Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tasmanians are naturally proud of our natural environment, so imagine our community's alarm and sometimes even anger at the increasing likelihood of losing so much that we love. Currently, more than 650 different plant and animal species are listed as threatened in Tasmania, including six critically endangered vertebrae—for example, the Maugean skate, an ancient fish found only in the waters of Macquarie Harbour. Its population almost halved between 2014 and 2021, while the state government was cheering on the seemingly unrestrained salmon-farming in the harbour, despite it so obviously causing oxygen depletion and creating dead zones. Don't get me wrong, the salmon industry is an important contributor to the state, but it has a responsibility to do the right thing by local communities and the environment, just as the government has the responsibility to hold the industry to account, and neither is the case right now.

The Swift parrot is another species facing extinction within the next decade without urgent action. Here, again, governments are failing us by allowing grossly irresponsible destruction of habitat. The thing is, it wouldn't be hard to turn this around, because by one assessment only seven per cent of public forests currently available for logging need to be protected in order to give the Swift parrot a fighting chance. But even this has been too much for both state and federal governments, who have instead exempted the Regional Forest Agreements from the EPBC Act and related national environmental standards. Moreover, our natural heritage is under threat from sweet deals between developers and governments. For instance, the luxury helitourism project proposed for Lake Malbena would pay just $4,000 per year to lease public land and exploit a wilderness heritage area for the benefit of wealthy tourists. This is markedly less than what a load of families in Hobart are paying in rent every couple of months right now.

Tasmanians well know what it's like to be on the environmental front-line. For example, the flooding of Lake Pedder was a catastrophe which destroyed a place of incomparable beauty and birthed the environmental movement in this country. The campaign to save the Franklin River prompted Australia more widely to recognise the value of our national heritage and the voices of campaigners. Thank heavens that the Hawk federal government intervened to save the Franklin—so too should we be pleased with this federal government's Nature Positive Plan, which sets out a goal of improving Australia's environmental laws to stop and reverse biodiversity loss. But such steps are still only the start, and Australians—Tasmanians in particular—want more, much more. We want genuinely deep reform of environmental laws which would reflect the value of our natural heritage, protect species, and genuinely establish for Australia a global reputation as a clean, green nation.