2016-12-07
Ms DUNN (Eastern Metropolitan) — I rise today to speak to Mr Young's motion 349. I thank Mr Young of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party for bringing forward this motion. This motion touches on many important issues for the future of the state and key issues for the Greens, such as: how do we sustain small towns in regional Victoria? How can we create small and medium enterprises in the Central Highlands and surrounding areas — the types of businesses that create good, long-term employment? What is the best way to stop the drift of younger generations from small towns in the Central Highlands to Melbourne? Are the existing uses of state forests in the Central Highlands preventing other industries from flourishing? What is the value of the natural capital in the state forests? What ecological services are provided by native forests, and how much would it cost to replace them? How can we protect Melbourne's water supply, which provides some of the cleanest drinking water in the world? How can we adapt to climate change and the seasonal extremes that come with it and reduce bushfire risk? But above all is one big question: what do we as a community want to bequeath to the next generation?
This motion is targeted at a proposed great forest national park, or GFNP for short. The purposes of this debate warrant an in-depth description of this proposal, but before I get to that I just want to put this on the record: the GFNP community group, which are promoting this idea for Victoria, are not an activist group. They are not trendy, inner-city types. If Mr Young actually spoke to the proponents of the GFNP, he would find that they live in Alexandra, in Marysville, in Taggerty, in Narbethong, in Toolangi, in Chum Creek, in Healesville and in Warburton. I can assure you that the Melbourne metropolitan boundary has not quite extended to Alexandra yet.
I now turn to the proposal in front of us. The GFNP is a vision for a multi-tiered park system in the Central Highlands, extending from Kinglake through to Mount Baw Baw and north-east to Eildon. It centres on the Yarra Ranges National Park, extending to Kinglake National Park in the north-west, Lake Eildon National Park in the north-east, Baw Baw National Park in the south-east and Bunyip State Park in the south-west. It will also include Cathedral and Moondarra state parks. Added to these existing parks will be state forests and existing special protection zones, which under the proposal will be converted to national park status. It is important to note that the GFNP will only incorporate Crown land. No private property is acquired under the proposal.
What benefits will the GFNP bring in terms of conservation? The crowning jewel of the GFNP will be the mountain ash forests, found only in south-eastern Victoria and parts of Tasmania. The namesake of this system is the mountain ash Eucalyptus regnans, and I hope members have taken the opportunity to visit these magnificent forests of Victoria. It is the tallest eucalypt species and one of the tallest trees in the world, second to the coast redwoods, Sequoia sempervirens, of California. The tallest living Eucalyptus regnans is 99.6 metres tall. There are historical claims to trees of 112 metres, even extending to 132 metres in height. This is definitely in the rarefied heights of the majestic redwoods.
The eucalyptus regnans is also the tallest flowering plant in the world, and I draw members' attention to Cambarville in Victoria, home of the big tree. At one point the big tree was 92 metres high, but after storm damage it is now 84 metres and well worth visiting as part of the wonderful scenery our state provides. Eucalyptus regnans can grow to be 400 to 500 years old. These old giants provide structural cover and protection for the rainforest understorey that grows underneath.
The mountain ash forest provides important habitat for a range of threatened species that rely on intact forests, large old trees and minimal disturbance. Ash forests provide habitat for a range of wildlife threatened by decades of fire and logging. At least 40 of these species need tree hollows to live and breathe in, and it takes around 150 to 200 years to create such habitat trees. Leadbeater's possum — Gymnobelideus leadbeateri — the state faunal emblem, which was uplisted as critically endangered by the threatened species committee, is found only in Victoria and generally only in the existing mountain ash forest in the proposed great forest national park area. Of course, it is a sad tale for those lowland Leadbeater's possums found in Yellingbo, so few in number that there is not the genetic diversity to see that species persist in the future without intervention. The other species in the mountain ash forest in the proposed area are the sooty owl, the powerful owl, the masked owl, the mountain brushtail possum and the greater glider.
