Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Attorney-General (Senator Brandis) and the Minister for Education and Training (Senator Birmingham) to questions without notice asked by Senators Waters and McKim today relating to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and to fires in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.

The government were asked a number of very simple questions today about the terrible fires burning in one of our national and global treasures, the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. They abjectly failed to respond to most of the questions I put. But what we did learn from the answers is that, while we have been sitting in this chamber this week, the amount of the Tasmanian World Heritage area that has burned has gone up from about 12,000 hectares to over 18,400 hectares. We have lost another 6,000-plus hectares of this remarkable place, which generates over $1.3 billion in economic value to Tasmania every year, which generates over 5,000 jobs in Tasmania and which is home to natural and cultural heritage values so significant globally that the United Nations has protected it on behalf of all humanity under the World Heritage convention. And from this government, which has responsibility under treaties it has signed to responsibly manage this area under the World Heritage convention, we had no effective response to the questions that were asked today.

It is worth placing yet again on the record that those parts of this magnificent place that have been burned, over 18,400 hectares, would include significant amounts of fragile alpine ecosystems which are completely ill adapted to fire; which, if burned, will never recover to their former glories; and which in the whole world exist in only very small parts of Tasmania. Those magnificent places are burning as this government stalls on delivering the appropriate resources to fight these terrible fires.

The government was asked why it took up to two weeks, or nearly two weeks, before the Emergency Management Australia provisions were activated in response to these fires. It is worth placing on the record: how do we know that it took nearly two weeks? Well, the Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, effectively confessed to that in a letter he wrote to me which I received on Thursday last week in response to a letter I had earlier written to him, where he makes it clear that it was only early last week that he asked the Minister for Justice, Michael Keenan, to activate Emergency Management Australia provisions—nearly two weeks after these fires burned. If we are serious about addressing these fires, we need early action and we need to hit them with everything we have got as soon as we can. We have to get them while they are small, before they become the 20,000- and 30,000-hectare monsters that are currently burning in our World Heritage area.

I also asked whether and, if so, precisely when and how and by whom the Tasmanian government had formally requested that the Commonwealth provide extra financial, mechanical or human resources to fight these fires. There was no response to that question—no response to that question, only a vague assurance that discussions had occurred. Well, discussions do not necessarily constitute a formal request, and we need to know whether and, if so, when the Tasmanian government woke from its slumber, started taking these fires seriously and requested formal assistance from the Commonwealth.

The government was also asked: would it support or commission an independent inquiry to assess the response to these fires, including the impacts of global warming? We know from science that global warming means that in south-eastern Australia, along with many other parts of the country, we are facing more extreme bushfire conditions, and it is also showing that there will be an increase in dry lightning strikes in south-eastern Australia. It is worth observing that dry lightning strikes are in fact the cause of most or all of the fires that are currently devastating some of our natural and cultural treasures inside the World Heritage area. We need better answers. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.