Wednesday, 10 September 2025

Public Accounts and Estimates Committee

Report on the 2023–24 Budget Estimates

Tim BULL (Gippsland East) (10:31): I want to talk about public land management today, and my reference is page 145 of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee report 2023–24. I want to cover off on a couple of areas. The first one is around invasive and pest plant and animal controls and the reduction that we have had in that. I cite the recent cutbacks to the department of agriculture staff, who deal very, very specifically in this place. What we are seeing generally across the board is a reduction in effort. In my electorate alone we have got wild dogs killing sheep, we have got sambar deer in incredible numbers in the bush and we have got an increasing feral pig population that is now bordering on coming through the national parks to the north of the electorate to the interface of farmland and starting to impact there. We have got foxes in the plant area. We have got African lovegrass out of control. Blackberries are everywhere – you can see them on the roadsides now, as thick as you can get – and English broom. The problems are enormous, and what we are seeing from this government is a lack of investment in the programs to control those species.

The one thing we should not be doing is taking our foot off the pedal in relation to that. I was up at the Moogji Aboriginal Council just last week having a discussion with them. Their works crews that work in the field are now having their hours and their jobs reduced; the contracts are not coming through for them to be able to keep doing the job that they were doing. It all boils down to: why are we seeing these reductions in all these areas in relation to invasive plants and animal species? And the bottom line is finances. We are not investing enough because we have a state budget debt that is heading to $192 billion – $1.2 million an hour in interest. And we are wondering why we are seeing cutbacks in these programs on the ground. It is just not good enough.

I want to also talk about the external contractors who have been employed by governments of both persuasions to maintain our bush tracks and prepare for fire season and the like. They are simply not getting the work that they used to get. The bottom line is that we are not as well prepared as we should be with summer coming. When we had the harvest and haulage contractors at the end of the timber industry transition into government contracts, we were told this panel of contractors would not be impacted and the same level of work would be maintained by them. We are not seeing that happen. The work is simply not there. They are not getting anywhere near the level of work that they were before. Again, there is a lack of effort to maintain our bush; active bush management is again suffering.

The third area that I want to touch on while I am talking is firewood supply. We have recently had the firewood season open, and we have had coupes made available. Already, just a couple of weeks in, there is no firewood available in those coupes for people to go and collect. We wrote to the minister on this last year, and the answer that we got back was that firewood is a limited resource with unpredictable availability. That was an answer to a question on notice: ‘firewood is a limited resource with unpredictable availability’. Let me tell you, the one thing we are not going to run out of in East Gippsland is firewood. Our bush is full of fuel; the fuel loads are at an enormous high. The problem is the government closed the timber industry, a major supplier of firewood, but did not plan for what would follow, and we now have firewood being imported from interstate to meet the need. It is government policy that has impeded the supply of firewood; it is not a lack of resource, I can assure you. I will take anyone in this chamber for a drive. There is resource everywhere. The bush is littered with debris that people could be using for their heating and cooking in their homes. We need to address the massive fuel loads. We need to provide firewood. You would think the solution would be pretty simple, wouldn’t you: allow people access to those fuel loads that are going to cause a problem in the bush this summer, and let them use some of that resource for firewood. I urge the minister to change his policy, change his stance and allow for that to happen.