STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION INQUIRY INTO THE POTENTIAL ENVIRONMENTAL CONTRIBUTION OF RECREATIONAL HUNTING SYSTEMS TRANSCRIPT OF EVIDENCE TAKEN AT PERTH WEDNESDAY, 20 AUGUST 2014 SESSION THREE Members Hon Liz Behjat (Chairman) Hon Darren West (Deputy Chairman) Hon Nigel Hallett Hon Jacqui Boydell Hon Amber-Jade Sanderson Hon Rick Mazza (Co-opted member) __________ Public Administration Wednesday, 20 August 2014 — Session Three Page 1 Hearing commenced at 10.00 am Mr MIKE WOOD Chairman, Bibbulmun Track Foundation, sworn and examined: Ms LOUISE YEAMAN Board Member, Bibbulmun Track Foundation, sworn and examined: The CHAIRMAN: We are on quite a tight time frame today. As you can see, there are a number of witnesses who are appearing in front us. Whilst my colleague is out of the room, we might get the formalities over and done with. My name is Liz Behjat. I am the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Public Administration. I represent the North Metropolitan Region. To my left, we have Hon Rick Mazza, who represents the Agricultural Region. Absent from the room at the moment is Hon Amber-Jade Sanderson, who represents the East Metropolitan Region. This is the deputy chair of the committee, Hon Darren West, who also represents the Agricultural Region. Our advisory officer Dr Julia Lawrinson is just out of the room. This is Hon Nigel Hallett who represents the South West Region. Our other colleague, Hon Jacqui Boydell, from the Mining and Pastoral Region is not with us today; she is an apology for these hearings. We need to do some formalities. The first thing is to swear you in as witnesses, so I ask you to take an oath or an affirmation. [Witnesses took the oath or affirmation.] The CHAIRMAN: You will have both signed a document entitled “Information for Witnesses”. Have you read and understood that document? The Witnesses: Yes. The CHAIRMAN: The proceedings today are being recorded by Hansard, and a transcript of your evidence will be provided to you. To assist the committee and Hansard, please quote the full title of any document you refer to during the course of this hearing for the record. Please be aware of the microphones and try to speak into them; ensure that you do not cover them with papers or make noise near them. I remind you that your transcript will become a matter for the public record. If for some reason you wish to make a confidential statement during today’s proceedings, you should request that the evidence be taken in closed session. If the committee grants your request, any public and media in attendance will be excluded from the hearing. Please note that until such time as the transcript of your public evidence is finalised, it should not be made public. I advise you that publication or disclosure of the uncorrected transcript of evidence may constitute a contempt of Parliament and may mean that material published or disclosed is not subject to parliamentary privilege. We have a copy here of the written submission that you made to the inquiry, and we thank you very much for making that submission. Is there an opening statement you wanted to make in support of that, or would you like us to start questions? Mr Wood: No, I think we can probably move into the questions fairly soon. The thing we want to ensure is that we do not duplicate evidence; I think you are going to get a lot of evidence about the viability of amateur hunting on state land and whether that is an effective form of feral animal control or not. While we have been doing our reading on the subject, we are not considered experts in that area. Our primary goal is about ensuring the safety and the enjoyment of walkers on the Bibbulmun Track. I suppose the other aspect of our role is also to ensure the existing investment Public Administration Wednesday, 20 August 2014 — Session Three Page 2 that we have made on the track. To a large extent I also represent other trail groups; I was on the board of the Munda Biddi bike foundation, and I am also sitting on the trails reference group, which is the intergovernmental body that coordinates trail development in Western Australia. Members of that body also sit on a Lotterywest funding panel—I am one of those members—and we give advice to Lotterywest about the $1 million grant they disperse to trail groups across Western Australia over a year. To date, it is somewhere in the region of about $15 million that we have been donating to trails and helping with trail development. A lot of that is going through local government, but also through community trail groups as well. Of course, the investment that the DPaW—previously DEC, previously CALM—has made into trails has been very significant through the state government; also the federal government has made a very significant financial investment as well. I suppose our view is that at the moment our walkers, to a great extent, can get out onto the track, can walk in pretty well safe conditions and not have other people shooting at them, even inadvertently, but also be aware that it is a fairly benign environment in a lot of ways. They take the normal precautions and that is fine. The tracks are huge tourist icons; the Bibbulmun Track just got voted in the top 20 trails by National Geographic in the world, and the Munda Biddi has been voted the best off-road cycle trail in the world. We have put a lot of time and energy into getting these trails promoted overseas to tourists, but I think with some of the figures—we have quoted them in the report to you—we are talking about nearly $39 million that the Bibbulmun Track contributes into the economy of the south west every year. That is fairly significant. We have not done anything with the Munda Biddi yet as far as investment; we are working on that at the moment and trying to get some measurement of how much the track is used and how much money it increases. I have actually been on record saying that I think the Munda Biddi, in the end, will be bigger than the Bibbulmun Track. There are other trails, of course, as well. There is the Cape to Cape, and some of the local trails around the Peel district as well. We are not really intimately involved with anything out of the south west, so there may be different requirements for places like the Pilbara and Kununurra as far as the compatibility of hunters on that public land. But certainly in the south west, where it is forested, we have some real issues with people not being able to be seen. As to trails around the world that go through hunting areas, the Appalachian Trail would be probably the biggest one; it is on the east coast of America. It is 3 500 kilometres of trail, and 1 200 kilometres of that goes through land that is open for hunting in America. There are a lot of stories about people almost being shot, and a lot of stories about the clothes that walkers have to wear—fluoro vests and the like—to be seen by hunters, and there is lots of advice on the websites about what you should be wearing to make sure that you are not seen as a flash of a deer or something like that. We do not want that to happen in Western Australia. We already have a few issues with foreign tourists thinking we are riddled with snakes and crocodiles. The unfortunate thing is that a number of international tourists have thought our sign—the Wagyl, I am sure you have seen—is a snake warning sign. We have had to explain it is not, obviously. Hon RICK MAZZA: That would scare a few away. Mr Wood: Yes. The CHAIRMAN: Have you thought about changing your symbol perhaps? Mr Wood: We have. We sort of thought of that; maybe we should have done some marketing beforehand! The CHAIRMAN: Something soft and furry. Mr Wood: Yes; we should have had a platypus on there or something. The CHAIRMAN: Not a spider! Mr Wood: Or a numbat. The CHAIRMAN: In your submission to us you make the statement that — Public Administration Wednesday, 20 August 2014 — Session Three Page 3 • Walkers on the Bibbulmun Track have felt intimidated and frightened by hunters with dogs and vehicles; especially at night at the established campsites where there are only three- sided shelters for protection and no lighting other than personal torches. • Walkers on the Bibbulmun Track have reported hunters have caused them to have bad or negative experiences on the Track. I would like you to perhaps expand on that. Do you have any documentation in relation to those incidents and how often there are occurrences of those sorts of instances, or is this just anecdotal evidence given to you? Mr Wood: It is reports coming back to our office. You are aware that we have an office here in Perth and we have full-time staff and part-time staff; we have a number of office volunteers as well—nearly 20—and we also have 300 maintenance volunteers who coordinate the maintenance on the track, apart from the 2 500 members. The reports we get come back into the office, and I can get those emails or letters for you if you would like to see them. I do not have them with me now, but we can take it on notice.