Reserves Bill 2025
Second reading
Resumed from 9 April.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas (South West Region) (3:16 pm): Obviously, the government has not heard enough from me today and needs to hear a bit more! I suspect we will be a bit more tolerant in this particular debate than the previous one, or the upcoming one! When we get to debate the bill that the Minister for the Environment just read in—the bill to destroy the timber industry and regional forest communities—I suspect we will have a significantly greater debate than the one we will have today.
The bill before the house today, the Reserves Bill, is, like many bills of this nature, relatively innocuous. For that reason, the opposition will be supporting the bill and the government in its intent in this particular area, although it is a good opportunity to talk about some of the issues around A-class reserves. I am not proposing that it will take a huge amount of time. We will see, minister. Perhaps if we throw in a few questions during the second reading debate, we might be able to avoid Committee of the Whole, but we will see how we go. The minister's advisers are just arriving, so hopefully they will be poised, pen in hand, for some of those things.
This is a bill that really makes some relatively minor amendments to the reserves system in Western Australia. A-class reserves are generally the highest class of reservation that the state can apply in terms of some of these bits of land. The bill will generally add a bit more land from particular blocks into existing A-class reserves. The state occasionally creates brand-new A-class reserves, and not infrequently actually takes areas of land out of A-class reserves. This is the perhaps the controversial bit, because sometimes people do not necessarily like areas being removed out of A-class reserves, but there are often fairly valid reasons for that, some of which we will talk about in a little while. This bill does a little bit of both. That is one of the questions the minister might reflect on in his reply to the second reading debate.
When it comes to dealing with reserves, these sorts of bill have, in the past, come from a range of sources and ministries. Some have in the past been considered planning bills; others have come from other areas.
It makes sense to me that this would be an environment bill around A-class reserves.
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: It is a joint bill between the Minister for Planning and Lands and DBCA.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Have you declared it a joint bill?
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: Essentially, I have a responsibility for it in this chamber, but Minister Carey will have responsibility for it in the Assembly as a planning bill. The advisers I have are from planning as well as some from DBCA.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Okay. The minister has both in there.
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: Yes.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: I do not know why previously we have done one or the other. This one is perhaps co-joined. I do not mind, but it might be worth mentioning when the minister does his reply whether this will be the sort of standard procedure now and there will be a mixture of planning and environment as a component. It kind of makes sense to have the relevant minister in each house deal with it. I do not have a moral or practical objection; I am just interested in the mechanism.
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: I think part of it is that some of the stuff is going into a new national park, I think it is, off the top of my head. Other parts are coming out of national parks and going into local government, so there is a bit of backwards and forwards between those things that means that it traverses both portfolios.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Yes, I can accept that. It is just interesting. The regional parks and conservation parks are a component of this, like the Canning River Regional Park is part of an excision component, for example.
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: It is the Wandering conservation park.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Is that the creation of the new one or the extension?
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: I think it is the new one, but perhaps, member, you have indicated what you are interested in, and the advisers are in the back of the chamber—
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: We will get to it. That is fine. Like I say, it is not a dramatic component, but I am interested to see why we are going down this particular path.
I quote from the minister's second reading speech from our previous sitting. The second paragraph starts:
The bill is necessary because class A reserves are the highest form of protection under part 4 of the Land Administration Act 1997. Changes of purpose and excisions of more than one hectare or five per cent of an existing class A reserve require the authority of both houses of Parliament.
Again, I think that is there for fairly good reason. My understanding is that for working on most A-class reserves, the addition of land into A-class reserves can be done by regulation and become a disallowable instrument, but the exclusion or removal of land from an A-class reserve is always by a formal act of Parliament. It is by legislation, which is how the government managed the removal of the Roe 8 land as a potential for future development. The land was effectively salted for future development and that was done by regulation. I am fairly confident that that is the case.
As the minister said:
The nature of the amendments ranges from changing the purpose of reserves to better reflect land use and management objectives, to excising small land parcels for transfer to the management of local governments …
This has become an issue around Western Australia not just in A-class reserves but across the conservation estate more generally. The creation of small isolated reserves is a real problem for government generally. We often get these created, for example, where we might have a development proposal that is required to deliver an offset. Offsets are far too frequently put in as like for like in a similar area, but not necessarily of a size or of a value that makes the most significant contributor to ecosystem outcomes. The classic example is a relatively small development might be asked to do a six- or seven-to-one offset. If a five-hectare industrial development requires the taking down of banksias or something that might, for example, be food for black cockatoos, 35 hectares of land could be an offset. Having those developed and passed on to the state in an isolated setting is immensely problematic because the management of them does not keep up with expectation. If it is like for like and if it is banksia or whatever is being taken down, the department does not have the economic capacity to manage all those sites. Over time, many of them simply become very good vestiges of invasive species. I know the minister is highly alert to the arum lily issue in the South West, but there are plenty of others through there. Isolated reserves in places like Preston River, for example, often see blackberry overtaking them, as do the ones around Balingup. There are plenty of invasive species from rats and cats and rabbits and foxes also in these relatively small units.
