Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Today I rise to speak about a resident of Victoria, but also about a matter that is of concern to all Australians. That resident is the Leadbeater's possum. I am afraid that this wonderful part of Australia's natural history, a wonderful part of this planet's incredible biodiversity, could soon be lost forever.

Leadbeater's possum is a tiny little marsupial. It is found only in Victoria. It is a relative of the sugar glider. It is an amazing little animal. They construct very large and intricate nests where they huddle together in families to shelter from the cold Victorian winter months. We were so proud of this animal in Victoria that in 1968 we made it Victoria's faunal emblem.

The possum's habitat is on Melbourne's doorstep in the forests of the central highlands, in our magnificent mountain ash forests. Because they are not found anywhere else in the world, the future of this animal is intimately tied to these wonderful forests. Any threat to the forests means extinction for the Leadbeater's possum. In fact no-one actually saw one of these animals for over 50 years, and it was presumed to be extinct, until it was spotted again in 1961. Since its rediscovery, it has been recorded in more than 300 locations; although many of these places have been disturbed by logging and by fire.

Healesville Sanctuary is home to a small captive breeding population, and as part of Zoos Victoria the sanctuary's biologists are attempting to fight its extinction and trying to change the fate of threatened species like the Leadbeater's possum. The work of the expert biologists is to be commended but they do face an uphill battle. The possum is listed as a threatened species in Victoria and is classified as endangered under the EPBC Act. This has triggered the preparation of a recovery plan under Commonwealth law and an action statement in Victoria. Sadly, both the action statement and the recovery plan are out of date, and neither takes into account the destruction of half the possum's habitat in the 2009 Black Saturday fires.

Professor David Lindenmayer, the country's foremost expert on the Leadbeater's possum, and his team from ANU have undertaken the longest forest-monitoring program in the Southern Hemisphere, 30 years in duration, in the mountain ash forests in Victoria. The consensus is very clear: the species is at great risk of extinction in the near future. Delays, underfunding, lack of political will and inadequacy of the Victorian government's response, including the Victorian government's systematic weakening of environmental legislation, has led Professor Lindenmayer to conclude that the possum is on an extinction trajectory within 25 years. Sadly, Professor Lindenmayer quit the Leadbeater's possum recovery team in Victoria earlier this year in disgust. It was reported that his resignation to the Victorian environment minister stated that the current policies were 'unable to appropriately protect' the animal and that he could no longer be a part of 'such a highly ineffective body'.

In 1998, 5,500 Leadbeater's possums were reported in the wild by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and today experts quote between 1,000 and 2,000 in the wild, with only five individuals—down from seven—in captivity. We are on the verge of losing this wonderful animal and our state's faunal emblem.

Unfortunately, the loss of half the possum's habitat to fires has not being factored into the regulatory regime, under which logging takes place in the central highlands. The Victorian government is dragging its feet, underfunding reviews of these regimes and, as Professor Lindenmayer put it, 'monitoring the possum into extinction'.

Victoria's state-owned logging company VicForests has been criticised time and time again for unlawful logging. Each time it was only because a small passionate group of people, community groups like Environment East Gippsland and MyEnvironment, have taken them to court. The Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment, the Victorian government agency with responsibility for ensuring that logging occurs within the law, has been gutted by the Victorian government's savage budget cuts. It was recently slammed by Victoria's Auditor-General for not even knowing what it was or was not responsible for monitoring, let alone proactively auditing whether activities such as logging are occurring in accordance with the law.

As it happens, VicForests gets free access to Victoria's forest assets, and it is an economic model that creates a distortion in the market by favouring the logging of Victoria's native forests over plantation forestry. The free handouts and sweetheart deals do not end with free wood and free access to public lands. As a state-owned business, VicForests can call on the government to bail it out at any time if it is running low on cash.

Without these huge subsidies, these enormous artificial commercial advantages, VicForests would go out of business. A recent report by the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research on native forest logging in Victoria found that if VicForests were ever to face a level commercial playing field it would fail. If it ever had to compete directly with plantation timber growers, the market would strongly favour plantation timber, because plantation timber is commercially more sustainable and provides greater resource security than the logging and burning of our native forests. Plantations in western Victoria are estimated to produce no less than twice the volume of pulp logs than those available from VicForests under the business-as-usual case at any time between 2010 and 2049.

Even more shocking is the fact that despite all of these huge subsidies and artificial advantages, VicForests is losing money. I will say that again: they get their land free, they get the trees free and they still manage to lose money. This state-owned business enterprise, created by legislation with the specific purpose of returning a profit for Victoria's taxpayers, has lost money in three of the past six financial years—an incredible feat. The only reason VicForests still exists is that it has been protected by its line of credit with the Victorian government. The 2011-12 financial year was the fifth year running for which VicForests has failed to return any money to taxpayers. Victoria's priceless mountain ash forests are given away free to log and to burn. This is despite their enormous economic potential to attract tourists and to build on the region's thriving tourism sector. Those forests of great value in sequestering vast amounts of carbon for generations have also helped to maintain a clear water supply and yet all of this is being logged away.

