantly, members may be aware of the recent announcement made by the Premier and the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation that the release of the draft marine park management plans would be postponed to allow for further discussion to occur with these key interest groups. It was initially proposed that the draft management plans be released for consultation sometime late in the year. What that announcement means is that the government will be re-engaging with key sectors next year in an effort to find common ground. I take the liberty of quoting from that announcement, which states:

I acknowledge that this has already been a long process, but as this is one of the most significant conservation programs ever undertaken in South Australia, it is critically important we get this right.

While there is wide support for marine parks, there remain diverse views about how the parks should be designed.

The feedback that I have received is that some groups feel like we haven't listened.

I want to give them the opportunity to come back to the table and work more closely with us over the next few months so that we can ensure these parks are something that everyone can support.

Once these discussions are complete, the government will progress the development of the draft marine park management plans, which will include sanctuary zones, and they will be released for a three-month public consultation period next year.

The Hon. Michelle Lensink, during her contribution to this debate—which I should point out was now some nine months ago—was strongly critical of the consultation process. She also stated:

Marine parks will not work unless the process is transparent and the community supports them and is actively involved in the process.

It is good to see that she shares the government's view on this. This has always been the government's view, and that is why the government has already ensured that the community is actively involved in the process.

Again, whilst we will all have the opportunity sometime next year when the select committee reports to have our say on the outcome of that inquiry, as a member of the select committee it would be fair of me to say that whilst not all those attending meetings liked what was said at the local meetings or the format, or indeed that their views were not given the weight they believed they deserved, none suggested the engagement did not actually occur.

Even more importantly, I cannot remember anyone who gave evidence to the committee not agreeing with the need to have marine parks and sanctuary zones, certainly not when I was there and heard people.

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: That's true.

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO: The Hon. Michelle Lensink has indicated that is true, so I am pleased to hear that my memory serves me correctly. Clearly, the government's postponement of releasing any draft management plans for further re-engagement before consultation should actually be applauded.

As a way of providing some background, I am sure all members are aware that in 2009 the government established 13 marine park local advisory groups, which were based in regional communities right around the state. The purpose of these groups was to get as much local knowledge as possible to assist the government in the task of developing zoning arrangements for each marine park. These advisory groups were made up of community representatives and they were given the opportunity to put forward their ideas and advice about how their local marine park could be designed.

I understand that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources prepared some draft sanctuary zones and provided them to the marine park local advisory groups in November last year. The purpose of these drafts was to assist the advisory groups in identifying areas where sanctuary zones could be located. The drafts were not provided as a government proposal about how things should or should not be done, but they were provided to give the advisory groups a starting point to begin their work.

I am sure I do not need to remind members that there was a lot of contention around the draft sanctuary zones at the time, and, while I do not intend to revisit that issue today, I would like to highlight to members that the community has made significant progress since that time. I am told that the advisory groups spent many months working with their local communities and developing advice for government. Some advisory groups used the draft zones that were provided by the environment department as a starting point; others chose to start all over again. The advice fed back to the advisory groups is now being carefully considered.

I have no doubt that preparing this advice was a significant task for these groups and I would like to acknowledge the work of all the local advisory group members, noting especially the efforts of the chairs of each group. There has been so much negative attention on marine parks, I think it is important that we do not forget that hundreds of people from right around the state have already volunteered many hours of work and have already made a significant contribution to this process. This is in spite of the suggestions made by the opposition that we are not talking to anybody.

I note that during her debate on this matter Ms Lensink highlighted that the opposition sought amendments to the Marine Parks Act in 2007 to broaden the consultation process. The government not only supported that amendment but went on to establish a process that the government believes goes well beyond what is required by the Marine Parks Act to ensure even greater community involvement.

Over many years the government has implemented a number of initiatives to ensure that the community is a key part of the marine parks planning process, and I should point out that all the work to date has been to inform the development of the draft—I will repeat that—draft marine park management plans, which will still be subject to full public scrutiny when they are released for public consultation next year.

In addition, there is an extensive amount of information available through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources' marine parks website, which includes information on science, zoning guidelines and a range of other materials for commercial and recreational fishers and the broader community.

I am advised that the outcomes of the meetings from all the marine park local advisory groups, the Scientific Working Group and the Marine Parks Council are all readily accessible, and freely available on the marine parks website. In fact, I am told that you could probably find anything you need to now about marine parks on this website.

