Wednesday, 30 July 2025

Department of Treasury and Finance

Budget papers 2025–26

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (17:44): I would just like to make a couple comments in relation to the budget papers relating to public land and forests, and indeed budget paper 3, page 112, is a good starting point. In doing so I just want to acknowledge the fact that I think this government is in a real quandary and the state of our public land forests is at a huge disadvantage because it does not know whether it is coming or going. We see this in the budget papers. The budget forecast for 2025–26 for public land and forests has $313 million allocated. Indeed last year the money that was spent was $422 million. So in effect in this budget there has been a cut by $108 million, a 25 per cent reduction in forecast spending, in the public land space.

Some of this has been evidenced by park rangers that have had their jobs cut and park services that have been suspended, and I want to just highlight a couple of very distressing ones from my Eastern Victoria Region. There is the fact that Parks Victoria have, sadly, had the squeeze put on them and the government has said to cut services, and they have cut the junior rangers program in Eastern Victoria Region. They have cut it. What a fantastic program – talk about encouraging and educating young children around what it means to be in the bush, what it means to understand the connection to nature and biodiversity, from bugs and things that are on the creek beds to plants and indeed fauna. They have cut the rangers program, and this is just one example of where they have actually cut operational services.

Other ones that the government is looking to cut, unfortunately, relate to things I would consider core business, which are pest and weed management and indeed keeping tracks open. The government is saying that it has done this review and that there has been a review submitted to government, but we have not seen that as yet. Nobody has got clarity on what that will actually mean, but based on this budget paper we are seeing a reduction in expenditure on our natural environment.

Indeed one of the other sad activities that I am sure many of us in here have been to is the William Ricketts Sanctuary. Talk about connecting with nature, connecting with spirit and connecting with the spirit of our traditional owners – this amazing space, this sanctuary is a place that I took my boys many years ago. It is a truly wonderful place. It is closed because of weather damage and storm damage, but it is still yet to open. When we see so much money being spent in a variety of places, surely facilitating the reopening of this very beautiful and very special sanctuary in the Dandenong Ranges – I think it is again reflective of a government that seems to have its priorities wrong in this space.

Finally, a fantastic young parliamentary intern has just presented to Parliament. She was my intern, and she went and investigated in a most fulsome way biodiversity in the national parks estate. I gave her some parameters, and then off she went. She discovered and discussed this with a variety of stakeholders, from environmentalists to the Wilderness Society to local community groups to individuals, and some of her findings on systemic barriers to biodiversity conservation – lo and behold. She is a cleanskin with a focus. She is just won a very high achievement with this report. Her key findings were that biodiversity is declining in the Victorian national parks estate; systemic factors are influencing the effectiveness of mitigation in the national parks estate; and key risks to the national parks estate include insufficient funding, insufficient monitoring, a declining ranger force and difficulty retaining youth volunteers. That is what the government has done – it has cut rangers in our region, and that is a very great shame.