Key areas of the Leadbeater's possum habitat face the threat of logging under Victorian state laws. Timber harvesting in these areas is now removing trees that are essential nesting hollows. Along with the direct harm caused by logging and burning, habitat disturbance due to forestry activities puts even more strain on the Leadbeaters. It is therefore alarming that moves are under way to lock in 20-year contracts to log native forests with compensation payable if contracts are altered by future governments.

Legislative efforts are also under way at a state level to weaken and dismantle Victorian environmental protection legislation to facilitate these 20-year contracts. Against all of this, I acknowledge the excellent work being done to save this unique creature and its habitat from extinction. The community group Friends of Leadbeater's Possum has been working tirelessly to raise awareness about the plight of the possum. The Wilderness Society has been encouraging businesses and individuals to protect the possum's habitat by pledging not to use Reflex brand office paper until the pulp used in Reflex is no longer sourced from Leadbeater's possum habitat. Finally, Zoos Victoria has been working on a captive breeding program for the possum. It is also worth mentioning that Zoos Victoria is the largest employer in the Yarra Valley region, with 550 people directly employed and many more indirectly employed, for example, through catering, security and cleaning operations. Sustainable industries such as tourism are the future for the Yarra Ranges, not clear-fell logging.

Against this backdrop, the Commonwealth government is about to hand environmental decision-making powers to the states, especially those decisions relating to the natural environment. Four decades of environmental protection legislation is at risk of being set aside to allow the states to pursue short-term economic gain at any cost. The handover has three parts: firstly, the Commonwealth intends to give the states power over environmental decisions by fast tracking approval bilaterals under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. These approval bilaterals authorise states to make decisions currently made by the Commonwealth. COAG is going to agree on these arrangements by December this year and implement them by March next year. Secondly, imminent amendments to the EPBC act are set to favour the rapid approval of developments ahead of protecting species and habitats. Our environmental laws are already weak enough but this process threatens to tip the balance decisively in favour of development at any cost. Thirdly, states and territories will be allowed to reform state assessment approvals to fast track major development projects.

RFAs, or regional forest agreements, are the model for approval bilaterals. RFAs are written agreements between the Commonwealth and the states that exempt logging areas from the operation of the EPBC act. The rationale for this is supposedly that environmental protection is equivalent to that offered under the act but RFAs have completely failed to protect the environment. The RFA process is flawed at every stage but perhaps most crucially, there is no enforcement. It is invariably left up to community groups and individuals to take up the battle. For example, the Federal Court found in Tasmania's Wielangta Forest case that logging has a significant impact on the Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle, the Wielangta stag beetle and the Swift Parrot. In response, the Commonwealth and Tasmania changed the RFA. In Victoria's Brown Mountain case, brought by Environment East Gippsland, logging was found to be unlawful because it breached state laws to protect wildlife. Again, the Commonwealth took no action.

Currently, the Senate is undertaking a threatened species inquiry—a timely examination of a loss of species in Australia. It is an important example of the work of federal representatives in monitoring the status of our biodiversity in Australia and in ensuring that species like the Leadbeater's possum are not consigned to extinction as habitat destruction is made ever easier for industry and local interests.

The Leadbeater's possum is facing extinction under the Victorian state government's appalling environmental record. The Commonwealth needs to step up and strengthen its environmental laws, not hand them over to the states. Leadbeater's possum is the perfect example of why we need to do this, and do this urgently. The regional forest agreement that brought us to this point means that the Commonwealth has already excused itself from regulating in this area and the result is that the possum is now on a rapid path to extinction.

Instead of learning a lesson from this, we are set to hand over even greater power to the states. It simply makes no sense, because as far as state governments are concerned, safeguarding our natural heritage for the long term always comes behind short-term benefits, rapid development and exploitation. The trajectory is in one direction only. Like many other iconic places in Australia, such as the Great Barrier Reef, James Price Point in the Kimberley and Kangaroo Island, the Leadbeater's possum is far too precious to lose. I fear that if the Commonwealth abrogates its responsibility to safeguard these precious places it is only a matter of time before they are gone, and gone forever. The parliament might still be able to save these national treasures but if they are gone we will never be able to bring them back.

The Leadbeater's possum was named after John Leadbeater, who was the National Museum of Victoria's first taxidermist. It is my great fear that my children might only see this wonderful little animal in the way that John Leadbeater knew it—stuffed, sitting on a shelf in a museum and with future generations being deprived of the opportunity to see and experience part of this planet's wondrous biodiversity.

Sitting suspended from 13:52 to 14:00