A history of landscape-scale logging and fire has meant old trees are being lost and not replaced, becoming even more scarce. As a result, the mountain ash ecosystem of the Victorian Central Highlands has been scientifically assessed as critically endangered under the International Union for Conservation of Nature's criteria. This underlines the need for a new national park to protect and restore these forests.
The geological centrepiece of the proposed great forest national park is an ancient 30-kilometre-wide volcano, the Cerberean Caldera. Its eroded rim is marked by waterfalls and rugged ranges that define the skyline, creating some of the region's most dramatically picturesque outlooks. The Cathedral Range between Marysville and Alexandra is one of the grandest examples of these sheer, jagged outcrops. Mount Torbreck's waterfalls in the north-east of the caldera are little-known hidden gems. Further east, the rocky peaks gently give way to alpine heathland and the snow gum forests of the Australian Alps. The ecological wealth and beautiful landscapes that will be enshrined in this proposed great forest national park will really make it one of a kind, a beacon for tourism in this state.
But what will this park mean for the people of Victoria? This park will provide a world-class national park system within a short drive of Melbourne. It will provide unequalled opportunity to commune with nature and experience the rare beauty that Victoria has to offer. This park reserve system will boost the coverage of national parks in close proximity to Melbourne from the current 168 891 hectares to 522 104 hectares. That is more than a threefold increase but still only in the order of 50 per cent of what we see in national parks in New South Wales within close proximity to Sydney.
The park will provide a lot of opportunities for the growth of existing businesses and the creation of new ones. The natural capital preserved in the park will be the foundation for tourism-based industries. It will protect the viability of high-value agricultural, horticultural and viticultural product in the region.
Now I turn to the points of the motion moved by the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party. The first reason given for a moratorium on the establishment of a great forest national park is to, and I quote:
determine the additional resourcing (and source of funds) required by Parks Victoria to manage a park of this type and size, noting that the inadequate management of existing national parks and public land has been a concern in regional Victoria.
The Victorian Greens share similar concerns with the Shooters and Fishers in that there has been inadequate management of existing national parks in Victoria. This has principally been due to the savage budget cuts experienced by Parks Victoria, the agency charged with managing state, national and municipal parks. The raiding of the Parks Victoria budget has been well documented and mourned over this decade. On 4 January 2016 an article titled 'Victoria's national parks in jeopardy after deep funding cuts' by Josh Gordon in the Age reported that:
Parks Victoria's most recent annual report shows direct funding from the state government has collapsed by 37 per cent in nominal terms over the past three years, from $122 million in 2011–12 to $76.8 million in 2014–15.
Over the same period, the organisation slashed its spending by more than 16 per cent. Even after adding in cash from trusts and other sources, total income was still down almost 20 per cent, leaving Parks Victoria $6.2 million in the red.
These cuts have had massive consequences. The Victorian National Parks Association investigated these cuts and reported in March 2016 that:
Huge reductions in Parks Victoria's operating budget have compromised or even stopped management programs which, to be at all effective, must have secure, long-term recurrent funding.
Inevitably, service delivery has suffered.
Community engagement programs have been axed, maintenance of many assets deferred, visitor information scaled back and ecological management programs like weeds and feral animal programs cut — almost to nothing in some instances.
With fewer staff expected to do more, morale within the organisation has suffered as well. A report by the Victorian Public Sector Commission shows that 60 per cent of staff feel workplace stress is an issue for them, and many are considering leaving.
While the Andrews government provided $56.5 million in additional funding to Parks Victoria in 2014–2015, this was largely for new infrastructure ($19 million for construction of the Grampians Peaks Trail, $12 million for Portarlington harbour plus $13 million for critical asset issues, such as fire damage).
So it is clear that Parks Victoria has been raided by successive governments, which clearly see national and state parks as a cost centre to be gutted. Parks Victoria must be the stewards that ensure our precious remaining green spaces and conservation areas are kept in good health to be enjoyed for future generations.
