Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (18:09): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change. Beholden to ideologues, this government appears determined to destroy the country pursuits which Victorians have enjoyed for decades. Gold prospecting continues to be under siege by the government’s policy of locking up our state forests. Public spaces belong to all Victorians, not Parks Victoria, not the government and not the Premier.

The Victorian Environmental Assessment Council (VEAC) is now recommending that another 77 000 hectares of public land be converted to national parks and reserves, which will likely further restrict prospecting. The grounds for restricting access for prospecting in parks and forests are ludicrous. In the 2013 Investigation into Additional Prospecting Areas in Parks, VEAC said that:

Some activities undertaken by prospectors can damage natural values by causing disturbance of soils and damage to vegetation.

Prospectors use no machinery and do not cause environmental damage. They use hand tools to dig holes less than 30 centimetres deep and 50 centimetres wide, which are then compulsorily filled. This government’s obsession with trying to avoid unearthing a single blade of grass is precisely the attitude that has contributed to the build-up of fuel loads in state forests and the out-of-control vegetation that has become rampant on our roadsides, which has exacerbated fire risk.

Prospecting provides regional towns with significant economic benefits. The Prospectors and Miners Association of Victoria has over 14 500 members, who avidly travel around this state in the pursuit of their hobby. They spend money in local shops and pubs. Like many other recreational activities that this government appears determined to end or substantially restrict, gold prospecting provides its participants with great health benefits. Regional Victoria has a mental health crisis far more pressing than metropolitan Melbourne’s. Wherever possible we should be enabling citizens to pursue recreational activities that provide them with enjoyment and time spent outside amongst the natural environment. The action I seek is that the minister stop locking up our forests and parks and undertake an investigation into additional prospecting areas in parks, as the Liberal-Nationals government did in 2013.