Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak of the ravaging fires we have experienced in Tasmania over the past month and their threat to our floral natural heritage and biodiversity in some of my home state's most ancient alpine regions. The fires have burnt out over 72,000 hectares in western Tasmania; 11,000 hectares in our Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.

These fires have been particularly damaging, leaving destruction of our unique rainforest and alpine vegetation in their wake. The ecological and cultural significance of these areas has irreplaceable value. These fragile plant species which give our World Heritage area its stunning landscape are in such a vulnerable state. The unique climate and soil composition has been altered by these fires—peat soil takes thousands of years to form. The area is dominated by plants that had lasted in Tasmania since the Cretaceous period and that do not regenerate in the same fashion as our eucalypts. These centuries-old forests have stunning King Billy pines and button grass plains that now in some areas lie blackened in the landscape.

The work of the Tasmanian Fire Service has been formidable. They worked tirelessly in extreme conditions to contain the destruction of these fires. Tasmania has a first-class integrated fire management and firefighting operation where comprehensive vegetation mapping enables crews to minimise the impact of fires. But, once these ancient forests are gone, they are not readily replaced. Some are over 100 years old. As Dr Jamie Kirkpatrick, Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Tasmania has stated:

It is easy to rapidly rebuild houses and bridges. It is impossible to rebuild the Huon pine and King Billy pine forests that make Tasmania so special and attract people from all over the world to admire their beauty.

He said:

We need to ensure there are sufficient resources to protect both people and our ancient heritage.

Yet government policies are failing Tasmania by ignoring the leading and overriding threat to these forests—that is, climate change.

Tasmania has had increasingly warmer springs and summers, with December 2015 breaking records; 14 of the world's 15 hottest ever years have occurred since 2000. A long-term drying trend has been aggravated by a reduction in rainfall. Ultimately this has meant our forests have become a tinderbox. The Climate Council's Professor Will Steffen has stated that the influence of climate change has increased the risk of extreme fires in Tasmania. He said: 'We are watching centuries-old ancient forests being destroyed because we failed to act early enough on climate change'.

I do not want my concern for Tasmania's Wilderness World Heritage Area to be a message to visitors not to come out to our beautiful and precious forests. Much of the Wilderness World Heritage Area has luckily not been affected. But the fact that 11,000 hectares has been burnt significantly impacts on lost species that are of extreme value to the area. This is our history and this is our heritage that has gone up in flames.

I note that Senator Whish-Wilson has called—in the media at least—for an independent inquiry into the methods of tackling such fires in an era of climate change. Such an inquiry does have merit. I too think there should be an inquiry to look at how we tackle such fires in this era of climate change.

But, despite all of the work and all of the warnings by scientists about the need to act early on climate change, Minister Hunt has signed Australia up to some of the lowest and weakest emissions-reduction targets in the developed world. He has already aided and abetted attacks on the renewable solar and wind sectors, threatening jobs in the clean energy sector of the future, and he has tried to delist Tasmania's Wilderness World Heritage Area at UNESCO. The 'Environment' Minister could do with an opportunity to actually assert some environmental credibility, and here is that opportunity. Heed the significance of these fires. Our future, our world's future and our heritage is at stake.