Furthermore, it just makes economic sense to have well-managed and conserved state and national parks. In 2015 Parks Victoria released a report titled Valuing Victoria's Parks, which found the direct and indirect economic benefits to Victoria were huge. Tourists spend $1.4 billion a year visiting parks in Victoria, adding 14 000 jobs to the state's economy. This benefit is concentrated in the Grampians, the Great Ocean Road, the Yarra Valley, the Dandenong Ranges and Gippsland. There were 17 million visitor nights by tourists to the state's parks.
Our parks contain over 1 million hectares of water catchments supplying water used for drinking as well as for food production and other industries. The nine most important parks for water catchment provide 3400 gigalitres, which is 16 per cent of the state's total. This includes the Yarra Ranges and Baw Baw national parks, which will be incorporated into the great forest national park. The value of water filtration services provided by parks is estimated at $83 million a year. Parks are critical in flood protection. Melbourne's metropolitan parks provide stormwater retention services valued at $46 million per annum. Beekeeping in parks produces 1200 to 1600 tonnes of honey products each year.
The Victorian parks network is a major carbon sink, with at least 270 million tonnes of carbon stored in land-based parks. We know that the mountain ash forest carries 19 000 tonnes of carbon per hectare within the area that will comprise the great forest national park. Land-based parks contain 353 endemic terrestrial species, of which 45 are found nowhere else in the world. Maintenance of genetic diversity not only provides the basis for many other services but also has a direct role in disease prevention. An indicative analysis suggests that the avoided health care costs and productivity impacts associated with undertaking physical activity regularly in Victorian parts could be up to $200 million per annum.
It is evident that Parks Victoria needs greater funding to manage our existing parks. Just to give a local perspective of that, I was contacted by the Friends of Marysville Walks, who noted:
With the devastation by fire of Marysville and its forest surrounds seven years ago, many of its iconic walks were lost. Some have been rehabilitated, but without towering mountain ash and banks of tall tree ferns, the forest experience is not the same. Some pockets of damp rainforest survived with a 'light burn', including 'The Beeches', the most magnificent walk of all, with its lush understorey, fairytale 300-year-old myrtle beech trees, gushing Taggerty Cascade and foraging lyrebirds. Two years after the fire the walking track was closed for 'safety reasons' and has remained closed ever since. The top end of Lady Talbot Drive is now blocked by fallen trees and permanently closed to traffic because Parks Victoria cannot afford to clear the road and maintain the track.
It is a terrible irony that Victorian taxpayers are paying out millions for new gravel roads into pristine mountain ash forests in the Rubicon and elsewhere to facilitate VicForests' plunder of biodiversity (for which there is no public return), whilst tourists are locked out of 'The Beeches' through lack of funds for road maintenance. Marysville's future lies in tourism, a much more prolific employer than logging.
When I look to the national park in my own backyard, the Dandenong Ranges National Park, I know it takes years for repairs to be done on walking tracks, and it is a park that attracts over half a million visitors a year. It is very clear that Parks Victoria's funding, or lack of funding, is critical. However, that should not preclude the creation of the great forest national park. What it means is that Parks Victoria should get the full funding it needs to properly and sustainably manage its existing responsibilities and get extra funding to take on the responsibilities of managing the great forest national park. The Victorian Greens agree with the Shooters and Fishers Party that Parks Victoria must be properly funded and resourced, with staff levels to match, to properly manage the state's park, but a moratorium is not the way to achieve this.
The second point of the motion states that a moratorium is required to:
(2) provide an assurance that the proposal for the great forest national park will not negatively impact access or use of land by any existing user group or stakeholder.
The few opponents that exist to the great forest national park — and they are very few in number — have some pretty odd ideas as to what the proposed park is about. There are myths that it is about stopping recreational activities and locking out humans so that there can be no interaction with nature. It is not about stopping those activities. Indeed creating a national park and preserving our remaining mountain ash forest provides for so many recreational activities that are currently under-catered for — for example, hiking, climbing, camping, some four-wheel driving and horseriding. All of these activities can happen in national parks. The proponents of the great forest national park are also open to discussion on where these activities can happen, what time of year they can happen and what infrastructure investments and maintenance budgets will be required to ensure they can happen. If members of the Shooters and Fishers Party would only apprise themselves of the proposal details on the great forest national park website, they would learn the following about horseriding:
The park will be a multitiered zoning that accommodates a range of recreational uses including activities that are currently enjoyed. It is likely that there will be designated areas for horseriding and sensitive areas where horses will not be permitted.
