Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (17:54): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change and concerns the joint management plan for the Barmah National Park agreed between the minister, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and the traditional owner land management board. The minister’s approved plan is clear on one thing: eradicating the historic population of brumbies within the park is essential. The purpose is stated in various places to, quote:

Reduce the impacts and restore the health of the floodplain marshes …

And:

… improving the health of Country … restoring Moira grasslands and marshes …

The plan quotes the:

… critical need to reduce present and future damage to the park’s marshes and other environments.

An important part of the joint management plan solution is the complete removal of the brumby population. It notes:

Removal of feral horses is a high priority that needs urgent action …

Given the centrality of protecting grasslands to the case for shooting brumbies, it bears close examination. It does not take long to see its weakness. Firstly, as the plan concedes, it is the changed irrigation of the park which has been the primary cause of habitat loss. Before river regulation the forest was flooded in winter and spring through rainfall and upland melting snow swelling streams. This is acknowledged by the fact that an improved water regime is listed before culling in the actions laid out. Secondly, the remainder of the damage that is done by grazing and trampling cannot be blamed purely on horses, which Parks Victoria treat as scapegoats. Substantial populations of pests—namely, feral pigs, deer, sheep, goats and rabbits—are identified in the document. In my view these populations should be controlled first. They have none of the cultural or heritage value in this place that the brumbies have. In combination with improved water regimes, this would likely solve any degradation without resorting to the potential inhumane slaughter of the brumby population.

I will conclude with a further inconvenient argument for those proposing the wholesale eradication of Barmah brumbies—namely, the excellent condition of the moira grasses. At the same time as we are told the horse population is dangerously high and damaging, a senior wetland ecologist in the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority told the ABC this month that:

It is some of the best moira grass I have seen in years.

So the action I seek from the minister is the rapid and complete release of all recent condition reports on the flood plain marshes. The justification for shooting the brumbies was poor enough before. If it turns out the flood plain needs recovering, even in the presence of a healthy brumby population, the argument will collapse altogether.