Tuesday, 7 February 2023

National parks

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (17:46): (13) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Environment and concerns Victoria’s national parks. These extraordinary places should be a source of great pride to all Victorians, particularly given the 125th anniversary this year of the first national park reservation in our state at Wilsons Promontory in 1898. They exist for many important reasons, but the preamble to the National Parks Act 1975 defines one clearly:

… whereas it is in the public interest that certain areas of Crown land … of particular interest or suitability for the enjoyment, recreation and education of the public … should be reserved permanently and made available for the benefit of the public …

Section 4, ‘Objects of Act’, includes paragraph (c):

to make provision … for the use of parks by the public for the purposes of enjoyment, recreation or education …

including for the encouragement as well as the control of that use. Sadly, by degrees and apparently without any public debate or even awareness, the situation is now very different. Victoria’s national parks apparently now aim to exclude the public, not encourage them. Exhibit A is the set-aside determination for Grampians National Park issued by Parks Victoria dated 9 March last year. This remarkable decision in one stroke removes all public right of access to the park and then deigns to reinstate it in certain areas for certain purposes. It is extraordinary. It does not protect individual sensitive environments or sites of cultural or ecological significance; instead it is a blanket ban on our access to the park except where Parks Victoria majestically and oh so graciously grant us entry.

How have we gone from the understanding that national parks should be reserved permanently and made available for the benefit of the public to this? National parks are parks for the people no more. So, Minister, the action I seek is your immediate review of this set-aside determination and of statutory rule 115/2013, which enabled it. The regulations reference only the set-aside of an area. If the intent was to allow the entire park to constitute that area, why is this absent from the legislation? Minister, I implore you: look again and restore national parks to all Victorians.