Page 4120 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 18 November 2015
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
In the estimates hearings earlier this year, a representative of the ACT Conservation Council expressed their concern that the government’s decision to cut the weed budget was not based on any scientific evidence or on any other evidence that environmental weed infestations in the ACT are under control. The cuts to the weed budget are all the more concerning when you add in the Auditor-General’s report on the restoration of the lower Cotter catchment. This report highlighted that priority needed to be given to important and ongoing work, including controlling major weeds in the ACT. In the lower Cotter catchment area this included pine wildlings.
In the Assembly on 11 August 2015, Mr Rattenbury highlighted the important role of weed management and how controlling weeds “will reduce soil disturbances and encourage natural regeneration, which serves as a very powerful driver of improved water quality”. While base funding may have been increased it does not mean that the current funding for weed management is adequate. I have been told that the ACT Weeds Advisory Group, a technical reference group established to oversee implementation of the ACT weeds strategy, has not met for some time. We need the technical expertise of this group to develop and inform weed management policy for the ACT.
Weeds are arguably one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, agricultural and landscape values in the ACT and more widely. The summary statistics for the 2014-15 invasive weeds operations plan show that a number of weed species in the ACT have large control areas, including serrated tussock, African lovegrass and Chilean needle grass. Recently, just last weekend, I saw an abundance of what appeared to be African lovegrass growing around Lake Tuggeranong. It looked like kilometres and kilometres of it. What are the government doing to address this issue when they are cutting funding to the weed management budget?
There are many adverse impacts on the environment of inadequate weed management. For example, it is said that African lovegrass has the potential to reach 100 per cent density, displacing and excluding almost all other vegetation. That is what I think I have seen around Lake Tuggeranong, and I am waiting for official confirmation of whether what I saw at Lake Tuggeranong was in fact African lovegrass.
African lovegrass has been increasingly encroaching on farmland, bushland and roadsides throughout the ACT and southern New South Wales over the past three decades. South Australia and Victoria are also affected. There have been a number of studies and meetings to discuss the problem. In the ACT, African lovegrass is in the environmental weed control operations plan, but it continues to spread, particularly through the southern suburbs and, as I have already mentioned, around Lake Tuggeranong, I believe. From an environmental point of view, African lovegrass has the ability to quickly take over native grasslands, forming a dense monoculture.
It is thought to have come to Australia via sailing ships from Africa, and it has thrived in our dry climate. Weed guideline fact sheets describe it as:
… a densely tufted, perennial (long-lived) grass growing from 30 to 120cm high. The leaves are dark green to blue-green, narrow, and 25 to 35cm long. The
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video