It makes sense in many cases to pass over the management of those to a local community where they might just have the capacity to do something constructive with that particular reserve. If that is genuinely what government is attempting to do, I think it is a pretty good outcome. I know previous governments have done a similar sort of thing. We obviously have to be a little careful that the land use is not dramatically changed to something completely different. The minister might take this on board. I have always said that one of the issues around environmental development offsets policy is the ad hoc and isolated nature of these things. I know that various ministers and some departmental staff have always attempted to try to push these policies into ecosystem connections, which are the equivalent of plant and animal wildlife corridors effectively.
Ultimately, this is something that the government might try to look at for the state of Western Australia over the fullness of time in a genuine manner. It was one of my great things I always wanted to try to deliver if we got into government and my clock is ticking! Rather than simply have the Environmental Protection Authority determine a level of offset and a proponent pick out a five or six times land area of reasonable but isolated value and shift that into a system where it is buying into a much bigger strategic offset process whereby the environmental outcomes can be managed for the state, across the state, in a much better way is worth looking at in the environment portfolio. It is something that I always wanted to play with to get far better strategic outcomes. Otherwise, offsets are put in place. In many cases, they ultimately become reserves of some sort. They join the conservation estate, but they are effectively unmanaged. In those circumstances, I think we are actually far better off having a coordinated process. Otherwise, we need a tenfold increase in the budget of the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions to manage those additional resources.
The other thing the minister could do while we are dealing with policy is change the damn name of the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions to something that is actually usable. That would be a useful outcome as well.
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: I am not quite sure that is part of this bill.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Whilst I am making helpful suggestions, minister, the Leader of the House for years resisted my careful and helpful suggestions to change the name of that department to something we can actually say without sounding drunk. I think that would be a good outcome. Even if we went backwards to a former name; it has been the Department of Environment, which sounds a bit like a Homer Simpson expression. It was originally CALM. It has been the Department of Environment. It has been DPaW, the Department of Parks and Wildlife. DPaW was not too bad. I suggest the minister finds a name that is usable. Next time the government makes some significant machinery-of-government changes, apart from putting in a really good strategic offset and development policy for conservation reserves, change the name to something useful; that would be really good.
Hon Louise Kingston: Except it costs about $50 million to $100 million.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: I am sure we could work it out somehow so we could minimise the cost, because it is a terrible name; it has always been a terrible name. I know the minister has inherited it, but something nice there would be very good.
More critically and seriously, I will give members a good example of a policy process that allows for a far more strategic development of offsets. One of the great projects that has had partial support from state and federal governments over years is the Gondwana Link project that runs all the way east of Albany out past Esperance. Hon Shelley Payne probably knows it very well. I have always been a supporter of that project. It is looking to bring together bits of land that are currently privately owned or in the conservation estate, but relatively unmanaged. It stretches all the way out to the western woodland, the protection of which was a policy I wrote 20 years ago—how about that—as a shadow environment minister in Western Australia as a policy for the then opposition in about 2006 or 2007 or something. That western woodland is an important piece of conservation infrastructure and, for example, extending the western woodland and using the Gondwana Link proposals as a step-by-step process to develop a really significant nature corridor will get great environmental outcomes. That is the kind of bold vision I am suggesting that the government takes on board and has a look at now. It does not have to necessarily choose that one. I am sure there are some visions that the government could use in the East Metropolitan Region, not that it exists anymore as the East Metropolitan Region.
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: It still exists.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: There will be a spare office in Esperance fairly soon for an upper house member. The honourable minister might want to go down there and have a real good look at Gondwana Link, for example.
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: He is full of bright ideas! Move my office; rename the department.
Hon Jackie Jarvis: It is only, what, week 3?
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: While we are fixing all your problems, we might as well fix everything!
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: Fair enough. You know I have great regard for you, member.
Hon Dan Caddy interjected.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: I wrote this policy 20 years ago; it is not a new idea, Hon Dan Caddy. It may not have been quite as good as my energy policy of a year ago, but it is pretty good. It is right up there.
These are issues the government should look at with the conservation estate. There are ways to get better outcomes that are less ad hoc and more strategic. That is a good outcome for the state of Western Australia and as I said in my Address-in-Reply speech earlier, I am focused on getting better outcomes for the state, and that is good.
I will run through some of these proposals. It is very hard to address the relatively small and modest proposals in this bill without addressing, to some degree, the impacts of climate change on what we call the northern jarrah forest, which is probably more accurately described as the north-eastern jarrah forest. As I said earlier today, I might be the Liberal who believes in climate change, and we have seen in rainfall patterns that there is an impact there; the modelling has been interesting. I had the environment portfolio for the Liberal Party nearly 20 years ago when climate change was a significant part of that debate at the time, and 20 years ago I wrote about potential impacts in the modelling. What the modelling said 20 years ago was that the South-West Land Division will most likely experience a reduction in rainfall. The North West will experience an increase in rainfall, but the greatest impacts are on particularly vulnerable communities, and there are a couple. One of those is probably the karri forests down in the south-west corner, which I am sure the minister has probably visited before. It is beautiful country. The issue with karri is they are more water sensitive. It is a tree that needs a lot of water. A drying climate in that south-west corner makes them vulnerable. The other one is what we call the northern jarrah forest. The minister has probably been there as well. It is beautiful territory, all that area through Boddington, which is probably the best example of it. Dwellingup is the northern jarrah forest. In those original predictions, that was always going to be a fairly threatened area because it was sensitive, and because it is higher and hilly, the water tables are more problematic. There was an expectation that the northern jarrah forest would be susceptible. That has been exactly the case. For 20 years, if someone has driven through, camped or just taken an interest in the area, they will see that the northern jarrah forest is where the jarrah is most impacted by a drying climate. I do not give a damn whether people say climate change or no climate change. There is no doubt that the climate is drying and its biggest impact is in that northern jarrah forest, which is partly why it had limited forest harvesting over time, because it is more susceptible.
