Legislative Council

11619 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL Wednesday 6 December 2000 ______ The President (The Hon. Dr Meredith Burgmann) took the chair at 11.00 a.m. The President offered the Prayers. BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE Notices of Motions Motion by the Hon. M. R. Egan agreed to: 1. That, during the present session and notwithstanding anything in the standing orders, a notice of motion to adopt a report from the Standing Committee on Parliamentary Privilege and Ethics on a citizen's right of reply is to be placed on the notice paper as business of the House for six days after the giving of the notice of motion. 2. Any existing notice of motion on the business paper is to be dealt with as business of the House on the next sitting day after the adoption of this resolution. NATIONAL PARK ESTATE (SOUTHERN REGION RESERVATIONS) BILL Second Reading Debate resumed from 5 December. The Hon. R. S. L. JONES [11.05 a.m.]: I commend the Premier, Bob Carr, for his leadership in ensuring the declaration of these marvellous new conservation reserves. The New South Wales logging industry savagely attacked the Premier and the Minister for the Environment, Bob Debus, over the decision in April this year to provide some 220,000 hectares of new national parks on the South Coast and about 100,000 hectares in the Tumut area while giving industry a specific timber allocation of 90,000 cubic metres for the next 20 years. The logging industry abused the Premier and the Minister and accused them of selling out to green interests. If that means that the Premier has protected a billion-dollar-a-year tourism industry on the South Coast which depends on the beauty of the area and the water quality of its lakes, rivers and beaches, then I say we should do it again! The native forest logging industry for the whole region employs fewer than 150 people, yet it provides more than 6,000 jobs in tourism. The new parks alone will generate more jobs from increased tourism in recreation, park management and maintenance than the whole of the current native forest logging, casting and sawmilling jobs on the South Coast. And that is before we consider the fishing and oyster industries, which are worth far more than the logging industry but which are also vulnerable to the abusive, intensive logging which the New South Wales logging industry has proposed through its spokesperson, Col Dorber, the Executive Officer of the Forest Products Association of New South Wales. The fishing and oyster industries are at risk from the logging industry. The Forest Products Association now wants to build massive electricity and charcoal plants on the South Coast to burn the remaining production forests. This is simply another, vastly expanded form of woodchipping and clear-felling which was originally aimed at producing woodchips for papermaking. It is no wonder that people think that their forests are only safe in national parks. Any government that encourages such vandalism of the forests will be swept from office on a tide of public protest. The Premier and his environment Minister, Bob Debus, have delivered the best reserves decision of a very mixed bunch for the east coast forest assessments. It is a relatively much better conservation decision than the earlier north-east and Eden decisions. The Hon. Dr B. P. V. Pezzutti: Point of order: I can hardly hear the Hon. R. S. L. Jones, and I am sure Hansard would be having a similar problem. The PRESIDENT: Order! Yes. There are two problems. First, there is far too much chatter on the benches and, second, the Hon. R. S. L. Jones needs to speak into the microphone. 11620 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 6 December 2000 The Hon. R. S. L. JONES: Nature conservation and future generations will benefit from the creation of a string of marvellous new or expanded coastal parks, among them Conjola, Five Lakes and Murramarang between Nowra and Batemans Bay. These parks will protect a number of superb coastal lakes, including Swan Lake, Lake Conjola, Termeil Lake and Lake Durras. On the Great Dividing Range the major reserve gap between the Budawangs and the Deua-Wadbilliga National Park has been filled by the new Monga- Buckenbowra reserve. Its wilderness and old-growth forests, ancient pinkwoods and the mist valley of the upper Mongarlowe River complete a 350 kilometre long reserve link from the Victorian border to Macquarie Pass near Nowra. There are many other outstanding new parks. In the final arrangements to conclude this bill a number of boundary adjustments were made and further adjustments may occur over the next three months, in accordance with the bill. I have received a number of representations from conservationists about these adjustments. I believe that at least several on the South Coast—including the Georges Creek catchment of the Deua River and the slopes of the Peak Alone Mountain— were inadvisable and require urgent review between the Resource and Conservation Division of the Department of Planning and the South East Forest Alliance of conservation groups. I have also received a number of representations from conservationists about provisions in the bill which ensure that the boundaries of land adjacent to a public road within the new parks estate can be changed up until 31 December 2005; no decision is needed before 31 December 2005 on access roads within the new parks estate which will need to be excluded although still vested in the Minister for the Environment; and an extensive network of the unused, little used or inappropriate tracks, trails and other means of access are excluded from the parks until 31 December 2005 and may remain excluded indefinitely. Clause 10 (6) (b) allows for park boundaries adjacent to roads to be changed for five years until 31 December 2005. This should be changed to ensure that the boundaries of land adjacent to a public road can only be changed up until 31 December 2002, which is more than enough time. It is unprecedented for public roads to be allowed to be widened for a five-year period when a national park is created. Amending the period to 31 December 2002 will avoid such a precedent. Clause 8 of schedule 7 makes provision to publish orders up until 31 December 2005, which will result in road corridors in new national parks, nature reserves and State recreation areas that will ultimately be permanently excluded and remain vested with the Minister for the Environment. I presume this is to avoid limitations in the National Parks and Wildlife Act which may prevent either exclusive vehicle access to private property owners or significant logging truck access to nearby State forests. Obviously, I do not intend to prevent this type of access where it is legitimate and there are no other feasible alternatives. Clause 8 provides a five-year period until 31 December 2005 in which the National Parks and Wildlife Service may review which access roads are required to be excluded from the parks estate but to remain vested with the Minister, similar to provisions in the Forestry and National Park Estate Act 1998 and the Forestry Revocation and National Park Reservation Act 1996. However, clause 8 should only apply to vehicle access roads that potentially meet the above criteria of exclusive private property access or significant logging truck access where no alternatives exist. These provisions should not apply to tracks, trails and other means of access, unless the only effective access is a non-vehicular access. The broader provision could result in a great administrative burden for the management agencies and could result in many unnecessary access tracks being permanently left out of the parks estate and not properly protected under the National Parks and Wildlife Act. They will be inadequately protected against later use and abuse through access for intensive recreation, mining exploration vehicles, test drilling and so on. It would also make it difficult and confusing to adequately administer or control appropriate access and use of the national parks, and create a multitude of pressures for continuing special access during the five-year period, which would be detrimental to effective conservation management. Subclause (2) (c) of clause 8 also needs to be made consistent with subclause (2) (b), so that the bill does not allow a new logging road or access track to be constructed over national parks estates. Accordingly, it needs to ensure that only roads used immediately before the Act are considered for exclusion from the parks estate. This makes it consistent with subclause (2) (b), which uses the word "used". The orders declaring access roads for inclusion in or exclusion from the park estate, published under clause 8 (6) of schedule 7, should be published by 31 December 2002 rather than 31 December 2005. A five- year period for such action is far too lengthy and is unacceptable. The suggested two-year period makes the time to publish an order the same as the time permitted under previous Acts, such as the Forestry and National Parks Estate Act 1998. The bill could be improved by ensuring that if an order is not made in respect of an access road 6 December 2000 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 11621 by 31 December 2002 the area encompassed by that road will be automatically reserved as part of the national park, State recreation area or nature reserve in which it is located. This would guarantee that any access roads that may have been inadvertently left vested with the Minister for the Environment but should have been reserved as national park or nature reserve do revert to national park or nature reserve.

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