Page 1415 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 12 May 2021
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habitats being razed to the ground for profit. The swift parrot breeds in Tasmania and migrates to the mainland each winter, stopping over in the ACT for a couple of weeks. Thankfully, they find habitat here, at Mount Ainslie, Callum Brae and even in gardens across Canberra.
Outside the ACT their habitat is under attack, with breeding grounds in southeast Tasmania and important winter habitat on the New South Wales south coast being logged. The ACT has taken proactive steps to conserve habitat for these parrots and other woodland dependent species. We are managing and conserving the most intact woodlands in Australia, including the critically endangered yellow box-Blakely’s red gum woodland. Logging represents the single biggest threat to the survival of the swift parrot in the wild. If there is no change, this species is on a ten-year track to extinction. The plight of swift parrots is a prime example of why the federal government needs to urgently improve the National Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act—the EPBC Act.
Inexplicably, logging is largely exempt from the EPBC Act under a series of regional forest agreements between the federal government and states. Scientists and conservation groups have said for years that the forestry exemptions favour industry over the environment. The federal government’s own review, conducted by Professor Graeme Samuel AC, found that the EPBC Act had comprehensively failed to protect our wild species and threatened ecosystems. It recommended a host of changes, including the removal of the logging industry’s special exemption from the national environment laws.
We must have stronger national environment protection laws to protect native forests and swift parrots, as well as other endangered species. This is an issue that I have been working hard to profile and advocate for. The swift parrots sum up our Australian character of enjoying nature, but they can only be as resilient as nature allows them to be. No one state or territory alone can save the species. It takes a united approach, and one that I hope to see. I also hope that I might sight one of these larrikins of the bush as they head home after the winter. To conclude, I would like to thank Margaret Blakers, who alerted me to the presence of the swift parrots here in the ACT, and to Dr Debbie Saunders, for her past and ongoing work to save these wonderful birds.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
The Assembly adjourned at 5.25 pm.
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