On dog walking:
It is likely that there will be designated areas for on-leash dog walking, off-leash exercise and sensitive areas where dogs will not be permitted.
And on four-wheel driving:
Visitors in 4x4s will be welcome to use park roads subject to the same rules that apply on all Victorian public roads. It is likely that there will be designated tracks specifically for 4x4 driving and some sensitive areas where vehicles will not be permitted.
A well-funded and well-managed great forest national park will provide better opportunities for these types of recreational activities than those that currently exist in the proposed park boundaries. But let us be clear. One use of state forest that is absolutely mutually exclusive to the proposed great forest national park is native forest logging. An analysis of VicForests data indicates there is less than five years of logs available in the Central Highlands before they run out of viable coupes. This is completely incompatible with the plans for the great forest national park. This is a travesty being meted out on the little remaining mountain ash forest in this state. It is an economic debacle that uses state subsidies to produce low-value products like woodchips and paper pulp to make Reflex copy paper. It is stealing from future generations the enjoyment, economic value and ecological services they could gain from these forests.
Under the stewardship of the Andrews Labor government 600 000 tonnes per annum of Leadbeater's possum habitat has been logged. Not one tree has been saved under this government, not one coupe has been saved and not even a single mountain ash tree has been saved by the Premier's forest industry task force. This state government admits beyond the ears of the forestry division of the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union and the VicForests senior management that there are better uses of this state's native forest than logging. In the government's own Victorian Visitor Economy Strategy it stated:
The visitor economy is becoming more important to job creation in regional Victoria as traditional industries such as manufacturing, agriculture and forestry remain static or decline. In 2013–14 tourism was worth $11.5 billion to regional Victoria (in gross regional product) and generated 114 400 jobs.
Tourism could create over 114 000 jobs in regional Victoria. How many jobs are generated by native forest logging in regional Victoria? According to VicForests it is 463. Of those, approximately 220 of them are in the area covered by the proposed great forest national park. In other words, tourism creates 250 times the number of jobs in regional Victoria as native forest logging. If this state government and indeed the Shooters and Fishers Party were forward thinking about jobs in regional Victoria, they would not look to dying industries like native forest logging; they would look to tourism.
On Tuesday SGS Economics and Planning released a report titled Australian Cities Accounts 2015–16 that shows that while Melbourne is booming, the regional economy is actually in decline. Gross state product, excluding Melbourne, retreated 1 per cent over
2015–16, driven by a sharp decline in manufacturing. Gross domestic product (GDP) has fallen in each of the past three years, and there has been a decline in GDP per capita over the past nine straight years. It is a shocking outcome for regional Victoria and one of the biggest obstacles to stimulating growth in regional Victoria. There needs to be stepwise improvement in critical industry, and that means tourism.
We need more tourism in regional Victoria, and it is one of the promising growth areas. A great forest national park will increase tourism numbers. Logging is the most exclusive, punishing and damaging use of native forest that could ever be envisioned. Timber harvest safety zones supposedly keep people safe from logging activities, but what they really do is prevent concerned citizens and citizen scientists from monitoring the compliance of VicForests with the timber code of practice. If you want to find exclusion of other users, there you have it right now. It is happening every day, right now — blocked access to these forests. This year there have been countless reports of VicForests failing to find protected species in logging coupes, and yet we have seen a government hell-bent on prosecuting citizen scientists in our forests.
The creation of the great forest national park will lead to greatly expanded visitor numbers, building on the strong number already in the existing national parks that would be encompassed. New South Wales already has its equivalent to the great forest national park in the form of iconic biodiverse national parks in close proximity to the state capital, allowing for day trips and longer stays. These parks are the Royal National Park and the Blue Mountains National Park near Sydney. These parks get 4.1 million and 4.3 million domestic visitors per year. Many of these intrastate or interstate visitors stay overnight. There were 2.15 million visitor nights racked up by domestic visitors in the Blue Mountains National Park in 2016.
