Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

I was so impressed with the history and with the site that I was very surprised—and I think I have said that in answer to questions before here—that those who put forward the 1792 sites did not seek to list the 1793 sites as well. In fact, I took the initiative of encouraging a proposal for listing of the 1793 sites because there is an intrinsic link between the two. But Senator Milne is right: I did inscribe this property onto the National Heritage List. There are in fact only 23 properties on the list. We seek to make it a very exclusive, high-quality list, and that is the reason this site is on it.

As Senator Milne knows, and as you know, Mr President, the regional forest agreement, which I know the Greens do not support, certainly ensured that that property would be available for logging regardless of the listing. I know that is very upsetting to those who wanted to stop the logging, but what was always available was the opportunity for the Vernon family to enter into the sort of agreement that they had entered into. I congratulate the Vernon family for coming to this decision. I congratulate Dick Smith for his leadership role here. You have an example here of two pro-free enterprise Australians, the Vernon family and Dick Smith and his family, entering into an agreement to conserve an important part of Australian heritage. It is very much a free enterprise and, I would say, Liberal solution.

I have looked at whether there are programs of assistance. As Senator Milne knows, the Commonwealth does in fact run programs and invests tens of millions of dollars to conserve biodiversity. The natural reserve system fund, which seeks to create over the next 15 years a comprehensive and representative system of unique Australian biodiversity, has purchased properties such as Cravens Peak in Western Queensland, which has Australia’s highest known diversity of reptiles and habitat in extraordinary condition; New Haven in the Northern Territory, which has seven critically endangered air and land bird species; and Johns’ property on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, which has an extraordinary diversity of butterfly species and excellent habitat.

If the property in question at Recherche peninsula is put forward it will be assessed, but it will be assessed against those biodiversity outcomes of the programs. I do not think even Senator Milne would want me to seek to distort the outcomes of those programs, but I make the point in the short time available—and Senator Milne looks primed to jump up and ask a supplementary—that there are programs that can assist. (Time expired)