The Hon. Michelle Lensink, in her previous speech, claimed that there is a lack of science. There is an extensive amount of scientific evidence readily available which supports the need for marine pack and sanctuary zones. I know minister Caica offered the whole parliament a briefing and, as members of the committee, we were similarly briefed on the science that was used. It may well be that some have differing views in relation to the science—I think the Hon. John Gazzola pointed that out on a couple of occasions during our visit—but to suggest that there is no science base is nonsense.

In my view, it is most unfortunate that there has been—in particular, over the last 12 months or so—a lot of misinformation spread about marine parks, which has only resulted in additional angst and confusion in the community. This is not to say that the community has not had genuine concerns; indeed, as to be expected with those appearing before a select committee, the select committee heard a great deal of concern, so I am not suggesting that at all.

I could get very political at this stage about who from the opposition has said what, or has done what, over the last few years, but I do not think it serves too much purpose today, especially given the time this evening. I will however repeat that it is unfortunate that some misinformation has been spread about marine parks; however, I think we all need to acknowledge there has been significant progress made in the last 12 months.

I think it is important to emphasise to members today that the implementation of marine parks is not breaking new ground, but is rather catching up with what is happening all around the country to improve the resilience of marine ecosystems. I am advised that South Australia is in fact the last state to implement marine parks that include these protection levels. Currently, only around 1 per cent of our state waters has a high level of protection.

Our state waters deserve greater protection. We are incredibly fortunate to have pristine waters on our coastline, and many of the plants, fish and other animals found off our coastline are found nowhere else. We should be doing all we can as a government, and as a community, to ensure that our oceans remain prosperous and healthy for current and future generations.

A decade ago, the Liberal Party shared this view; I am not sure what they think has changed. I again place on the record that this government recently announced that there will be an opportunity to work more closely with the government over the next few months so that we can ensure marine parks are something that everyone supports. I will conclude with the following comments from the recent media release:

The success of marine parks will depend on shared ownership of the parks by all users of the marine environment.

To achieve this we need a greater consensus on how our marine parks should be designed, so they can accommodate recreational and commercial fishing, tourism and a range of other uses, while meeting conservation objectives.

For all the reasons I have just outlined, the government opposes this motion.

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA (20:58): The Hon. Michelle Lensink stated in the introduction to her motion that:

The 2002 Liberal election policy indicated our desire to complete the work by 2006 and the state had a long-standing obligation to establish a system of marine parks within the state's waters, flowing from the commonwealth's international obligations to the convention on biological diversity...It is my belief that each marine park and each of its zones should be guided by good scientific evidence...I do not have a particular fixed view about what percentage of each marine park should be within a sanctuary zone.

Given the combined momentum of these utterances, I am at a loss to understand the nominal intention of her moratorium motion on marine parks. What effect to advancing the case for good scientific justification for marine parks can such a moratorium have?

This is not a call for good science, or any science at all, but a rejection of scientific best practice. It seeks resolution through process at the expense of accepted scientific inquiry and practice. It questions the sincerity of Liberal policy and their commitment to marine parks. It would narrow public debate and further confuse sensible discussion.

It is apparent that the modus operandi, a modus vivendi in fact, of the opposition at both state and federal level is to ignore the science when it suits. If this motion is to be passed, it gives credence to politics over reasoned policy, which is its obvious aim. In finishing, there is, unfortunately, in the honourable member's debate more than a whiff of beating the bête noire.

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: The what?

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA: I will explain it to you later.

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink interjecting:

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA: Flogging the black beast. The member throws her hands in the air, claiming that the government's process is beyond her understanding, to be matched only by public cynicism. It is one thing to politicise the debate, but it is another to denigrate the hardworking public servants and officials who are honestly and earnestly working to resolve an important issue. Such populism is to be regretted. I do not support the motion.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (21:01): At the start of this contribution, I would like to thank honourable members for their contributions in this motion which, I note, I moved in February. Early on, we had contributions from the Hon. Mr Parnell, the Hon. Mr Hood, the Hon. Paul Holloway—who had some amusing and erroneous comments to make—and just this evening from the Hon. Carmel Zollo and the Hon. John Gazzola, who I also note made some remarks in his matter of interest this afternoon which I will make some comments on as well.

The Hon. Carmel Zollo is correct. Well, I agree with her, I should say—others can decide whether we are both correct or not—in that, to a degree, events have overtaken this process. It is, indeed, nine months since I moved this motion, so things have changed. We would like to put on the record that, when I moved this motion in February, 'the draft proposed sanctuary zones'—I think that was the spin that the government put on it—had recently been released at the end of November last year and communities were up in arms.

