Wednesday, 18 March 2026

 Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (18:34): (2428) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Environment, and the action that I seek is for the minister to provide an update on the long-awaited public land act. Exploration drilling for gold is being carried out in the beautiful forest along Yankee Road in the Wombat State Forest south-east of Trentham. This is not part of the newly legislated Wombat–Lerderderg National Park, but it is an area the government has committed to making a regional park. In fact it is one of seven regional parks, 11 nature conservation reserves and 18 bushland reserves that the government agreed to create or expand as part of the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council investigation into the central west that remain unfulfilled – a council which I might add is soon to be abolished by the government. That is almost 15,000 hectares of public land that the government promised to protect five years ago that remains unprotected state forest. It is land that is home to some of our state’s most at-risk wildlife: greater gliders, the brush-tailed phascogale, the powerful owl and mountain skinks. The minister has assured my constituents that the remaining parks will be created through so-called administrative processes, but that power does not yet exist. Where it is very likely to exist is in the yet-to-be-introduced public land act. We know the legislation is written, and it is critical that the government prioritises it and the creation of the remaining regional parks before the end of this parliamentary term.