There are some exceptions to that where industry requires cleared land for production and employs thousands of people. I remain a supporter of the harvest of a couple of thousand hectares of timber out of those forests to provide thousands of jobs. I would like us to see it spend a bit more time going back into the old replanting processes and silviculture techniques that I think are still done, but one of the issues will be that without a timber industry as such, knowledge and experience around silviculture will probably largely disappear. It is a regrowth strategy that does not allow marri trees, which is a kind of red gum that the old foresters all thought was a weed tree. If you harvest too severely, which you have to do to have access to below the ground to be able to pull minerals out, the marri tree, which suckers quick more quickly and harder will take over an area which was once a fairly mixed jarrah-marri combination, which a lot of that northern jarrah forest is. You will find a swing from jarrah to marri trees as a part of that process, which is not what its natural state is.
There is some wandoo up there by the way, but that is a bit further east. Wandoo was traditionally a more eastern tree. I tell members what, if they ever want to try to work out whether they can use it with a firewood axe, if they are any good as an axeman, try some wandoo. Holy mackerel. Some days I think you may as well turn the axe around and try to beat it to death with the flat head of the axe. It is a really good tough timber. I would not like to try to sculpt or mould it into anything. On my floor down in Donnybrook we have got—and my wife loves—spotted gum. Here is a story out of school. Spotted gum is about as brittle and tough as wandoo is. Of course, she wanted all the feature in the wood for floorboards, and the feature is largely gum pockets and all the weak bits of the wood. As we were cutting up the panels to put into the floor, I did not tell her that I was taking out all the features, all the gum pockets, that she wanted to have in place. I have never told her that, so I hope she does not read Hansard or I will probably be in a bit of a mess going forward. But there you go.
Wandoo is very tough timber. It makes great fence posts and it will burn for a long time as firewood. That is a bit further east, though. The key point here is that the northern jarrah forest is the place that is probably most at risk as a diverse ecosystem in terms of a drying climate. There are others and there are other impacts. The minister will probably stand up and say in a little while that when we start to look at the key components of this bill, particularly around the Shire of Wandering, it is perhaps somewhat in response to that change of environment around the northern jarrah forest. It would be ridiculous to suggest that it would look any different, of course. When these timber reserves that were originally available for timber harvest become a part of the new A-class conservation reserve, I think called the Wandering Conservation Park, of course they would no longer be available for harvest, but given the new bill that was read in by the minister today, most of that timber would have been excluded anyway. I suspect that no matter who is in government, ultimately, most of the timber in that northern jarrah forest, apart from that timber that will be used for the production of alumina, the bauxite mines, would have been excluded out of production anyway based on environmental impacts. In his response, the minister might comment on that to see whether that is the position of the department as well. I would be surprised if it was not.
Of course, that does not mean that I support the entire destruction of the timber industry, apart from those bauxite mines as promulgated by the government over the last few years. I must admit I was quite astounded. I thought the now gone member for Warren–Blackwood would have lost with a much greater margin. I give her credit; she got that seat to under 2%. Considering that an entire industry was closed down as part of that, we have to give her credit for that. I am very pleased to see the new member for Warren–Blackwood, Bevan Eatts, in place—he is a nice guy; he has been a friend for a very long time—but I give credit to Jane Kelsbie for her efforts in that seat.
Hon Jackie Jarvis: She had an excellent campaign director, can I just say.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Okay. That might be a vested interest! Anyway, she did very well.
Hon Dan Caddy interjected.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Did someone say “divide”? No? I was just checking. No-one was game to.
We have had a discussion about the functioning of this sort of legislation and talked about where these impacts are likely to be. There are a few exceptions. If we run briefly through the bill, most of the first part is the normal administrative stuff. I understand that clauses 6, 7 and 8 are, for the most part, the extensions into an A-class reserve. This is largely to do with the creation of the new Wandering Conservation Park, but also some other parks or a new A-class reserve. Could the minister give us a bit of an indication in his response of how interactive those three clauses are? Are the blocks under clauses 6, 7 and 8 separate, isolated blocks that will do separate things? Is there any interconnectivity between them? I would be a bit interested in that so that I can work out whether there is a wider strategic issue. The reserve in clause 6 represents 660 hectares, the reserve in clause 7 represents about 450 hectares, and the reserve in clause 8 is I think the largest one at 3,211 hectares. I am interested in connectivity for good environmental outcomes, so I am interested to see how those three areas in that same region in the Shire of Wandering are likely to interact.