So, the purpose at that stage for calling for a moratorium was to say, 'Look, this is causing so much grief in the communities that will be affected that the government needs to take a step back, take a deep breath and re-evaluate whether it has chosen the right path or not.' I think the penny has dropped with the government that they have caused a lot of angst unnecessarily and that has culminated in the Premier and the environment minister making the recent announcement about a delay to the next step in the process.

So, to a degree, I would well come their support of this motion. I think there is some common ground there in that there has needed to be a pause in this process to take stock of whether the government was going down the right path for not.

These proposed draft sanctuary zones sort of ended up with that label, I think it might have been towards late January or early February—when the minister was back on deck—because I think the government realised that there were some errors in the way that they had been designed. So, they said, 'Look, we are just putting these out there. These are not ours.' He has made the rather bold statement, 'These are not actually a government proposal', even though they had been issued by a government department.' These are just out there for you to talk about.' Well, goodness me, did they cause a lot of talk!

There has also been some mischief, I think, particularly from the Hon. Mr Gazzola that the Liberal Party does not support no-take zones. He referred to the Burnside meeting in his contribution this afternoon. I am surprised that he says that, because no government member actually had the guts to turn up, so I am not quite sure—

The Hon. R.I. Lucas: How they would know.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: —how they would know. My leader, Ms Isobel Redmond, said that we would scrap the draft sanctuary zones—those are her words.

The Hon. J.M. Gazzola: What else are you going to do?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: We will see how this process pans out, but I am not quite sure. A lot of people are waiting anxiously to find out where the final sanctuary zones will land and whether they will remotely resemble what the government has put out or not. I will talk about the science, because I think some comments need to be made on that. I will certainly talk about the science involved in this process. The Hon. Mr Gazzola, again, highlighted the focus on fishing which, again, is not supposed to be part of this debate but keeps on coming up.

The Hon. R.I. Lucas: His former leader said he went fishing all the time; that is why.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: That's right; yes, thank you. He may well be obsessed about it, which has got to be a good thing if he is a member of the select committee. So, we have had a belated moratorium of sorts from the government. The international obligations—this point has been made. It is out in the sector but it is certainly worth putting on the record because I think it highlights where the government has started to go wrong in this process.

The federal environment minister, the Hon. Tony Burke, wrote to Dr Gary Morgan on 25 January in relation to what our obligations are. He said:

The biodiversity targets recently agreed under the Convention—

that is the CBD, Convention on Biological Diversity—

are contained in the Convention's new strategic plan. That plan notes that all targets are 'aspirations for achievement at the global level and a flexible framework for the establishment of national or regional targets'. As such, the specific targets are not binding on Australia.

The Australian government does not interpret the target that you are referring to (target 11) in the new strategic plan of the Convention as requiring at least 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas to be strictly protected as no-take areas. Furthermore, as you may be aware, commonwealth marine protected areas can be assigned and managed in accordance with six different International Union for Conservation of Nature protected area management categories,—

which is often referred to as IUCN—

which range from strict conservation to multiple use.

which broadly equate to the four levels that are contained in the Marine Parks Act.

Indeed, I note that in this state we have already met our CBD obligations, because what that letter from Tony Burke says is that you only need to have 10 per cent under management, not in strict no-take zones. So, the sanctuary zones have been set up using the parameters that were set by the Scientific Working Group.

The Scientific Working Group has actually perpetuated a myth among the conservation sector in that the parameters—and this is contained in a letter from the chair of the Scientific Working Group to the minister, the Hon. Paul Caica—of sanctuary zones should be at least seven to 10 kilometres in size and should take up some 10 to 13 per cent, which should then be surrounded by a buffer of habitat protection zones. (Those are not complete no-take zones, they just prevent take for commercial purposes but allow it for recreational purposes.)

This set of parameters was promulgated to the LAGs. I do not think I have denigrated any public servants; in fact, I think some of the evidence that we have received is that some of the ground officers of DENR were given these instructions and told that they had to tell their LAG groups, when they were trying to come up with alternatives, that they cannot move the boundaries around too much. It has been described as like playing a game Tetris.

