David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I want to acknowledge the many traditional owners who have travelled from across the country to bring the devastating impacts of invasive buffel grass to the attention of parliamentarians. I also want to thank the Invasive Species Council for organising the delegation today. Their presence reminds us about the importance of connection to country and caring for country.

Buffel grass is rapidly transforming Australia's arid landscapes. It spreads aggressively, replacing diverse native vegetation with dense monocultures and threatening the plants and animals that depend on these ecosystems. It also fuels hotter, faster and more frequent fires—fires that our landscapes are not adapted to survive. For First Nations communities, this is not only an ecological crisis but a cultural one, affecting access to country, bush foods, medicines and cultural knowledge. That is why buffel grass should be listed as a weed of national significance, but this issue also speaks to something bigger.

Australia has already lost so much of our incredible biodiversity. We've lost so much nature. On a continent as extraordinary and unique as this one, we simply cannot afford to lose more because we fail to act on invasive species. Protecting our biodiversity requires serious, sustained, national investment in invasive spaces management. As a country, we need to be setting longer term goals. We need to start acting, and we need to fund invasive species management like we plan to be here for a long time—like we want, in 50, 100 or 200 years, for this incredible continent to be thriving with the native species that make it so incredible and unique.