As we move on from that, we get to the clauses involved with the excision of areas from reserves and into other management services. That is very much under clause 9, which has a list of relatively minor amendments for the most part. I note there will be an excision from the Canning River Regional Park reserve. That is a fairly longstanding and very important reserve to be set aside. That new reserve will be under the City of Canning’s management. Can the minister provide some advice in his response about those state reserves being passed back to local government to effectively be managed as reserves? Given that there was probably no set budget for the management of those relatively small reserve areas anyway, will the government provide funding in any way, shape or form to the local governments that are picking them up to manage or will they simply absorb that into their current budgets? I suspect it will be the latter. Having said that, our contact with the local governments involved in this bill found that they are generally quite happy to pick them up. Because the department is dramatically underfunded for the management of the estate, an issue that has been going on for the entire 20 years that I have been in Parliament, I suspect there will be no transfer of funds. The minister might just confirm that for us. That will occur as an excision.
There will also be the excision of a conservation park associated with the Woodman Point Regional Park. I note that that reserve already has infrastructure on it, particularly around the Coogee Beach Surf Life Saving Club, which I have seen and been to in years past. Can the minister just confirm that that already has infrastructure on the piece that is to be excised? If that is so, I suspect that a perfectly sensible excision is being made. I think that is quite reasonable, particularly if that land has already been disturbed. It makes no sense to try to leave it as part of a conservation estate and it should be passed over to the City of Cockburn for its management.
Reserve 5225 in the City of Albany is a bit smaller at 54 hectares. I think that is just a rationalisation of the current boundaries, which is exactly what this sort of legislation is for. It is probably pointless to go through all of these one by one. The remaining changes are modest and, for the most part, completely logical.
The only clause that we probably need to spend a little bit of time on before I allow others who are interested in the conservation estate and these things to talk is clause 11, which deals with some changes of classification of purposes on A-class reserves. I just have a couple of questions around some of the specific ones. The reserves listed under clause 11(1) are presumably all similar reserves in the same area. Even though they are different reserve numbers, I presume they are connected with Torndirrup National Park. To be honest, the changes of classification seem a little bit random. I presume this is consistent with a greater plan. I will be interested to know whether there is a plan for Torndirrup National Park and whether this is trying to work out how to deliver that. A similar thing happens in clause 11(2), with one reserve moving from a classification of conservation of flora and fauna to landscape protection. Could the minister give us a quick run-down in his second reading response of the difference between the purpose of conservation of flora and fauna and the new purpose of landscape protection? Landscape tends to extend itself to geology and some other components, such as soil technology perhaps. Is that why it is being shifted? The minister might be able to provide the difference between those ones. Under clause 11(1), the existing purpose of reserve 11776 as water and conservation of flora and flora will be converted simply to conservation of flora and fauna. I mean, did it dry up? Is there no water left there? I am not sure why the classification needs to change, so perhaps the minister could provide just a little bit of clarification around that.
Just to finish up, I can say that this is a sensible bill. We like sensible bills. We like bills that deliver sensible outcomes, and it appears to me that this bill will do so. It appears to have support from the land managers in the regions in which these changes will be applied. The government should have a good look at how small and isolated reserves in the conservation estate are managed, as I think they are generally unmanaged. That might be a good investigation for an environment committee, for example, over time. I might have to start a petition along those lines. Perhaps an environment committee could have a look at that, particularly around the biosecurity elements. Overall, this looks like a sensible piece of legislation. I will say that the minister should have a good look at how these small and isolated pockets are managed. I actually think there is a significantly better way to do that, which the minister might look at over the period in which he holds the lofty position of Minister for the Environment. At the end of the day, the opposition, like, I suspect, everybody else, will simply be supporting the bill.
Hon Shelley Payne (Agricultural Region) (3:50 pm): It is a great opportunity to come and talk about the Reserves Bill 2025. I am pretty passionate about the environment, so anything that we are doing to create new A-class reserves is fantastic.
There are two things for which I want to commend our government—first of all, for our commitment to cleaning up a lot of these inconsistencies. It takes a bit of work and parliamentary time as well, so it is good for our government to have the will, I guess, to go clean up a lot of the inconsistencies out there in terms of land management. I also want to commend the government on the way that we have been expediting our parliamentary business by reducing the number of bills that we need to deal with and the amount of time it is going to take in Parliament by bringing a lot of these—as Hon Dr Steve Thomas said—modest changes together into one bill. This is a great little bill that will do a lot of little, small things. Basically, we are going to be amending 10 A-class reserves and six other reserves all the way across WA, from the metropolitan area to the South West, the Great Southern, the Wheatbelt and the Kimberley region.
A lot of the land changes have actually been requested by local governments. Hon Dr Steve Thomas talked about whether we were going to help out local governments, but they have actually asked for a lot of these inconsistencies to be undone. A lot of members would know that an A-class reserve sets the highest form of protection. It is really great that we are creating an A-class reserve through this bill in the area of Wandering, which is an area in the agricultural region that Hon Sandra Carr, myself and Hon Darren West cover. It is a beautiful area of the country, so I am really pleased to see this conservation park come together and be moved into an A-class reserve.
These are changes of purpose or excisions of more than one hectare or 5% of A-class reserve. It requires the authority of both houses of Parliament, which is why we are dealing with some of these issues as well. Although as I said, most of these are modest changes to allow for good housekeeping, so again, I commend the government for that.