I do not know what the science in that is, because my understanding of sanctuary zones is that you protect spawning grounds, estuaries, upwellings—areas where you have high conservation value. You do not just have a particular size that has been set as some sort of government arbitrary target and say that you can just move it around on the map and that will constitute a sanctuary zone. So, that is what the Liberal Party position is. I have stated it before and I stand by everything I said in my speech when I moved this motion.

The recent government announcement was rather interesting. A number of people are trying to interpret what it really means. I would also like to quote from the Premier's media release of 19 November. It states, 'he wanted to re-engage with key sectors in an effort to find common ground.' Some sectors have been left out entirely, and I will name them. They are local government, the commercial fishing sector and tourism. So, I am not sure how the government can try to defend this process when it has not been part of it at all. Further, the Premier said:

The feedback that I have received is that some groups feel like we haven't listened.

Well, golly gee, that is because they haven't. Further, on the second page, this might be a hint at what the government intends:

...there are still a lot of questions...so over the summer months the State Government will be at ramps and other locations—

which sounds to me like a re-education program. Whether it was an attempt to get some clean air because the government has realised maybe through some of its internal polling that this is a problematic issue for them or whether we should regard it with suspicion or not, a cynic might say that it has some relationship to the upcoming Port Adelaide by-election. A cynic might also point to the shoppies union motion which says, on page 22, SDA (Marine Parks) in motion No. 98:

Convention calls on the Government to allow recreation fishing—

it is 'recreational', so it is a typo—

in all proposed Marine Park sanctuary zones.

That is actually an illegal proposition, but never mind. The motion continues:

In relation to commercial fishers convention calls on the Minister for Environment to ensure that the final Marine Park Sanctuary zones are significantly reduced in size to what is currently proposed. The size locations of these sanctuary zones under the Marine Park Act 2007 must reflect the priorities and concerns demonstrated by local communities through the state-wide DENR convened Marine Parks Local Advisory Groups. And that all future negotiations regarding the final sanctuary zones directly involve the Minister's office and representatives of local affected communities.

I would also like to put on the record my thanks for all of the work that the LAGs did and commend those remarks made by the Hon. Carmel Zollo. I think a lot of people have put in a lot of their voluntary time.

A cynic might also say that this is the government's opportunity to throw out the LAG advice because we know that the department does not like it. I note that the conservation sector in relation to this recent announcement by the government has welcomed delay. Mr Peter Owen of the Wilderness Society, a recipient of the Jill Hudson Award—congratulations to him—might have described it on the ABC TV, if I caught it correctly, as a smart move. The Conservation Council has also welcomed the delay.

Just in making those remarks, I would note that earlier this year when this motion was put on the Notice Paper I had strong concern expressed to me by the Wilderness Society. At that stage I had said to them that, if the local communities are not going to support this, you have Buckley's of this really getting through, and hopefully that issue has been realised.

This process has undermined the trust of those who will be directly affected—regional coastal South Australians. We have been accused on this side of the house a number of times of whipping up hysteria. I will say for the umpteenth time that we did not whip people up; they were already pretty upset.

The Hon. R.I. Lucas: We were just sharing facts.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: That's right. Indeed, the CEO of the environment department, Mr Allan Holmes, has also accused us of that, and I reject that. I think it is disappointing that the cause of the environment has been set back by this process. I think a lot of people in regional areas are quite cynical about a lot of the motivations of some sections of the conservation sector. It is disappointing that that trust has been breached.

I hope that it can be retrieved but I certainly think that the process of putting out those sanctuary zones, which comes down to a simple concept that if you are going to take away people's existing rights, you have to give them a good reason and most people who have been involved in this process did not feel that there was adequate rationale for the way those sanctuary zones were released. I live in hope that the government may listen and that it may take into consideration those concerns from local people, but I am a cynic and I do hope that my fears will not be met but you never know your luck. With those words, I commend the motion to the house.

The council divided on the motion:

AYES (11)
Bressington, A. Brokenshire, R.L. Darley, J.A.
Dawkins, J.S.L. Hood, D.G.E. Lee, J.S.
Lensink, J.M.A. (teller) Lucas, R.I. Ridgway, D.W.
Stephens, T.J. Wade, S.G.
NOES (10)
Finnigan, B.V. Franks, T.A. Gago, G.E. (teller)
Gazzola, J.M. Hunter, I.K. Kandelaars, G.A.
Parnell, M. Vincent, K.L. Wortley, R.P.
Zollo, C.

Majority of 1 for the ayes.

Motion thus carried.

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