It is wonderful to be able to contribute in this place on outdoor recreation, and it has also been amazing to hear of so many members of this place who love outdoor recreation and particularly love to come and visit my electorate of Lowan to enjoy all that we have to offer.
It was wonderful to hear the previous member speak about how wonderful the Grampians are– Lake Fyans, our wonderful wetlands, our river systems. We have the best of everything in the electorate of Lowan. We are so fortunate to have a natural environment that we want people to enjoy. That is the message that the Nationals have always held at our heart – that we love the environment. We are conservationists at our heart, and we want to make sure that as many people as possible can get into the great outdoors and enjoy it. Because if we lock up our national parks, if we lock up our state parks, we only see them overgrown with weeds, we see pests thrive and we see destruction of our native wildlife and our flora as well.
We see that there is absolutely the balance that can be met in educating the next generation on how to look after our environment, about what we can do when we go into our forests to ensure that we can clean up what should not be there, whether it is around any pests that are in the area, whether it is weeds, whether it is rubbish or things from yesteryear that can be taken out to reduce our footprint on the land.
I commend all of the people who contribute to that and enjoy our great outdoors, because it is not just good for the environment, it is good for our mental health and it is good for our physical health. If people have not looked after themselves recently, if they are feeling like the world is getting a bit too heavy for them, go out to the Grampians National Park for a week, and I can tell you you will come back a happier, healthier and more grounded human being.
The crux of this bill really does touch on a lot of issues that are very, very important to the people of my electorate of Lowan. Of course this does touch on a repeal of GMA, the Game Management Authority.
For many people in my electorate and who visit my electorate, hunting is very, very important. I have spoken in the past around visitors from Melbourne who would stay at our farmhouse every year for duck hunting season. They did it because they loved that connection to a beautiful part of the state where they could go camping with their mates, do something that they love, harvest some ducks and enjoy dinner together – the meal they had harvested – that evening. It is an enormously healthy activity, and it is fabulous that now we have got an adaptive harvest management framework, because it means that the amount that hunters can harvest fluctuates depending on the availability of ducks. That is sensible. It means that when we do not have as much water, when we have had drought and there are lower duck numbers, bag limits are reduced or the season is reduced.
But when we have a huge number of ducks – and something that some do not recognise is that ducks can become a pest. They create havoc, particularly in the horticultural sector. Ducks love to eat lettuces. I am sure you understand, Acting Speaker Mercurio; you have some horticultural businesses in your electorate. Ducks can be a pest, and they need to be managed.
We also have dingoes in my electorate – wild dogs or dingoes, whatever you want to call them. They are all Canis familiaris. It is causing so much havoc and destruction and heartache for farmers, who are regularly contacting my office just absolutely distressed by what they see on their farms.
Farmers care about their stock. They have a connection to their stock that I think people who have not experienced farming really do not understand. They care about their stock, and I can tell you what they do not love at all. They hate going out to their paddock in the morning, driving around and finding lambs slaughtered, their guts hanging out on the ground – they might still be alive and walking along – and to see any sheep who have had the back end ripped out by a wild dog. They cannot be treated. There is no medical intervention. It is a horrific and cruel death.
Unfortunately, farmers in my electorate of Lowan around that north-west region, which used to have a protection zone for wild dogs, are seeing this every single day. It is costing a huge amount of money. Lamb prices are not too bad at the moment, and we have got lambs that are being killed in the hundreds on a regular basis.
These farmers cannot access an ATCW, an authority to control wildlife. They cannot do anything to control these pests that are attacking their own stock. It is a failure of the Allan Labor government. It is a failure not to protect landholders, not to allow them to protect their stock against the dogs that are coming out and attacking their lambs. It is absolutely disgraceful.
When the minister was asked about this during the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearings, their response was, ‘Well, we’ve got companion animals going out there.’ I am sorry, but companion animals are not very good mental health support for some farmer who is looking across their paddock and just seeing dead lambs. It is not working. So I do urge the government, please release some ATCWs to allow farmers to protect their stock.
If the government cannot do that or will not do that for whatever reason, then compensate our farmers, because they are paying the price for Labor’s failure to look after the dingoes they want to protect on public land.
They are not keeping them on public land. I am sorry, but when you have got hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometres of public land in the north-west of the state, 16 kilometres of fence line does not keep dingoes out – what a surprise. Farms are a little bit bigger than just 16 kilometres of fence. It is not keeping the dingoes out. Stock continue to die, and it is simply a cruel death.
Give compensation to those farmers; they deserve it. We also know that there is a huge reduction in farmers being able to access the fox bounty at the moment. There has been an increase from $10 to $14 a scalp, which is a good thing, but the actual total bucket has been reduced to just $2.2 million. It was $6.7 million just five years ago. This is something that Labor do not like to talk about. They do not like to talk about what they are doing because they are cutting things like the fox bounty, but they will not cut the $15 billion that goes to strippers on Big Build sites. That is okay. But they will make sure that what they cut is harming Victorian farmers, and Victorian farmers are the heart of our economy. They are the heart of our regional communities. They need more support, they need protection and they feel like the Allan Labor government simply is not listening at the moment.
So I urge the new minister to take heed – make sure that farmers can protect their stock from dingoes, make sure they can protect their stock from foxes and make sure that they can control the kangaroos on their property that are grazing our pasture and causing immense damage to land as well.
I also want to briefly mention the other aspect which is of great importance to my electorate, and that is rock climbing. Rock climbing is not mentioned in this legislation, and I cannot believe that, for such an important sport for so many Victorians, not just in my electorate but in Melbourne in particular. We have one of the best rock climbing sites in all of the world at Mt Arapiles.
Punks in the Gym is one of the best climbs around the world, and people have for generations come to Mt Arapiles, to Natty, to enjoy climbing Punks in the Gym and for the challenge of Punks in the Gym. It is closed at the moment. We have got so many rock climbs that are closed in the Grampians National Park and at Mt Arapiles. I know that there have been discussions ongoing, but this is 4½ years now where these climbs have been closed.
The rock climbing community have been absolutely coming to the party, having the discussions and making sure they are working with particularly Parks Victoria and Barengi Gadjin Land Council. They are coming in good faith, and I understand that now we are at a point where it is understood that only 3 per cent of the climbs at Mt Arapiles need to be closed to protect Aboriginal cultural heritage.
Nobody says that that should not happen, but we do not need to shut down the entirety of the park and some of the best climbs in the world, because it is not where the Aboriginal cultural heritage is. If we need to build walkways to cover up the rocks to make sure we do not harm the rock chips that are there, the areas of cultural heritage, then let us get on and do it. But 4½ years is too long. It is creating division, and it is something that does not need to happen. It never needed to happen. It always could have started with a conversation, with ideas coming forward on how we can do both. How can we climb? How can we protect cultural heritage? How can we make sure that we can enjoy our parks, learn more about cultural heritage, enjoy our environment, conserve our environment and make sure that future generations can get out there and enjoy it?
Because if people can get out into the environment, no matter how they like to do that, then we know they will understand how important it is, they will fight for it in the future and they will protect it. I urge the Labor government to ensure they are supporting our farmers and our locals to make sure our public land is available and accessible.