I know Hon Dr Steve Thomas mentioned whether we would be taking time to go into committee on this bill in detail, so I thought maybe I would talk a little bit about some of the changes. Hon Dr Steve Thomas has mentioned a few of those as well. I will just go through the bill, starting at clause 6. That is where we will do changes to a few of the reserves. Clauses 6,7 and 8 are to do with setting up the new A-class reserve in Wandering. Clause 6 refers to timber reserve 145/25, which will separate it from the Wandering Conservation Park to be able to make the new A-class conservation park. Clause 7 deals with reserve 18534, separating it from the Wandering Conservation Park, which, along with clause 8, will allow us to create the new class A conservation park: the Wandering Conservation Park. This is great. It will secure an area of about 3,211 hectares in the state's South West conservation estate. This was proposed back in our Forest management plan 2004–2013. As I said, Wandering is a beautiful part of the country with a great, beautiful forest, so it is great that we are going to be really locking this in as an A-class reserve.
I will move on to clause 9 of the bill. This clause will do quite a number of excisions from different reserves. As I said, a lot of these requests are coming from local governments, as well as requests to clean up some inconsistencies. For the first reserve, the Canning River Regional Park, we have a few lots that we are going to excise out of that. That is for the purpose of recreation and natural environment uses. Reserve number 49220 contains an encroachment of a car park and other infrastructure that belongs to the Coogee Beach Surf Life Saving Club and is going to be removed. Reserve 5225 will rationalise a bit of the boundary of—I cannot even say this word—Torndirrup National Park. The excised bit of land will be added on to the adjoining reserve for the purpose of a caravan park and recreational pleasure. Albany Nature Reserve also has a bit of an encroachment from an adjacent landfill operation. We are going to deal with that encroachment into the reserve and also provide a buffer between the reserve and the adjoining landfill site.
Moving on to reserve 16245 in the Shire of Koorda, we will excise a bit of land due to encroachment from a landfill operation there as well. This is really going to ensure improved long-term waste management for the Koorda community. Again, as I said, local governments have been asking for a lot of these inconsistencies to be cleaned up.
Reserve 8428 is in the city of Busselton. We will excise two small areas from that reserve to provide for better management of two recreational reserves in the Yallingup township. This is only about 0.01% of the total land area of this reserve. As I said, a lot of these things are at the request of local governments.
Reserve 31362 is the Walpole-Nornalup National Park and part of that park is Pioneer Park. We are going to be excising lot 502, which contains Pioneer Park—a popular tourist and community recreation area. That is going to really allow the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions to work with the Shire of Manjimup to make sure that we manage that appropriately. I think that is probably the basis of some of Hon Dr Steve Thomas's questions as well. Lastly, on that clause we have reserve 24258, where we will excise lot 500. Again, this is the Torndirrup National Park. That is to provide more of an orderly management boundary for that park and reserve.
Moving on to clause 10, it also refers to the change of classification of reserve 5225, Torndirrup National Park, so that we can make it an A-class reserve for consistency with the rest of the national park. Clause 11 also deals with reserve 24258. It will change the purpose of the reserve from "national park and recreation" to "national park", which, again, will make it consistent across the national park. Clause 11 also deals with reserve 11776, the Mooraning Nature Reserve. The purpose of that reserve will change from "water and conservation of flora and fauna" to "conservation of flora and fauna". That is a really great outcome and better reflects DBCA's management objectives for that reserve. The clause also deals with reserve 21153, the Djuringe Mooranoppin Nature Reserve. Sorry if I have not got that exactly right. Its purpose will change from "conservation of flora and fauna" to "Aboriginal heritage, culture and conservation". This is a great outcome because the land has really high social and cultural significance to the local Noongar community there. It will retain its A-class reserve conservation. The new purpose will also support including this reserve into the State Register of Heritage Places as well, so it is a great outcome.
Under the same clause there are a couple of reserves in the Shire of Kent, which are reserves 25696 and 25697. I guess the reserves there have been a bit compromised over time due to things like grazing and clearing. Their designated purpose of conservation of flora and fauna are no longer warranted, so changing their purpose to landscape protection better reflects the objectives we have for them.
Finally, we have reserve 44674, for which we will also change the purpose—that is, Adele Island off the Kimberley coast. Its purpose will change to navigation, communication, meteorology, survey and conservation. That reflects the use of the reserve, which is for instrumentation operated by the Bureau of Meteorology.
We then get the last clause of the bill—clause 12. It has to do with the Wandering class A nature reserve. Clause 12 relates to the other clauses I talked about in clauses 6, 7 and 8. It deals with creating the class A reserve in Wandering. It is also associated to some of the state agreements we have with Alcoa and Worsley Alumina. I again commend our government for its commitment to cleaning up these inconsistencies and the way they have been put into one bill to save a bit of parliamentary time.
As I said, I am really quite passionate about the environment, and I am really pleased about our government and what we have done our Plan for Our Parks, which we announced in 2019. We have had a huge amount of progress in achieving our goals for the five million hectares since then. Since 2019, I think we have put in $40.2 million into creating these new areas of both marine and national park—five million hectares. They span all the way from the Kimberley through the rangelands to Perth, Bunbury, the South West forests and our southern coastline. They protect a lot of our really valuable natural assets as well as creating jobs on country for Aboriginal rangers and opportunities for nature-based tourism and recreational activities.
