Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. The point here is that our current land management practices are also already having an impact on the environment. We already know that many species could be on the brink. We need to investigate that issue. The report points out that we could increase our water use by 100 to 200 per cent—it does say that—but when you look at how much water is being used up there you see there is very little water being used. There is a capacity to increase agriculture from 20,000 to 40,000 hectares, which I acknowledge is a relatively small amount. It points out that the water is not necessarily available where some of the best land is available and it also points out that we should be looking at a mosaic style agriculture that has a reduced impact.

There are things in this report that I have to admit I do not agree with. I am a bit nervous about the issues around changing land tenure until we have some of the other issues sorted out. I am a bit nervous about their recommendations about continuing extensive grazing, if that is not done in a sustainable manner. We already know that some grazing in the north has had an impact on the environment. It is linked to changed fire management practices. It is linked to introduced pastures that can become weeds. But I think that, given the overall direction of the report, it is worth supporting. The point that people are nervous about is the fact that, as I said, it is not going full steam ahead. It is not going to be the food bowl of Australia, or of the world for that matter. But carefully managed it will.

A very important point as to this report is the absolutely essential role of the Aboriginal Australians who live in and own this country, so there is the need for them to be at the heart of decision making and to get the benefits of any development in the north. They absolutely need to be. The report makes that very clear, and I strongly support that element of the report. It clearly points out the constraints as to the way we should be developing the north of Australia. But I will go back to the point that this is a blueprint with a suggested vision and it is now up to the government to implement the recommendations and to support communities of the north to develop their own vision based on the set of principles that are articulated in this report, which I think are very sound. I think the recommendations are very worthwhile and worthy of support. I urge the government to take them up and to take on the challenge that this report sets out, because it is different, because it is saying we need to take a different approach and because it is saying we can avoid the mistakes of the past. But that actually requires the government to be very brave in the face of a whole lot of development pressures that say: ‘Ignore the science. Why you would want to pay attention to the science?’ We have ignored the science in the past and look where we have ended up with the landscape of Southern Australia, where we are having to spend billions and billions of dollars to repair that landscape.

We will never get back the ecosystems that have been damaged or the species that have become extinct. Unfortunately, there are threatened species that continue to edge towards extinction. We do not want to repeat this in the north. We can learn. This is 2010. We have moved into a new century. We should be managing that land in a different way. But if you listen to the voices of the past we will end up with the same mistakes of the past. We will alienate our Aboriginal community. We will send species into extinction. We will have a massive land repair job on our hands. I have not even got to the point about the impact climate change is going to have on the north of Australia. It will change those ecosystems. It will bring climate variation. If you look at the projections for the impact of climate change on agriculture in the north of Australia, you will see there will be a significant impact. We need to learn from the mistakes of the past. We need to do things differently.

This report confronts those challenges head on and says that there is a different way of doing it. Please, Australia, listen to it. Please let us do things differently. Let us support these recommendations and see how we can truly learn from the past and work with Aboriginal Australians to have a different future for Northern Australia. It will develop, but it should develop sustainably. This report clearly outlines there is a future for the people living in the north. It is not the traditional view that some people like to see, where you send in the bulldozers, clear the land and put in more and more agriculture and use all the resources without consideration for the future and without consideration for the science or the ecosystems. This report says: do it differently. (Time expired)