Last Sunday, 11 August, a wonderful group of 12‑ to 20-year-olds came together at the Coastal Environment Centre in Narrabeen for the 2024 Youth Leading the World Community Forum. I was so impressed by the presentations from our engaged, dynamic young people in northern Sydney, reporting back on projects developed during the Youth Leading the World Congress in July last year. Led by local organisation OzGreen, the Youth Leading the World Congress is an annual environmental sustainability congress that "enables young people to find their own voice and become active leaders in creating fairer futures". I give a special shout-out to Josh Farrant and Eshan Eliatamby and their Solution Seagrass project, and Erin Battle and her project, Reduce Pollution.

The forum on Sunday was all about positive action. Hope is the only way forward. Grievance culture is not a path to personal or collective wellbeing. Having said that, I often reflect on the unfairness of young people having to shoulder the responsibility of solving massive environmental problems they did not create. They have every right to be disappointed and angry. Mission Australia's 2022 youth survey, the largest survey of its kind in Australia, found that, for the majority of young people, concerns and negative emotions regarding the climate are significant, as climate change represents a realistic threat to their lives in the foreseeable future. From my conversations with young people, I know it is a burden many carry. During the July break, I went to Alaska. In a way, I was part of what is known as last chance tourism, where visitors flock to places that are changing so fast that we are the last generation to see them. For me, it was the retreating glaciers. Paige McClanahan writes about this phenomenon poignantly:

For thousands of years, humans have raced to be the first to scale a peak, cross a frontier, or document a new species or landscape.

Now, in some cases, we're racing to be the last.

I came home with a grizzly beard, so I was looking a bit more at one with nature, but the trip also strengthened my resolve to contribute, where I can, to meaningful reform on climate and biodiversity in New South Wales, to support and build political will, and to challenge the Government to lead or at least to implement its own election commitments. Two Labor election commitments I am watching closely are to stop excess land clearing and to fix the Biodiversity Offsets Scheme, both within 18 months of coming to office. A few weeks ago, a number of my Independent crossbench colleagues and I wrote to the Premier, reminding him of this commitment. I am glad to see that the Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Biodiversity Offsets Scheme) Bill 2024 has been introduced this week. I hope that the Parliament can make it stronger.

New South Wales was once a world leader in biodiversity conservation and land management. However, since the Coalition overhauled the regulatory framework in 2016, land clearing has skyrocketed, with an average of 95,000 hectares being cleared each year. Speaking in the Legislative Assembly in 2016, many Labor MPs, including eight current Cabinet Ministers, made their dismay well known. Now that they have the opportunity to reform laws about native vegetation on private land, they absolutely should. On public land, the single biggest nature reform opportunity is comprehensively protecting native State forests. Having delved into this issue since it was raised with me by constituents during the election campaign, I completely reject the idea that this is a sustainable industry. Once we lose these mature trees, they are gone.

I was particularly struck by a presentation by Dr Steve Phillips during a Parliamentary Friends of Forests event last week. Steve is widely recognised as the leading koala expert in the State, a highly credentialed research scientist with 40 years of experience studying koalas. One of his slides showed the minimum diameter of sawlogs coming out of New South Wales State forests over time. In the 1970s the minimum commercial sawlog size being logged was 70 to 80 centimetres. In 2022-23 the minimum commercial sawlog in New South Wales is 20 to 30 centimetres. His words on the slide were, "Logging of State-owned native forests has been demonstrably unsustainable, both ecologically and economically."

In relation to the court recently finding Forestry Corporation guilty of breaching logging rules, to be honest, I am floored that the CEO has not been sacked over this, let alone the multiple other active criminal prosecutions and further 18 potential breaches that are under investigation. There is no way this level of illegal behaviour would be tolerated in a private company, or even in a local government context. I hope this sorry state of affairs provides an impetus for the New South Wales Government to act swiftly and decisively to protect our forests and we do more now for our environment. I again thank the youth leaders in my electorate, in particular, for reigniting my passion to use my time here effectively, keeping them and future generations front of mind. You guys rock.

15 August 2024, 16:44.