As we know, Western Australia is such a diverse state. It is really amazing. We are really quite lucky here. We have such a diverse array of flora, fauna and threatened species. We have the risk of climate change, and it puts increasing pressure on our environment. The weather is getting hotter, the sea levels are rising and our rainfall patterns are changing. This is a growing challenge for us to manage our parks and reserves here in Western Australia. There are threats to our biodiversity and our local species. That can also impact the opportunities we have for tourism and recreation. We really have to do work to make sure we keep up with issues of climate change and we take care of the natural environment in this huge state. Our Plan for Our Parks and expanding the conservation estate are helping to safeguard our biodiversity and secure the habitats of our unique flora and fauna, enhancing vegetation and providing carbon sequestration opportunities.
Natural ecosystems play such an important role in helping mitigate and adapt to climate change. We heard Hon Matthew Swinbourn talking yesterday about the impact that the marine heatwave is having on our marine environment. He talked about the broadscale surveys we did to evaluate the coral bleaching that is happening. He also talked about widespread impacts of this coral bleaching, of a scale and intensity never before witnessed in Western Australian waters. It has occurred in deeper waters and for the first time on reefs outside the Kimberley. It is really a bit of a wake-up call for us. It is great to see DBCA doing the work of looking at what is happening not only onshore, but also offshore in our important marine environment.
The protections we are giving to our marine parks give wildlife and ecosystems the best chance of bouncing back from some of these climactic events such as heatwaves, the cyclones we are seeing, cooling events and rainfall run-off. It is great to see that we will do a lot of scientific work and long-term monitoring through DBCA so we can adaptively manage these parks in the face of these climate change risks.
I again commend the government on what we are doing with the Plan for Our Parks. There are great job opportunities as well with the Plan for Our Parks. More than 56 full-time jobs are being created, and a lot of these are for Aboriginal people, such as trainee positions for Aboriginal rangers, marine park rangers, coordinators and joint management coordinators.
In our budget last year, we invested another $22 million to support this Plan for Our Parks and our new national parks. That money will help establish startup infrastructure for some of our new conservation reserves, whether that is work centres, remote rangers stations or other capital investments that support that Plan for Our Parks. It is really great. This addition we have done to our collection of national parks is more than achieved by any other WA government in history.
I turn to the subject of one of our new national parks. Shortly after I was elected, I had the opportunity to go with Minister Whitby to Dryandra to an old timber reserve, which is now one of our newer national parks, Dryandra Woodland National Park. Magnificent woodland is there and great tourism opportunities, as anyone who has ever been there would know. It is not even two hours from Perth, just north of Narrogin. People can engage with lots of our vulnerable wildlife that is being protected in this park. They can have walks there and see the numbats. I walked there with my family a couple of years ago and saw the woylies. After opening the park with Minister Whitby, I was inspired to go back and stay there. The Lions Club has the Lions Dryandra Woodland Village, with lots of units. People can call up and stay there. They are little cabins from back in the logging days. That is a great place to stay and do some of these walks from. At night, the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions offers a night-time excursion. There is the Barna Mia Native Animal Sanctuary, which is an enclosed area that protects all these sorts of species there. People can go on these night-time adventures and see woylies, wallabies, quendas, chuditch and all sorts of things protected inside this enclosure. It is a great little park. I am really pleased that it is now part of a national park rather than a timber reserve, as it was. Over 17,000 hectares of national park has been created. It is an area of the state that has vegetation that we do not have a lot of in national parks. It is the first national park to be created within the Wheatbelt region. Over 50% of our natural environment in the south-west and south of the state has been cleared through farming and development. That was really great trip to visit the Dryandra woodlands.
We have done heaps of new national park since 2019. There are huge areas up in the north of our state, with places four times the size of the Australian Capital Territory near Mount Augustus. There are great A-class conservation parks there. They are really great. They create a lot of on-country jobs for the traditional owners. We have done a bit of work in the Mid West of which Hon Sandra Carr would know. There has been 325,000 hectares added to our conservation estate. This is also part of an Indigenous land use agreement with Nanda traditional owners, creating the Nanda National Park, the Nanga National Park and the Nanda Nature Reserve. This protects the black-flanked rock wallaby. I do not know whether members know a lot about the black-flanked rock wallaby. Wallabies are not as popular as kangaroos and they are more difficult to find, and it is great that we have our national parks. We used to have the black-flanked rock wallaby in the south of the state as well, from Albany through to Esperance, but they are all extinct. The only place they can be found in the south of the state is offshore on Salisbury Island, which is one of the new marine sanctuaries as part of the Eastern Recherche Marine Park.
I am pretty passionate about the island. My husband discovered the white shark hotspot there, even when Fisheries thought there were no white shark hotspots in Western Australia. It is an amazing island. It has the biggest seal colony in Western Australia and amazing marine diversity. It is about 30 nautical miles from the shore, so it is one of the far-flung islands near the continental shelf. Black-flanked wallabies have been living on the island since it was separated from the mainland. It is fantastic not only due to the fact that it is an A-class reserve but also because of all the work we are doing in our country parks and marine parks. It is really important to protect Salisbury Island. It is a global hotspot, created through a non-profit organisation that I started up with my husband before I came into Parliament to protect that amazing place we discovered—a white shark hotspot, with seal colonies and wallabies. It is an amazing island to advocate for its protection. It is great to see that it will be an amazing marine sanctuary, such a special place for us to showcase to the world. I am really excited about the work that we can do with the traditional owners in the future to visually showcase the island with its amazing marine and land environment to everyone in the world wherever they are because of our online ability to do this kind of stuff.
