Tuesday, 4 February 2025

South-West Coast electorate weed control

Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (19:10): (975) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Environment, and the action I seek is for the minister to visit the south-west to see the government’s mismanagement of the environment. Tower Hill is in a dreadful state. It is a salad bowl of overgrown weeds – hemlock, thistles and other weeds. Each Sunday volunteers weed, and they have been asking the Allan Labor government for an overarching weed management plan and support, which has never been forthcoming. The Warrnambool foreshore and promenade are overgrown with highly flammable coastal tea-tree not native to the area. A CFA document designates the area as at catastrophic fire risk. This is not a term to be taken lightly. The risk is imminent and has a very real chance of affecting property and life. Ultimately the government is responsible as it is Crown land.

Every year constituents from all over the electorate, particularly from Heywood and Portland, contact me about overgrown roadside vegetation. When roadsides are well maintained they are used as a firebreak. Now that roadsides are not effectively cut back or sprayed, it results in massive overgrowth at the end of spring and a huge fuel load for the fire season. This load acts as a wick, which was demonstrated during the St Patrick’s Day fires in 2010. Farmers are required to manage fuel loads and weed infestations on their properties, yet the government ignores its responsibility. I have raised this issue every year with the emergency commissioner, and the government continues to do nothing. These three are examples of government mismanagement, but there are many more.

To add insult to injury, this week the government is taking the Port Fairy golf club to court over a bunch of pulled weeds that allegedly contained protected beard-heath. They did not even bother to speak to the club as a first-line approach in an attempt to work with it. Instead they threatened, bullied, threw their weight around and laid criminal charges. Are they serious? What extreme action when there are other options, such as an official warning or a penalty infringement notice. Fancy picking on a small country club with a volunteer board when a government abrogates its own responsibilities. This is absurd. We have got examples showing how bad.

Let us be clear: the minister is responsible for his department. The fish rots from the head. Directives come from the top. Abrogating responsibility and picking on a community organisation are the norm of this government. It is a culture of mismanagement and heavy-handedness. The Allan Labor government cannot manage its own environmental responsibilities. Stop picking on people who are doing volunteer work and trying their best.