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Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Page: 2806

Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (10:24): The Greens' position on this is well known. I have introduced a private member's bill into this place that would have the effect of removing cattle from the park, which is now subject, of course, to the result of this vote. Because the minister has acted, we do not need to proceed with that, because we are giving effect to the fundamental principle that this is a park, not a paddock. Our views on this are well known and I am not going to repeat them all, but I do want to spend some time on the issue that—aside from the contribution by the member for McMillan—has been the underlying principle of almost every contribution here in this chamber and of the Victorian government, which is the idea that grazing in a national park with internationally recognised sensitive and endangered areas is somehow going to reduce the fire risk and that somehow a trial is needed to prove that.

After the fires in 2003 in the Bogong High Plains, there was the opportunity to conduct exactly that assessment. After those fires, scientists went in and conducted one of the most comprehensive studies of fire behaviour and its connection with grazing. They looked at over 419 points. They took over 4,000 twig measurements. They did a very comprehensive survey of the impact of those fires in the areas where there had been grazing in the park and those where there had not been. And what did they find? They found that there was no statistically significant difference between the areas where there was grazing and the areas where there was not.

Mr Schultz: Because the fire was so hot, you goose!

Mr BANDT: One would have thought that the conducting of a scientific trial—

Mr Mitchell: Mr Deputy Speaker, it is unparliamentary—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ): And the member for Hume is interjecting outside of his place in this chamber, which is very disorderly. The member for Melbourne has the call.

Mr BANDT: For those who come in here and say that the basis for this is fire risk and science and we need a trial: if you are going to base your argument on the science, let us look at the science, and the science is in. We have evidence, and I have not heard one member from the opposition talk about the study that was done after 2003, because it does not help their argument but it is what the science says.

We had a thing in Victoria in 2009—which again I have not heard any member from either Victoria or the coalition talk about—called the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission. It had a $40 million budget. It sat for over 155 days. It came up with many recommendations. Not one of them was that we should reintroduce grazing into the park because it would reduce fire risk, despite the fact that the royal commission looked at these areas and looked at all of these issues and despite the fact that I suspect that some people probably made submissions to it to that effect.

But let us take this argument even further. Let us assume that you are prepared to ignore the fact that there has been a case study of this after 2003 and ample scientific evidence. Let us ignore the fact that we have had a royal commission looking at fires in Victoria. Let us just take the argument on face value that you want to have a controlled trial. If that is right, why did the scientist who is supposedly conducting this trial first find out about it after the Baillieu government introduced the cattle into the park? He found out about it when he read it in the paper. If you really wanted to conduct a trial, wouldn't you appoint the scientist and then go and get them to investigate the area, work out their methodology, conduct their initial research, establish the baseline situation and then set out how you would conduct a trial?

No, that is not what happened here. What happened here was that the Baillieu government, within five minutes of being elected, put the cattle back into the park and then thought: 'Well, we need a bit of a fig leaf for this. Let's go and talk to a scientist. Let's go and arrange a scientist to get involved.' And the scientist did not even know that the cattle had been introduced. It is a fig leaf of a justification. It has been pulled away, and the sight behind it is not pretty. The Victorian government is misusing science to deliver on a very blatant political deal. The minister's actions are to be commended and the regulation should stand.