Since we are talking about the environment and reserves in the bill, I wanted to take a moment to talk about a lot of the other investments we have made to help people enjoy national parks. We committed $165 million in this year's budget to support West Aussies to get out and explore the great outdoors through the state government's outdoor adventure tourism package. That money was used to invest in trails and other recreational facilities, as well as camping facilities and national parks, and more sustainable tourism opportunities on the Abrolhos Islands. As Hon Sandra Carr knows, that was one of the marine parks that was gazetted off Geraldton. It is great to have that locked in with the marine park. We have a lot of potential to do real sustainable tourism—a lot of upmarket stuff that can appeal to overseas visitors and bring more of that spend and that dollar into Western Australia.
As I said, we have some of the most amazing coastline, national parks and natural attractions in the country. It is great to see our government ensuring that people can connect and enjoy the amazing environment that we have out there. It has been fantastic to be a regional member—I think Hon Sandra Carr would agree—and have the opportunity to travel around and experience the amazing diversity of Western Australia. I feel really privileged to have had that opportunity.
A new tourism-focused division has been created in DBCA. It is responsible for driving new commercial tourism projects, lining up with the money we have committed to try to connect people. To have people working within DBCA will also help drive that connection. About 500 tourism businesses are already operating in our national parks. Many of them are involved in our award-winning attractions such as the Kalbarri skywalk, the treetop walk in the south of the state, which Hon Louise Kingston would know about, our bicentennial tree and the other trees that we can climb that we put $3 million into. It will be really great to support more tourism businesses.
We also have tourism-focused policies for our national parks. We will be looking at more options for people to have overnight stays, improving camping areas and things like that. We now have record visitation at our national parks; in the 2023–24 financial year, there were more than 24 million visits. It is great to see a lot of people getting out. I think COVID really helped people think about getting out and to wander out yonder, as we encouraged people to do. If we have made people connect with and appreciate the natural environment and get out to do some walks, that is great. We have seen a trend with a lot of young women getting out with those groups. They meet up and have walks in national parks and things like that. It is really great. Good on DBCA for some of the work it is doing to drive some new commercial tourism projects. We have also set up a nature-based tourism industry reference group—that will be really great—with representatives from the Tourism Council WA, tourism operators and other government departments. It is great that we think that our parks should be open and as accessible as possible so that everyone can experience what our great environment has to offer.
A grant funding program is due to close on 2 May. Members' constituents can apply for up to $100,000 to help them develop unique tourism accommodation through our unique tourist accommodation proposals program. It will help to encourage a pipeline of new accommodation options around Western Australia. We all know about the current housing crisis, which is not only an issue for people who want somewhere to live, but also for tourists who want accommodation. We need to make sure that we are building more accommodation for tourists. I know that Esperance gets pretty full. It would already be full for Christmas. During Easter, accommodation was overflowing. The shire originally set up an overflow camping area from Christmas to the new year and now it is open pretty much six months a year. It is great to see so many people visiting Western Australia. The McGowan government managed COVID so well; it really helped people to look at Western Australia and make the decision to visit. In a way, COVID really helped us with our tourism and how we are perceived on a world scale. As I said, if members know anyone who wants to apply for the grant program, it closes on 2 May. As I said, it is part of our national park tourism experience development program.
I also wanted to talk about supporting First Nations tourism because it is really important and something that our government has been looking at, especially in partnership with the federal government. In collaboration with the federal government, we have provided $6 million in funding to expand First Nations tourism across Western Australia, under the banner of "strategic Indigenous tourism projects". It will help more of our visitors from around the world come and really connect with the rich cultural stories in our Aboriginal communities. It will also help support our popular camping with custodians program. That program is really about building stronger, more connected communities. It will also create jobs and strengthen our local communities. That is really great.
I wanted to talk a little about some of the national parks down my way. As I said, I have been privileged to be able to travel around quite a bit, but I also have some amazing stuff in my backyard, including Cape Le Grand National Park, which is quite close—only half an hour drive from Esperance. I went there the other weekend. My son and I popped out and did a bit of a hike from Thistle Cove to Lucky Bay, which as members may know was ranked number one in the world last year. I do not know whether members have seen the rankings, which just came out today, for the top 50 beaches in the world. Wharton Beach, which is at Duke of Orleans Bay in Esperance, was in that top 50. I think Turquoise Bay was also included in the top 50. We have amazing beaches down there. Cape Le Grand is packed out, with the parking lots overflowing. There is nowhere to park and there are people everywhere. Getting the ranking of being the best beach in the world and all the beautiful imagery with the white sandy beaches and turquoise water attracts visitors to come down there, especially when a few kangaroos can be seen on the beach as well. If people are down there over the summer months, they can go out for a hike, which we cannot do in a lot of other places in the state.
I remember over last Christmas getting out there and seeing people hiking there with their poles. I thought that it is so great that they can get out of Perth and go to this place to get outside and be comfortable and still walk around, because we all know how hot it gets in other areas of our state.
