Crown Land Legislation Amendment (Canadian Regional Park and Other Matters) Bill 2015

Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — This bill changes the land use status protections of a number of parcels of land across Victoria and in all but one of the cases the Greens will be supporting those. In one particular case — that is, the proposed Kerang State Wildlife Reserve — the Greens will be moving an amendment to remove that provision from the bill. I am happy for that amendment to be circulated in the chamber now. It has previously been circulated to other parties in this place, although that was some weeks ago when we thought the bill was going to be coming on back then.

Greens amendment circulated by Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) pursuant to standing orders.

Mr BARBER — As others have said, the bill establishes the Canadian Regional Park, the Hepburn Regional Park and the Kerang State Wildlife Reserve, adds 205 hectares to six parks, excises 4.7 hectares from three parks and reforms the requirements for bee site licensing on Crown land. Just addressing that last issue first, we have had one or two conversations with beekeepers around these issues. It is my understanding that the apiarists association and the bee subcommittee within the Victorian Farmers Federation are supporting these changes and believe that the government has worked well with them. They are keen for the bill to pass.

Certainly speakers have noted the value of bees for pollination services. But it is important, I think, for us to note that the impact of our environmental footprint on these forests itself has an impact on beekeeping and honey production operations. If you want to take your chances, Acting President, and buy honey from overseas, you might not know quite what you are getting, but in Australia we have absolutely magnificent honey products and I enjoy them a great deal.

I had a bee swarm in my backyard in Brunswick. A mate of mine who is a beekeeper came around and took it away. Well, actually it was in the next-door neighbour's backyard. It had been there for some time. He took away the bees, he took away the queen, he took away the cone — he took away almost all of the honey and left me on my back verandah a very small sample of what had been made in that swarm next to my yard. And I have to tell you it was absolutely beautiful, it was absolutely sublime, the honey that had been created by these bees by fanning out all over Brunswick through gardens, picking up God knows what by way of different flowering species. But that is in an area where all sorts of things might be flowering all year around.

Producing honey out there in the forests is a much more complicated exercise because you have different eucalypts flowering at different times in different yields, never mind that those hives then might want to make their way over to pollinate other agricultural crops. It is quite an intricate exercise, there is quite a bit of complexity to running this industry, and things such as logging in those native forests, inappropriate fire regimes and of course climate change itself are having a direct and immediate impact on our beekeeping industry. That is an issue that the Greens are keen to highlight and keen to pursue as time goes on.

Down in the Brunswick area we have got trees — eucalypts — that were probably planted back in the 1960s, the time the society for growing Australian plants first popularised the idea of planting Australian natives. Some of those trees are getting on to 60 and 70 years old. They are massive. There are ironbarks, there are huge red flowering gums, and as they age they produce more and more nectar, and that is to the benefit of nectar feeders. In fact — I am a little bit off the topic here — we get an amazing array of nectar-feeding honeyeaters and parrots in my area. In fact swift parrots come to Royal Park to power up their energy before they have to fly across Bass Strait to breed in Tasmania. That is the beekeeping aspect of this bill, which I just wanted to highlight.

As I have said, we have supported the creation of new parks and the addition of land to new parks, but we have a particular problem with the creation of the Kerang state game reserve. Now, this has been created for the purpose of shooting ducks, and the Greens, in common with the vast majority of Victorians, oppose duck hunting. We want to see duck hunting end, as it has ended in the majority of other Australian states. Not only does it create a game reserve especially for shooters but it actually excludes protesters, it excludes duck rescuers — it excludes people who would go onto those wetlands to in fact document and enforce breaches of the law, something that this government and previous governments through their various departments have found themselves unable to do effectively. So it will be again, shortly, that we will be out there on opening day. That is a central issue to what is going on in this bill.

Anyone who has taken an interest has seen the information released by the government's own Game Management Authority about the impact that global warming and recent droughts have had on duck populations. The data is all there in the charts that the government itself has released, and that is that over past decades the population of waterbirds across eastern Victoria has been in steady decline, and even when there is a large rainfall event and there is suddenly a burst of breeding, those peaks of breeding themselves have been getting smaller over the last few decades. In 2008 and 2009, with a different minister for the environment — in fact it was Mr Jennings, I believe, who now sits next to our new Minister for Agriculture here — the decision was taken, in those years, to not have a duck hunting season due to the low populations. The numbers this year are even worse in terms of population levels and the extent of wetlands available. Yet this government now, in a new iteration, has taken a different decision. It is going to have a duck season, no matter what. It is a measure of the way the shooting lobby has got its hooks into the Labor Party.

