Page 3301 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 21 August 2019
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Madam Speaker, I assure you that the ACT government and its staff in EPSDD are working closely with the Rural Landholders Association to explore options around how we can best continue to support the ACT rural sector, and I look forward to continuing our productive partnership. In the interim, the ACT government will continue to support its rural community through administration of the national on-farm emergency water infrastructure rebate scheme, training to maximise production and environmental stewardship of our natural resources, building awareness and providing advice on biosecurity issues, providing support through the ACT environment grants and through the work of the regional agricultural Landcare facilitator.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (4.53): We welcome the opportunity to have this discussion today and once again recognise the frankly distressing and ongoing impacts that climate change is having on our local primary producers and the environment. I note the comments that Minister Gentleman has just made, which I think are reflected in his amendment. I will be supporting Minister Gentleman’s amendment. I will also move an amendment later. From a procedural point of view, I will do that after we have passed Mr Gentleman’s amendment. I believe it is easier if we do it that way. I will be seeking leave, but I will make my remarks during the debate.
The realities of today cannot be avoided. Our climate is changing faster than ever before and, as we have discussed in this place many times before, our region is being faced with increasingly hotter and drier weather, as was predicted by scientists decades ago. If you are aged under 20 you have not even been alive in a year where global temperatures were at or below the 20th century average, and this trend continues. We are breaking the wrong types of records nearly every month.
If members have been following these debates and thinking closely, hopefully they will realise that this motion has been partly informed by the Bureau of Meteorology forecasts or the CSIRO climate modelling. This is a matter of scientific fact that should cut through partisan politics, if not on the hill then hopefully at least at a local level, for the benefit of the communities we are all elected to represent.
Climate change is clearly and directly affecting us here in the ACT, and we recognise that, for those who live in the limited farming areas available in the territory, it is hurting. The impacts are hurting their livestock, their produce and their livelihoods. This is a matter of animal welfare, of human wellbeing, of environmental stewardship and of economic importance and while there may be some disagreement on the best course of action you would be hard pressed to find a primary producer in the capital region who has not noticed the long-term trends of reduced rainfall, shorter and warmer winters and longer and hotter summers. If scientists and weather forecasters are correct—which we believe they are because, as touched on earlier, I prefer to believe in science than make things up—these impacts will only get worse.
It is hard not to empathise with rural leaseholders, and the ACT Greens support the government’s previous and ongoing offer of reasonable support to get through this difficult dry period but also to adapt to new methods of production wherever possible.
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