P2660b-2667A Hon Dr Sally Talbot; Hon Diane Evers; Hon Alannah Mactiernan; Hon Laurie Graham; Hon Dr Steve Thomas; Hon Darren West
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Extract from Hansard [COUNCIL — Thursday, 14 May 2020] p2660b-2667a Hon Dr Sally Talbot; Hon Diane Evers; Hon Alannah MacTiernan; Hon Laurie Graham; Hon Dr Steve Thomas; Hon Darren West NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Motion HON DR SALLY TALBOT (South West) [11.35 am] — without notice: I move — That this house — (a) notes that natural resource management funding for local community-based projects through the community stewardship grants program has been increased this year to $7.5 million and an additional $1 million has been provided to assist NRMs and the Western Australian Landcare Network with core funding; and (b) congratulates the McGowan government for providing this additional support to community groups dedicated to caring for Western Australia’s precious environment. I will take any opportunity presented to me to pay tribute to the NRM groups in the south west region. They are a fabulous bunch of people and they do absolutely outstanding work. In these times that have been quite dark and troubled over the last couple of months for a number of people, my spirits rose when I saw the announcement from Hon Alannah MacTiernan and Hon Stephen Dawson that NRM groups have been granted a pay rise this year. In these very difficult economic circumstances, these two outstanding ministers have found extra money to fund NRM groups in Western Australia. I could not let the moment pass without paying tribute to the seven NRM groups that operate throughout Western Australia and these two ministers who, as I say, have done an outstanding job in not just maintaining, but increasing, this funding. I have had a lot to do with the NRM groups in my electorate, as I imagine you have, Mr Acting President (Hon Dr Steve Thomas). As a fellow member for the South West Region, you would be very familiar with the Peel–Harvey Catchment Council, the South West Catchments Council and the South Coast Natural Resource Management, and I am sure you would be the first to agree with me that they do absolutely outstanding work. People like Jane O’Malley, Sally Wilkinson and Justin Bellanger are really the mainstays of our environmental community, and all three of them—I know Sally is relatively new to the job—have all embraced the sense that a good NRM set-up is about building social and human capital in our community. I really want to salute the work they have done over the years to give real substance to that notion. This is not just an abstract concept that looks nice when somebody does a desktop exercise in Perth; it plays out on the ground every day of the week, every week of the year all around Western Australia. This morning I am particularly noting this evolution of the NRM culture in Western Australia, which has now got to the stage at which we can proudly call it a state NRM program. This has not always been the case. I acknowledge that a group of public servants has effectively given their professional lives to the establishment and maintenance of the natural resource management movement. It started a couple of decades ago with such high ideals and a fine set of principles. Unfortunately, what we have seen over those couple of decades is a gradual whittling away of the spirit of natural resource management. Sadly, 18 months to two years ago—essentially on coming to government in 2017—our analysis showed us that we had some real problems both delivering on the ground the practical outcomes that NRM is supposed to deliver and also maintaining the community spirit that is so essential to this kind of environmental work. For a brief period during the years that I was shadow environment minister, we had a federal Labor government, and I acknowledge and confess that I was pretty excited by what a federal Labor government would do for NRM programs. I have to say, probably with the benefit of hindsight, that it was a little bit disappointing because, by then, the whole NRM structure nationally had begun to unravel. I know that many of my colleagues had similar conversations with their federal counterparts during which we tried to explain to them that NRM in Western Australia had always been good and effective and had always delivered in spades for every dollar that we put into it from the top to the bottom of Western Australia. Unfortunately, that was not always the case in the eastern states. As we know, eastern states’ voices are very loud in the ears of our federal members of Parliament. Over the years, to try to contain what was going on in the eastern states, where there was more of a corporate culture around NRM and a lot more competition between groups, the NRM groups in Western Australia, which were never run like that, have paid quite a high price. I refer to the work that our ministers have done— particularly Hon Alannah MacTiernan and Hon Stephen Dawson, and I should also mention Dave Kelly as Minister for Water—in bringing back something that we can call the state NRM program and, particularly, the community stewardship grants programs that run as the lifeblood or the arterial artery through the NRM body that pumps money into small community groups. For those honourable members who did not have time to unpick the recent announcement, $7.5 million is in the forward estimates and will be given to the NRM groups over the next few years, which will go to the community stewardship grants, and an extra $1 million for the next three years will be pumped in through the seven regional NRM bodies. This is very significant money. It is exactly what our local communities need to keep these groups going. When I was the shadow environment minister, I emphasised time and again the importance of providing some kind of certainty to small community groups. I am talking now about [1] Extract from Hansard [COUNCIL — Thursday, 14 May 2020] p2660b-2667a Hon Dr Sally Talbot; Hon Diane Evers; Hon Alannah MacTiernan; Hon Laurie Graham; Hon Dr Steve Thomas; Hon Darren West the groups that style themselves as “friends of”. We have friends groups all over Western Australia, including in the south west. I am thinking of groups such as the Denmark Weed Action Group—the Denmark WAG—and other tiny groups that comprise volunteers who come together a couple of times a week. If you have never done this, Mr Acting President (Hon Dr Steve Thomas), I recommend that you contact the Denmark Weed Action Group and spend half a day with its members. They will show you things that you have never seen before. They will pull up by the side of the road and walk you up a stream course and show you how they are clearing. You will see before your very eyes the environment coming back to life and the wildlife returning to areas from which it had disappeared due to infestations of exotic things and creatures. We are talking about not only “friends of” groups, pest and biosecurity groups and bush care groups, but also growers groups, which clearly have an interest in their local environment. I remember years ago when Hon Murray Criddle, who was a Nationals member in this place, interjected on me and said that farmers were the first people to spot climate change. He was absolutely right. Clearly, anybody who is a grower in the south west region is forever affected by the fact that it is a biodiversity hotspot. I repeat again for those who have not caught up that being a biodiversity hotspot is a bad thing. We do not want to be a biodiversity hotspot. I do not think areas are advertising themselves as a diversity hotspot as though it is a good thing. It is a bad thing because it means that our biodiversity is under serious threat. We have growers groups, tourism industry groups and local government now involved with NRM, and that is a very good thing. What we are trying to do with this money is leverage skills and knowledge. We know now that if we really want to know what is going on in an area, we go to these community groups. There are experts, and our seven NRM groups around the state have a wealth of academic and practical expertise, some of which is paid and some of which is unpaid, but we also need to include local knowledge. I feel very passionately about this, particularly in areas of the south west where ranger programs are linked in with the delivery of NRM projects. We have the involvement of people who have been on country for generations. They know what used to be there; sometimes they did the original clearing. Over the decades, what is now called the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development had a difficult time in terms of its databases about what was cleared and when, what counts as native flora and all that sort of thing. Often through the wealth of knowledge and experience, including the information that we have through incorporating rangers into these programs, we are able to go back and talk with real authority about what we want our land to look like. We are also building social capacity, and that is all part of what goes on in these groups. It was a Labor Party election promise to improve NRM funding security precisely because people on my side of the chamber recognise that the lifeblood of environmental programs are small community groups, and that small grants programs and community conservation groups have to be brought together to enable this work to take place to make real change at the local level.