These domestic visitors spent $336 million — that is, about $75 per head — on park fees, petrol, food, souvenirs and activities. The Blue Mountains National Park welcomed 100 000 international visitors, who racked up an impressive 520 000 visitor nights — that is, an average of five nights per tourist. It is a huge economic gain to regional New South Wales. The latest estimate available for 2014 shows that international tourists spent $100 per each night they were in the park. The evidence is clear. National parks attract tourism and they attract high-value international tourists that spend multiple nights in the national park. The benefit to gateway towns, wineries and other tourist destinations near the great forest national park will be huge. The great forest national park would be a shot in the arm for the declining economy of regional Victoria.
You might say that there are visitors to state forests too; the trouble is no-one seems to have tracked that. While Parks Victoria has assembled an adequate baseline to determine how many visitors there are to national and state parks, there is little in the way of public information on visitation to state forests. But there are not as many visitors to state forests as there are to national parks. The attention provided to a national park — the marketing, the infrastructure, the access, the priority given to it, all these things — induce demand for visitors.
State parks will never do that, and that is because of the way they are designed. They are designed to be logged. The roads are optimised for logging trucks, not for access to camping spots or hiking trails or viewpoints. Besides, who wants to camp, hike, go horseriding or do anything within the site of the devastation of a logging coupe? Nobody. Indeed there are already complaints from tourism operators about the damage done to their businesses by native forest logging. You only need to look towards the Rubicon and the reputational damage to tourism businesses there. Vineyards have had the fruit on the vine damaged by smoke taint caused by logging coupe burns. That is right; high-value grapes in the Yarra Valley are being damaged for the sake of low-value woodchips.
Are businesses against the great forest national park? No, they are overwhelmingly for it. Why would businesses be against the great forest national park if it is good for business and the economy? There are a range of businesses that have put their names to supporting this proposal, and perhaps the members of the Shooters and Fishers Party might look at that list of businesses online. They will see that there is in fact much local economic support for the proposal. These are not businesses that are based in inner-city Melbourne; they are businesses that are based in the region and that see this proposal as a good idea and a way forward for the area.
If the members of the Shooters and Fishers Party went and spoke to these small to medium enterprises, they would gain a bit of understanding about how business in the Central Highlands work and understand that the GFNP will lead to more jobs, investment and economic growth, not the opposite. They would also learn how little direct economic contribution and how much damage native forest logging does to the tourism, hospitality and value-added agricultural, horticultural and viticultural industries in their region. By denying these opportunities you are denying these towns the opportunity to remain viable and condemning a generation to have to leave town to seek work elsewhere, and that is usually in Melbourne.
The motion claims that a moratorium is required to demonstrate that adequate fire management can still take place in these areas and will not be negatively impacted by any change in land tenure. I have some good news for the Shooters and Fishers Party. The jury is in, and no moratorium is required to demonstrate that adequate fire management can take place. Sufficient scientific research has been conducted, leading to numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals that show that the mountain ash forests and those forests that comprise part of the great forest national park are more resistant to fire than logged forests.
So what does the science tell us? The Black Saturday bushfires of February 2009 were a major tragedy for this state. The loss of life was huge, and communities are still grieving for those losses of life. Those fires swept through the mountain ash forests of Victoria, burning a significant amount of land. In the years following those fires, scientists from the University of Melbourne, the Australian National University and other institutions have conducted in-depth research to show how mountain ash forests have recovered from those fires.
One of the best compendiums of this research is a book published in November 2015 titled Mountain Ash — Fire, Logging and the Future of Victoria's Giant Forests, authored by David Lindenmayer, David Blair, Lachlan McBurney and Sam Banks. It compares the state of post-2009 forests to baselines developed over 25 years of research. That research is ably summarised in the 2009 publication Forest Pattern and Ecological Process — A Synthesis of 25 Years of Research, which was also edited by Professor David Lindenmayer. I encourage my colleagues to delve into this research and would be happy to provide them with copies of it.
