Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (10:41): It is very clear to many Victorians that the greatest threat to vulnerable species, to threatened species, is out-of-control bushfires, and our state has suffered in the last decade from more than we ever want, need or should. I understand almost 3 billion faunal species were incinerated or were maimed and had to be put down because of the bushfires in 2019–20. If this government wants to talk about its record, then its record needs to be of slowing, mitigating and forward planning and preparing for bushfires. Now, I support this documents motion, as we do, and indeed I would like very much to see, and the Liberals and Nationals would like to see, what is going on with this government. We see this is in their DNA; it is an increasingly regular occurrence. There is a significant problem. There is a review, and it can be an Auditor-General’s one – we saw only recently the Victorian Auditor-General’s follow-up in terms of bushfire preparedness, and it was a damning report on the government. We see advice from bushfire royal commissions. We see advice from the inspector-general for emergency management and others. We see these reports.
We even see there is an unreleased Parks Victoria report. Only recently Parks Victoria investigated. The minister said, ‘Let’s have a look at what’s going wrong in Victorian parks’. The public does not know. It is an internal document that does not get down to the nitty-gritty. We do not know what is in there about the flaws in this government’s management of our public spaces. They have stripped back the bushfire reporting, and that is very clear. They have watered it down. It used to have great detail about fuel-driven risks, the preparedness, the number of burns and where they were located. What this government has done over the last five or six years is that now it is a vibe. Now we get a document that is called the ‘management report’, and it is far more just, as I said, the vibe. That is not sufficient. It does not talk about fuel breaks. It does not provide depth and quality to Victorians. Surely Victorians deserve to know how at risk they are.
To this point, surely our environment needs to be understood better, and that includes threatened species. I have gone on record a number of times talking about the importance of understanding threatened species. Indeed only recently the Victorian government put forward apparently a vermin-proof fence across the top of Wilsons Promontory. Well, guess what, it has got more holes in it than Swiss cheese. The wombats can go under it, the foxes can go through it, and it finishes metres before the edge of the landform before it goes into the sea. This is what this government is doing. We see that the government is stripping back and editing a clear document that was put forward in a public inquiry – how manipulative is that – in relation to bushfire preparedness. I put this on record. It is a public document. Go and look at our minority report that provides two documents. One is about the unfiltered CFA response to questions on notice, and the other one is a highly sanitised government version.
The Greens and I may have differing views on the drivers of the decline in ecosystems. We know that it is not the timber harvesting. We know that it is not the need to remove trees. We need to actively manage our forests in this state. This government has called for a lock-up of tenure – ‘Let’s transfer a name, create a different title’ – and apparently it serves as conservation. We understand that we need active management. We do need to see these documents. We do need scientific evidence of what is happening in this state, but we certainly do not need more subterfuge, more of a culture of secrecy and more putting it in the bottom drawer, because what is good for our environment and what is good for threatened species is also good for communities and all Victorians. I put on record to this government that if there is another devastating wildfire in the next few years, we are in dire straits.