Page 623 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 20 May 1992
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MR HUMPHRIES (11.27), in reply: Madam Speaker, in closing this debate I want to pass comment on a few remarks made in the debate by other contributors. Mr Lamont made reference to a couple of matters that I cannot let pass. One was his comment about soil degradation and the need to monitor carefully the number of cows or animals that might be grazed on a piece of land to prevent the degradation of the soil there. Anybody who has been involved with rural matters appreciates how important it is that we do have sensible soil degradation policies. To suggest, as he went on to suggest, that Mr Russell's cattle, at the levels at which he has been grazing them in recent years, might ever constitute a threat to the quality or quantity of soil is just ludicrous.
In fact, Madam Speaker, the charge is particularly horrendous, given the fact that the most serious soil degradation that has gone on on Red Hill has been directly related, on my instructions, to the activities of the Environment and Conservation Division itself. A watercourse has been constructed on the slope of the hill, about halfway up from Mugga Way, and that area has been rather poorly drained. An erosion channel has been caused, since the construction by this division of that watercourse, from the watercourse down to areas near housing at the back of Red Hill near Mugga Way. That is a very large erosion channel. It has taken away many tonnes of earth. I suggest that if Mr Lamont wants to know about erosion he had better go and have a look at that erosion gully, caused directly by the department. I do not think it is fair to talk about Mr Russell's contribution to soil erosion without mentioning that.
He also made the rather unfortunate suggestion, I might say, that Mr Russell is somehow stuck in the past of what policy was applicable 60 years ago on Red Hill and, therefore, this seems to be the policy that he is pursuing today. There is absolutely no evidence that Mr Russell has not been able to competently assess his grazing needs, his grazing capacity, over the last 60 years. The fact is that you do not last in this industry for 60 years unless you have some sense of what you can and cannot do on your land. Mr Russell has done just that, and done so very well. To suggest that in some way he might be stuck in the past, might have some policy that might have been applicable 60 years ago but is not really applicable now, is just outrageous.
Madam Speaker, I was disturbed by the suggestion that came from the Minister that there is a different competing sort of heritage which needs to be protected above another sort of heritage. I am talking here about his reference to the natural heritage being, I suppose by implication, in some way more important than the rural heritage. What disturbs me is not so much the fact that he gives one priority above the other, but the fact that he considers those things to be in competition. To some extent they are; but, in another extent, they are not. We have here rural heritage which is available - - -
Mr Wood: A few cows make a rural heritage?
MR HUMPHRIES: "A few cows" is not what we are talking about here, Madam Speaker. It is a question of Mr Charles Russell, who has been doing this activity on the same site for 60 years, being allowed to continue on that site. That is not just a few cows. It is all about taking part in an activity which links the ACT
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