For your edification, this research shows the following. The interaction of fire with logging has left the forests in a perilous state. Past clear-fell logging operations have resulted in mountain ash forests being at significantly greater risk of crown-scorching fire severity. This elevated fire risk effect persists for more than 40 years as the forests regrow. I refer colleagues to the journal article 'Nonlinear effects of stand age on fire severity' in the journal Conservation Letters, volume 7, issue 4, July–August 2014, by Chris Taylor, Michael McCarthy and David Lindenmayer. The combined effects of widespread logging and wildfire mean that just less than 1 per cent of the ash forest ecosystem is old-growth. This is one-thirtieth to one-sixtieth of what historically once occurred, and again this is another reason to create a great forest national park to preserve these remnants and take the pressure of logging off them.
Vegetation studies in mountain ash forests show that logging of burnt areas directly after the 2009 wildfires, termed 'salvage logging', had enormous negative impacts on native plants. Populations of important plant species such as tree ferns were depleted by 95 to 99 per cent in comparison to burnt but unlogged areas. Overall species diversity — that is, the number of different native plant species — are reduced by up to 30 per cent in post-fire salvage logged areas. These changes will have long-term negative impacts on the architecture of mountain ash forests. It is clear that intact mountain ash forests are denser, wetter and more resilient to bushfire than logged remnants.
As the peer-reviewed science referred to above states, you cannot extract logs from forests and improve their resilience to fires. You cannot claim that building logging roads in a forest improves its resilience to fire; in fact it does the opposite by dewatering the topsoil and clearing the understorey. Existing roads in state forests will be valuable assets for accessing areas of the national park for maintenance, monitoring and regenerative work, but it is important to remember that there are no human communities living in state forests today, and there will not be if those state forests are incorporated into a national park. Those roads in the state forests are not there to provide access to protect communities from bushfire; they are there to enable logging. The roads that matter in protecting existing towns are the roads to those townships themselves.
I turn briefly to invasive plant species. In the Central Highlands we have seen logging create enormous areas of weed banks. In some areas I have visited myself the blackberries are completely out of control because of the activities of logging, which have left disturbed areas ripe for weed invasion.
I also want to talk about invasive faunal species, because I am sure that in relation to invasive species the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party did not have flora on their minds; they probably had fauna on their minds. Cooperative approaches have been successful in reducing the impacts of invasive faunal species. This has been demonstrated in the Dandenong Ranges National Park, where Parks Victoria led a deer cull program with input from the Australian Deer Association and conservation groups. Another example is the removal of goats in the Murray-Sunset National Park, where elite shooters in helicopters culled 459 goats in four days. Invasive species management is affordable, practical and proven. Parks Victoria just needs the necessary funding.
A moratorium is not the way to assess these matters. There are far more appropriate mechanisms to use. A full public Victorian Environmental Assessment Council (VEAC) investigation is what is needed, rather than the government hiding behind a timber industry task force and waiting for the results of its deliberations. If the Shooters and Fishers were genuine in introducing this motion, they would not seek a moratorium as the way forward. Hiding behind the Forest Industry Taskforce is not the way to achieve a great forest national park. It is becoming clearer each day that the government is using the task force as a stalling tactic, a delay. In seeking this moratorium, the Shooters and Fishers are assisting the government to obstruct the creation of the great forest national park.
Has this moratorium on the GFNP been rationalised on the basis that more time is needed to establish whether the park is feasible? No, absolutely not. This is a dangerously ignorant political stunt that proves the Shooters and Fishers care little for the issues that matter to the Central Highlands and have not done their research to support such a foolish motion. In fact if I did not know better, I would have said that the forestry division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and the Victorian Association of Forest Industries wrote Mr Young's speech.