The south coast is also a really great place for whale watching from the coastline. There are two spots. One is east of Esperance at Cape Arid National Park and one is west of Esperance in the Fitzgerald River National Park at Point Ann, which is off Bremer Bay. They are great places where a person can walk onto the headland and look down at the southern right whales playing in the water. There are great opportunities there for the shire to extend its tourism season and for us to be presented with more tourism opportunities, which is fantastic.
Over Easter I had a chance to visit Woody Island, which is off Esperance. I did some diving there and stayed overnight on Woody Island. It is an A-class reserve as well and a fantastic place that has kangaroos and little penguins and a beautiful and amazing marine environment. We got the chance to catch five bluefin tuna there. We have been out fishing quite a few times in the last couple years and we have caught a bonito, but we have not caught any bluefin, so to catch five bluefin tuna was great. We put some of them in the freezer and we had sushi rolls made with fresh bluefin tuna. There are lots of opportunities in Esperance. Even with the South Coast Marine Park located there, there are still many opportunities for fishing with 80% of the park still open to fishing and lots of opportunities to catch fresh seafood. We get the bluefin tuna and Hon Sandra Carr gets the crayfish from her region, but there are great opportunities along the south coast.
I kind of mentioned the Fitzgerald River National Park in terms of Point Ann from the Bremer Bay side where people can do a lot of whale watching. The other side from Hopetoun contains beautiful vegetation. That park has been upgraded and looks really great with beautiful parking lots and everything, but the vegetation is just amazing. There are lots of awesome parks on the south coast. The South Coast Marine Park will provide a lot of opportunities now to upgrade a lot of our marine infrastructure. Thanks to Minister Michael, Esperance has received a lot of investment in its marine infrastructure. It would be great to also look at the needs of Hopetown and Bremer Bay. Members may have visited the fantastic federal marine park there. People go out in a boat and see the orcas up close. It is jam-packed in Bremer Bay with all the tourists and the different charter vessels that are taking people offshore to see the orcas. Bremer Bay is a great little place to visit for a holiday. Members should take the opportunity to go to Bremer Bay because it is fantastic, and it is also a great opportunity to see those killer whales offshore.
I have probably exhausted members with all my talk about the great national parks and everything that we have got around Esperance, so I want to get back to the Reserves Bill 2025 that is at hand. I commend the government again for a lot of the work that it has done to streamline this bill and to make sure that it does not take up too much parliamentary time. We can clean up a lot of those little inconsistencies at the same time. We made a commitment to clean up those inconsistencies because lot of them have been hanging around for a long time. I commend the Cook government for giving its attention to this matter and to get the bill on the table in Parliament. This will relieve a lot of stress and anxiety for a lot of local governments that has been created by some of those inconsistencies, particularly with landfill and other things. They will be very pleased to see the passage of this bill and it is great that Wandering will have this A-class reserve. Thanks again to Minister Swinbourn for bringing this bill to the house.
Hon Sandra Carr (Agricultural Region) (4:24 pm): It gives me no end of pleasure to speak on the Reserves Bill 2025 and to follow on from other speakers. I will reiterate a couple of points that were made earlier. Yes, the bill makes some fairly modest changes to Western Australia's class A reserves and allows for good housekeeping of our crown land. As Hon Dr Steve Thomas mentioned, it is the highest form of protection under the Land Administration Act 1997, but I disagree to some extent with his comments when he said they were fairly innocuous changes. They might be seemingly innocuous, but they are incredibly important and significant in terms of their long-term impact and legacy around conservation management and the protection of land and our precious ecosystems. That could never be described as innocuous as it is a particularly significant legacy. I have previously talked about this and about the Plan for Our Parks and how, throughout history, those sorts of plans and the foresight of those people to make those plans is an incredible legacy to leave for people in terms of experiencing the natural environment. I think at the time I provided the example of Central Park in New York. I tried to imagine what that place would be like in the absence of Central Park and I talked about how someone had to have the vision to preserve and maintain that beautiful natural environment.
I will not go into the various mechanisms of the bill, but I will talk about the ecological significance of Western Australia's unique flora and fauna and why that cannot be overstated. Western Australia is the largest state in Australia with a vast and diverse climate and an array of life forms. It is home to an amazing number of animal species, including reptiles, some of which are still being discovered. I think it was Landline that I watched a while ago that said how we were still discovering new species of ants. I thought that was quite fascinating. It tells us that there is still so much more to be discovered and if we are a bit lackadaisical about our approach to protecting and conserving patches of land, the cost can be quite unquantifiable because we do not know all the species out there yet, including things like our amazing wildflowers in Western Australia. In my part of the world in the Mid West and the Wheatbelt, in the Shire of Mingenew, we have the Coalseam Conservation Park. I do not know whether anyone has ever been to that park. It was the first mined coal deposit in Western Australia. Fortunately, the coal was not of great quality and the land was not great for farming or grazing, so it was allowed to flourish as a national park and in the mid to late 1990s, it was made into a conservation park. It has the most stunning display of wildflowers members will ever see with an ocean of pink, yellow and white flowers. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of visiting those wildflowers and picnicking amongst the flowers with my family. It really is quite a stunning sight to behold and another example of why it is so important that we protect that land and do some work around class A reserves.
President, noting the time, I might seek leave to continue my remarks at a later time.
Debate interrupted, pursuant to standing orders.
(Continued at a later stage of the sitting.)