The Labor Party believes that 20 000 duck shooters are an activated group of voters, and it would not even matter that Labor's own policy was to end duck shooting. Labor members do not count; duck shooters do, in the world of the modern Labor Party. Hence this pay-off here with this new duck shunting reserve — did I say duck shunting?

[Speech was interrupted.]

Mr BARBER — Duck shooting-hunting reserve. I am passionate about the issues, and I get my mords in a wuddle sometimes.

There is no doubt this is a great place for a duck-shooting reserve. In fact the wetland itself is served by the sewage treatment and water waste disposal area associated with the town, and so there is always plenty of water there. But there is very little water anywhere else in Victoria, and therefore those ducks that do remain, not to mention endangered species and even non-duck species — bitterns and brolgas and the rest of it — —

[Speech was interrupted.]

Mr BARBER — Thank you for your assistance, Mr Bourman; I do appreciate it. They will be flocking to the few remaining wetlands that are out there come March.

Some people say, 'There are heaps of ducks'. Well, yes, there are in the wetland near your house because there is water in it. If there is a piece of open water left in Victoria, that is probably where the ducks will be, but do not get the idea that means there are a lot of ducks.

The government released its own data, disputed of course by the Shooters and Fishers Party and various shooting lobbies, who will simply never accept any amount of scientific data on this because it interferes with the idea of them pursuing their recreation. It is obvious to all the scientific experts that duck populations are in decline in direct proportion to the loss of surface water, and this year of all years duck hunting should be banned. I believe it should be banned this year, and that should be it forevermore.

However, there is a further complexity associated with the creation of this particular game reserve that I want to get into in a bit of detail. By creating a state game reserve, the legislation also removes the right for traditional owners to be granted Aboriginal title under the Traditional Owner Settlement Act 2010. It does this by first creating a wildlife reserve under the Wildlife Act 1975 and then classifying the new wildlife reserve as a state game reserve. The intent of the Greens amendment is to leave everything in the bill that creates the wildlife reserve but remove those provisions that reclassify the wildlife reserve as a game reserve to prevent the creation of a game reserve in that area. State game reserves are not included in the definition of public land for the purpose of part 8A, 'Traditional owner land management boards', of the Conservation, Forests and Lands Act 1987 or part 3 of the Traditional Owner Settlement Act 2010, so the effect of this bill passing would be to preclude the granting of Aboriginal title by the Victorian government or the appointment of a traditional owner land management board in relation to such a reserve.

I know the minister who will be representing this bill in the Legislative Council is inordinately proud of his work in the native title settlement area. We were pretty surprised to see that this provision, or at least this effect, had been unnoticed as the bill went through cabinet. Present at the cabinet meeting were the minister, Mr Jennings; the Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water; the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs; and for that matter the Attorney-General, who is actually the minister responsible for the Victorian native title settlement framework. So there were four ministers around the table who ought to have — should have, could have — noted the effect of this bill on Aboriginal title and traditional owner land management but did not. Well, no doubt they were in an unholy rush to appease and pay off the shooters, who they believe are some sort of core constituency for them now.

It is not the case, as the government implies in its material, that the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council (VEAC) recommended this land use change. In fact it recommended the opposite. VEAC recommended that this change not be made, but the government went through various other processes under the Brumby government in which it attempted to muddy the waters as to what it was actually going to be doing here, and it is only now with Labor's return to government some four or five years later that it becomes clear.

There is nothing in the statement of compatibility, the explanatory memorandum or the second-reading speech that indicates the government was even aware that it was going to be extinguishing the capacity for those operative provisions of the native title settlement framework to occur. In fact it was my office that first noted it and approached both the environment minister, Lisa Neville, who is responsible for this bill, the Aboriginal affairs minister and also Native Title Services Victoria (NTSV), the body which represents the legal expertise that resources all native title claimants in Victoria.

I want to talk a little bit about what NTSV said about the bill, quoting from a letter it sent to Lisa Neville back in November last year. It says:

I am writing to you to raise serious concerns about the potentially unintended consequences of various provisions of the Crown Land Legislation Amendment (Canadian Regional Park and Other Matters) Bill 2015 … which act to prevent traditional owners benefiting from the provisions of the Traditional Owner Settlement Act 2010 …

It states:

That these potentially unintended consequences exist at all is concerning to NTSV as it demonstrates the failure of the consultative process in the development of provisions of the bill to consider the rights, interests and aspirations of traditional owners.

