Page 1367 - Week 05 - Thursday, 18 June 2020
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mitigate the urban heat island effect. That has all been talked about today and I am pleased that is the case.
Part of the plan is giving kindergarten children a voucher for a nursery visit. I am not sure that by itself is going to do the job. They may or may not use it, and if you can use it to buy a pot plant, which is suggested on the website, will that add to the canopy target?
Miss C Burch: No, it won’t.
MR RATTENBURY: Thank you. Miss Burch interjects and says no, it will not. Maybe it will buy a nice potted cactus for the front doorstep. Will that add to the canopy target? I do not think so. I think giving trees or plants to children is a great concept and I appreciate the idea of raising awareness and the love of nature at an early age, but we need to be clear about what we are doing here. Are we trying to fix the canopy target or are we just trying to give out vouchers?
We must acknowledge that this is not a strategic tree-planting policy that will achieve the canopy target and mitigate the future impacts of climate change. It is really a telethon policy where the Liberal Parties do whatever they can to get the trees out the door and get their tally up to a million. This is why the government’s living infrastructure plan and the amendment talk about achieving a canopy target. We need a strategic plan to ensure that the canopy increases and the community gets the full benefit of trees.
Where will these million trees or cacti be planted? That is an important question because they need to fit properly into the urban environment if they are to create the amenity and climate benefits we want. We want them in the places they are needed, like urban areas where the tree canopy is low. I would be worried if this was simply a policy that would see a monoculture in some empty bit of nature reserve, instead of integrating them into the urban environment, just to make up the numbers.
I notice as well that the Liberal Party’s tree policy does not say it will increase the overall tree canopy, at least not that I have been able to find. So you might plant a million trees, but how many will they destroy? A canopy target means the overall net tree number will need to significantly increase. Planting or giving away a million trees does not guarantee this. You have to make sure that you also put in place measures that will protect our green spaces, and have the review of the Tree Protection Act.
Ms Lawder said people love trees and they just want more of them. But, having been the urban services minister, I have seen the letters we get saying, “I want to be able to cut this tree down but the damn Tree Protection Act gets in my way.” We are losing trees in this city at the moment because the Tree Protection Act is not doing its job. That is why the living infrastructure plan and the climate strategy call for a review of the Tree Protection Act—we know it is not doing the job we need it to do.
Clearing the urban fringes and the areas of natural bushland that exist there will also see the number of trees decline. Plans to simply build more suburbs will result in a loss of trees around this city, as well as endangering flora and fauna. So there is a lot of work to do.
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