The Central Highlands need new infrastructure, new jobs and growth in regional towns. Above all, the community of the Central Highlands need a plan, not a naive step backwards that would forego opportunities for economic growth in the region. The great forest national park is the best hope for the Central Highlands. The only thing a moratorium would achieve is it would ensure the death of native forests in state forest areas. All coupes of notable biodiversity and conservation value in the state forests will be cleared within the current five-year timber release plan.
If this government were serious about looking for a future for the Central Highlands that does not involve wasteful and destructive native forest logging, there would be a full VEAC investigation into the creation of the great forest national park. Instead, all the community of the Central Highlands gets is a stalling mechanism in the form of a task force.
The former Liberal-Nationals government under Premiers Baillieu and Napthine failed to build an adequate new economic future for the Central Highlands after Black Saturday. The old trope that native forest logging is the only viable industry for the region has been passed from Labor to Liberal to Labor governments and back again. Meanwhile, the local community, in their hopes, aspirations, ideas and ingenuity, have been ignored for the sake of a few favoured mates in the logging industry.
As for the authors of this motion, either they come at it with grossly misinformed conceptions as to what the great forest national park will mean to users of the area or they have been suckered into the tired, false narrative of native forest logging as a productive industry. If the Shooters and Fishers really cared about the Central Highlands, they would have sought the views of the community and apprised themselves of the facts about national park management in this state and of the very detailed proposal that backs up the GFNP concept.
Nevertheless, the ham-fisted entrance of the Shooters and Fishers into the policy discussion on the economic future and natural values of the Central Highlands by way of this motion requires all members in this place to show where they stand. Members will have to indicate whether they are for the great forest national park and everything it preserves: the last remnants of Victoria's mountain ash forests and all the endemic and endangered species within, not least of which is the Leadbeater's possum; the massive watershed that provides Melbourne with some of the highest quality drinking water of any metropolis in the world; the many other ecological services provided by the proposed park, including run-off attenuation and flood prevention, carbon sequestration and biological services; and the benefits to our communities of a place to enjoy nature, to recreate or to get out of the hustle and bustle of the city or long hours in the agricultural sector.
Members will have to indicate their support or otherwise for the great forest national park and all the opportunities it will provide to the communities of the Central Highlands, including an uplift in tourist numbers, with valuable overnight stays and high-spending international visitors. It will provide them with the opportunity to further develop their hospitality and accommodation sector and their small and medium size enterprises, and it will create permanent, well-paid jobs in the tourism sector that will help retain younger generations in the Central Highlands.
Mr Young interjected.
Ms DUNN — To pick up the interjection, Mr Young: will it be your children who will have to find jobs in Melbourne because there is nothing happening for them in regional Victoria? That is what those young people in the Central Highlands of Victoria are facing now. The tax base of all this economic activity leveraged from the great forest national park will benefit local governments and the state government and see resources flowing back into regional Victoria to ensure our rural communities get the roads, public transport, schools and hospitals they so badly need. It will help provide transition for workers in the native forest logging industry, reskilling them to engage in park management — there are certainly plenty of revegetation opportunities available — and it will help build the infrastructure and systems required to ensure the successful maintenance and operation of the great forest national park. Alternatively those logging industry workers could be redeployed to plantations in other areas, safe in the knowledge that sustainable plantation forestry has a bright future in this state and will not disappear by 2020, like native forest logging.
Mr Young interjected.
Ms DUNN — There is no wood, Mr Young. Members need to consider whether they support the continuation of the status quo: a state-subsidised logging industry that barely pays its way and directly employs less than 250 people in the Central Highlands; the destruction of the most carbon-dense forests in the world and what that means for driving damaging climate change and the associated extreme weather events that will push our emergency services capabilities to their limits, harm our economy and make this state a far more bleak place to live; the irretrievable loss of iconic species such as the Leadbeater's possum; the failure to provide the ultimate protection to Melbourne's water supply; and the young people of the Central Highlands being forced to leave the area and migrate to Melbourne — in their wake the towns will fail under the crushing force of demographics as schools close, services become understaffed and economic activity goes into inexorable decline.
I implore members to choose wisely, because these are the choices they have to make. With that, I indicate that the Greens will be opposing the motion.