The area covered by the Kerang state wildlife reserve includes an area known as Fosters Swamp, which is discussed in the Kerang Wetlands Ramsar Site — Strategic Management Plan, including for its high waterbird-carrying capacity and species diversity.

By classifying the Kerang state wildlife reserve as a 'state game reserve', the bill effectively removes this area from ever being considered as part of a land agreement between the state and a traditional owner group entity pursuant to the provisions of part 3 of the settlement act (and therefore precludes the traditional owners from being involved in the future management of that area).

I would add 'in a fair and equitable manner which enhances reconciliation'. We have a long, long way to go and much work to do to achieve true reconciliation between our people and the Aboriginal nations of Victoria. It will not be a matter of a few gestures or a few bits of legislation; it will be a large amount of work, and it will be for many, many years to come.

NTSV goes on to reiterate what I said earlier about the definition of public land in the settlement act. Under a subheading 'Next steps' it says:

It is apparent that traditional owners were not consulted about the classification of the Kerang state wildlife reserve as a state game reserve, and the ramifications of this classification upon their rights, interests and aspirations.

This is a disappointing and unfortunate oversight, and must be remedied as a matter of urgency through consultation with the traditional owners of the Kerang area.

I understand that some meetings and some more regular procedures have been set up between the government and NTSV, and that is good. It has been a good wake-up call for the government, but that is not a reason to rush this provision into legislation. That is something that should be sorted out before we proceed with this bill.

I am not moving this amendment on behalf of any particular Aboriginal native title or traditional owner group; I do not come in here and purport to speak for Aboriginal people. I would be voting against this provision anyway because, as I have said, my party's policy is opposed to hunting, and this facilitates duck hunting in a new area of land. But the combination of the two issues is certainly of concern to me.

Negotiations for Victorian Aboriginal title often run concurrently with native title claims. For example, the creation of the Hepburn Regional Park in this bill is partly to facilitate the state government's agreement with the Dja Dja Wurrung traditional owner group which settles four native title claims. The traditional owners in the Kerang area are the Wamba Wamba and the Barapa Barapa people. The area of the proposed Kerang game reserve is listed by the government as an area of Aboriginal cultural sensitivity — you can get that from the Department of Premier and Cabinet website. This means it is a registered Aboriginal cultural heritage place, recognised because it is likely to or does contain Aboriginal cultural heritage. That would be of no surprise; it is a wetland in the area of a large flat plain. Tens of thousands of people inhabited this area for tens of thousands of years, and their cultural heritage remains there. Every time we walk into this Parliament on a Tuesday morning we acknowledge the traditional owners and we say that they are the custodians of the cultural heritage of this land, and so it should be of interest to and have the attention of all members that we are in fact making it more difficult for them to continue in that role.

The Victorian government until recently was in active negotiations in relation to the Wamba Wamba, Barapa Barapa, Wadi Wadi joint native title claim. The joint native title claim was struck out by the Federal Court in June 2015, but the Victorian government is aware that groups are reformulating their claims and preparing separate applications. In fact one can see on the Victorian Government Solicitor's Office website the following quote:

The court noted that the strike out was procedural, and did not reflect on whether or not native title rights exist in the area. The groups are still able to file a new native title claim, or pursue rights and recognition under the Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006 or Traditional Owner Settlement Act 2010.

The Greens amendment also has the effect of retaining the current Aboriginal rights that might be pursued at the end of this claim, but I want to reiterate that I am not moving it because I have been asked to do that by those Aboriginal people, and I would never purport to speak for them.

That, in essence, is our approach to the bill. It is an important issue that we are putting on the table here today. I had hoped that the government would have recognised and corrected what was perhaps an inadvertent error, or at least an oversight, in the way it approached this particular matter, but I am yet to hear whether there will be support for my amendment in the chamber or whether we will in fact even be dealing with this bill in committee today. But I would certainly urge the government to continue with the good work it has been doing on native title claim settlements over many years. I have been part of that myself in passing legislation through this chamber that created the original native title settlement framework — I think it may have been in the last sitting week before the end of the Brumby government — so I would hate to see the government blot its copybook on what has otherwise been a long-term commitment. I thank the chamber for the consideration of my amendment and thank the house for its time.

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