2018-09-07
Ms PENNICUIK (Southern Metropolitan) — My question is for the Minister for Agriculture. Today is Threatened Species Day, and it is also Biodiversity Month and the international Year of the Bird. The annual hunters' bag survey, which is coordinated by the Game Management Authority, is meant to be an important component of assessing the impact of duck shooting on our native waterbirds, which are protected species apart from when they are declared to be game species in the March-to-June duck shooting season. The 2017 Aerial Survey of Wetland Birds in Eastern Australia found that most game species' abundances were well below long-term averages, in some cases by a significant order of magnitude. Minister, the original concept of this survey was that it would be conducted widely across Victoria, but the number of surveys has fallen from around 110 wetlands to 19 this year. Minister, why are so few wetlands being surveyed by the Game Management Authority (GMA)?
Ms PULFORD (Minister for Agriculture) (12:14:20) — I thank Ms Pennicuik for her question, and I wish her a happy day, month and year for each of those things. At its heart I think Ms Pennicuik's question goes to the capability and function of the Game Management Authority, which is —
Ms Pennicuik — Questionable.
Ms PULFORD — I think it is a matter of public record that the GMA has not been managing its responsibilities well. There was an extensive report into the GMA. There have been I think some legitimate concerns around the GMA's budget, the level of which was set by the former government when they established the GMA in 2014 and which I am pleased to report to the house we have been able to resolve in recent times, which is good. There will be additional resources going to the GMA.
The Pegasus review, which is a public document on the GMA website — and it was public before that too — details the difficulties that GMA had in fulfilling its responsibilities around the 2017 duck season opening weekend. That report came back to government not terribly long before the opening of the 2018 season, and we put in place a range of measures to improve compliance and improve enforceability along with some additional resources. All of those things I think resulted in a much better outcome for the 2018 season. I thank our hunting community for their response to that. There were plenty of people in our hunting community who were not particularly thrilled with the new arrangements, but the leaders of Field & Game Australia, the Australian Deer Association and the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia were certainly conveying messages to their members about the need to be responsive to the new arrangements, and I thank them for that. I thank everyone for having done a much better job in 2018 than in 2017. I would also say that of course the overwhelming majority of hunters are doing the right thing, but on opening weekend in 2017 we had some completely unacceptable behaviour and behaviour that is unacceptable to most in our hunting community.
The surveying that Ms Pennicuik referred to is an important part of the preparation for the opening weekend and the arrangements for the 12-week-long season. The methodology has not changed, but one of the actions in the government's Sustainable Hunting Action Plan is to develop new methodology. That work is underway, but I am happy to share with the house — I think I have done it on previous occasions — that some of the deficiencies in the functioning of the GMA have been the higher priority in recent times. Policy work and delivery work on all of the actions in the Sustainable Hunting Action Plan are very much still underway. Some good progress is being made on many of those actions —
Ms Pennicuik — On a point of order, President, the question was simple: why have so few wetlands been surveyed in comparison to the past? The minister has just under 30 seconds to perhaps answer that question.
Ms PULFORD — I would respond by saying that, as I indicated earlier in my answer, there have been no changes made to the methodology in relation to those surveys. Those surveys are not conducted by the government or by the GMA. They are surveys that are run through the eastern states each year and that inform the decision that the GMA board makes, so —
The PRESIDENT — Thank you, Minister.