Page 2756 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 28 June 2011
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Can I just say at this point that it is important, now that we have seen these operational plans made public, that they are not sanitised for public consumption. I would hate to see the departmental staff under pressure to change the wording in the plans to make the plans more politically acceptable. If we are having trouble meeting the demands of pest and weed management, then let us make sure we all understand that fully. The refreshing thing about reading these operational plans was how useful they were in getting a sense of what the actual challenges are that we are facing. I do not think that it is a bad thing for us here in the Assembly to share that knowledge and also to share that responsibility.
Going specifically to pest animals, there was some real honesty in the vertebrate pest operational plan for 2010-11 as well. Concerns that have been raised with us about the rabbit eradication programs were confirmed, with the plan saying that follow-up was urgent to avoid losing the gains that were made with extra funding the year before at places such as Mount Painter. It becomes apparent that funding needed to be shifted away from management of other species so as to fund follow-up programs for rabbits so that pre-breeding levels of rabbits could be contained.
So it is good to see specific ongoing funding for rabbits in this year’s budget—half a million dollars over three years. I can only assume that this came out of a realisation that shifting money away from other pest species programs was not such a good idea. I am concerned that, because of the wet season we have just experienced, rabbit problems may be exacerbated this year and the extra funding might be stretched. Again we will look forward to seeing the operational plan for vertebrate pests this year so that we can see the context for that additional funding.
Sadly, there still has not been any specific allocation for funding the management of wasps in Namadgi. I doubt that they count as vertebrate pests, so they would not make it into the pages of that operational plan. But wasp eradication is an issue that has been on the minds of the National Parks Association for some years, and I would be very surprised if the concerns that they are causing are diminishing. In 2008 the former minister, Jon Stanhope, indicated that he was happy to consider a budget request in the next budget. I would be interested to know if the department has done any extra thinking on this since that time, and whether there are any reasons, apart from a lack of money, why this concern has not been addressed.
I would now like to touch on personnel issues in this area. The number of rangers has been quite an issue this year. At last we have received some consistent figures from the department about the base level of rangers. I have to say that, as always, we do wonder why, in responding to questions on notice about these issues, the departments cannot be just a little more forthcoming the first time around. It has taken two years to confirm that the base number of rangers is 37, and that any additional on top of this is due to program spending. Yet in the 2009-10 budget the government proudly announced three additional ranger positions in 2009, one for Tidbinbilla, one for Canberra Nature Park and one for Mulligans Flat. At that time there was no indication that they were not going to be permanent.
Irrespective of that, there have been repeated indicators that morale is low in the parks service. It should not surprise the government that word gets around. Canberra is a
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