National Parks and Wildlife (Wombat Burrows) Amendment Bill – Second Reading speech

Tuesday 13 June 2023 

S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (12:55): I rise to indicate my support for the National Parks and Wildlife (Wombat Burrows) Amendment Bill 2022, a bill introduced by the Hon. Tammy Franks MLC in the other place. In South Australia, we have two species of this beautiful creature: the southern hairy-nosed wombat and the common wombat, sometimes known as the bare-nosed wombat. 

Both of these species are protected under the national parks act, which means that, under sections 51 and 68, the current framework provides that a person must not take a protected animal without a permit—this includes killing, injuring or capturing a wombat—or interfere, harass or molest a protected animal or undertake an activity that is, or is likely to be, detrimental to the welfare of a protected animal unless they hold a permit to do so or satisfy an exemption criteria. 

There are also provisions relating to the ill-treatment of animals in the Animal Welfare Act 1985. Despite this, hundreds of wombats are being buried alive through the destruction of their burrows, and I am pleased to support this bill that provides further protection for wombats—our state fauna emblem, the southern hairy-nosed wombat. 

I would also like to thank the Hon. Emily Bourke MLC, who amended the bill to insert a provision that allows the minister to declare a wombat burrow protection zone: a geographical area where a person must not, without a permit granted by the minister, destroy, damage or disturb the burrow of a wombat. These provisions are focused on protecting safety infrastructure and industry and are not intended to enable unreasonable damage to wombat burrows—for example, in a natural environment outside these circumstances. The bill also includes a provision for the protection zone, in which landholders may have a reasonable need to damage burrows from time to time due to human safety and risks of damage to equipment and infrastructure. 

The Department for Environment and Water encourages a 'living with wildlife' approach to how people think about and interact with wildlife. Burrow destruction is rarely effective when undertaken as the only means of managing a wombat population. The department recommends other methods to landholders: nonlethal methods of management for wombats, including electric fencing, fence alterations, wombat gates and marking burrows. Destroying burrows with the intent of destroying an animal is not an approved method of destruction and would likely be an offence. 

When we think of protecting wombats and their homes, it is also interesting to note, as the member for Elder pointed out, that a group of wombats is called a wisdom. Wombats can live in the wild for up to 26 years. Being a nocturnal animal, they come out to feed in the early evening and during the night. Wombats sometimes emerge from their burrows to sun themselves on sunny days. 

In protecting wombat burrows, it is useful to know that wombat burrows can cover a large area and will have many entrances. All wombat species live in burrows, often creating complex networks of burrows, with tunnels and chambers that can extend for up to 150 metres in radius. It would be a sad day if we lost this marsupial mammal that is indigenous to Australia. The name 'wombat' comes from the now nearly extinct Dharug language spoken by the Dharug people who originally inhabited the Sydney area. I commend the bill to the house.