Page 1700 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 3 May 2005
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to perform the task I believe the government intends—that is, to check the spread of pest plants and animals in our territory.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (12.01): The Liberal opposition will be supporting this bill in principle, but with some reservations. As Dr Foskey has said, since the introduction of the weeds strategy in 1996 a whole lot of work has been done, or should have been done, to deal with the huge problem to land managers of invasive weeds. As Dr Foskey has pointed out, the weeds cost Australian farmers $4 billion a year and seriously degrade and devastate natural areas, resulting in the decline of many native species.
As we know, the history in Australia of the introduction of invasive plants has been a sorry history, with some spectacular examples. For those of us who grew up in different climes, the prickly pear cost Australian rural industries, even in those far distant times of the forties, fifties and sixties, millions of pounds. The eradication of the prickly pear was a difficult project but has, for the most part, been successful through introduction of a biological control. But biological controls in themselves are problematic.
While the Liberal opposition will support this bill, it is not our preferred option. This bill is an infinite improvement on what currently exists on the ACT statute books. Inaction over a number of years by successive governments has meant that our provisions in relation to invasive weeds in particular are in a parlous state. We have the worst legislation in the country if we are to believe Making state weed laws work, the paper put out by the World Wide Fund.
I know that many people’s eyes glaze over—and many of my colleagues’ eyes glaze over—at the discussion of the impact of invasive weeds. We have to look at it in economic terms. For every land manager, weeds are an ongoing problem. They consume a large amount of time. They reduce the fertility and productivity of farmland. They displace native species in nature reserves and that has an impact on the whole ecosystem. As we have seen, for farmers alone it costs $4 billion per year to deal with invasive weeds.
What this legislation does is improve a bad situation; but it does not go nearly far enough. I am very disappointed that the government has got to the stage of saying, in the words of Caesar, quod scripsi, scripsi—what I have written, I have written—“This is good enough and we can’t make it any better.” What the World Wide Fund discussion paper Making state weed laws work points out is that we can do much better than this current situation.
What this piece of legislation does is essentially bring our parlous laws up to a state where they are comparable with New South Wales law. There is a lot to be said for moving in concert with New South Wales, because we are an island in New South Wales, and working with them to improve the regimes for dealing with pest plants and animals, particularly in this case where our major focus is on invasive weeds. But just to say we are now up to scratch with New South Wales is not good enough. There is much more that can be done, and it seemed to be a coincidence that this discussion paper arrived on the desks of members in this place about three or four days after the pest plants and animals legislation was introduced. It would be unreasonable for us to expect the government to take the recommendations of this extensive discussion paper into
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