Tuesday, 4 February 2025

Wildlife protection

Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (18:06): (1353) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Premier, and the action I seek is for her to urgently create a new role of parliamentary secretary for environment. In 2020, following a mass poisoning of 406 wedge-tailed eagles which resulted in a fine equivalent to $6 per bird, the Victorian Labor government announced they would review and modernise our state’s broken wildlife laws. Five years later they have failed to deliver these laws. They tell us that it is a huge piece of work and they just want to get it right. With every single day that goes by, illegal acts of cruelty to our native animals are receiving measly punishments, if any at all. As part of this reform they created an expert advisory committee to give them advice on how the Wildlife Act 1975 could be improved in this state. It cost taxpayers $3 million. They handed down their findings in 2021. Four years and three ministers have gone by since then, and the report is gathering dust. They refuse to even release it. Jack Pascoe, an Aboriginal man with ecological research and conservation management expertise, has since expressed frustration at the delay after dedicating time to the report. He said:

There’s no such thing as an iron clad commitment in politics but there was a commitment to reform this legislation that was drawn up in 1975.

But in the recent cabinet reshuffle, what new role did the Premier decide to create instead? A Parliamentary Secretary for Outdoor Recreation.

Native animals across this state are being poisoned, trapped and killed for fun. Each day iconic species we can never get back become more and more at risk. We know the real reason why these laws have not been delivered, because you cannot protect wildlife and permit their destruction at the same time. Native ducks are protected year round, until it comes to the recreational shooting season. Wombat numbers continue to dwindle, yet landowners can obtain permits to kill them for minor inconveniences. Our iconic kangaroos are shot commercially for their skins and exported overseas.

The Minister for Environment does not need extra resources to appease the shooting lobby, who seem to be the real protected species in this state, but he clearly does need support to honour the overdue commitment to developing these laws that properly protect our wildlife. I urge the Premier to create a new parliamentary secretary role for environment, and then perhaps this government can finally actually get it right.