Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to taking note of answers this afternoon. I did think that, two days after handing down one of the most significant budgets in this country, we might have been taking note of the progress of this country and the two major reforms we announced on Tuesday night. Let me take this opportunity to put some facts on the record about grazing cattle in Queensland national parks. Unlike you, Senator Macdonald, I do not have the privilege of any letter from Minister Ludwig or the Queensland government, but I do have a bit of background on this issue. Perhaps for the next couple of minutes we could very quietly and carefully put some facts down.

We know that there has been a call for national parks in Queensland to be used to graze drought-affected cattle. There has been the article in the Australian claiming that our environment minister, Mr Tony Burke, has rejected a plan to let starving cattle loose in conservation reserves and national parks in Queensland. Apparently the article says that that has infuriated the state government and drought-hit graziers. Mr Tony Burke is a former agriculture minister; obviously he makes those statements with some background from his former portfolio. I am led to believe that he has told the Australian that he did not have an interest in helping to wreck the states conservation areas. I have to say that Australia's and Queensland's national parks were established for very good reasons. This form of tenure offers real protection, not to grazing drought-affected cattle but to protect threatened ecosystems and species. So any decision to—