Data on curtailing open season has seemingly been ignored despite bizarre championing

The government has become a sitting duck, left exposed to the criticisms of animal welfare organisations and the Greens as they seemingly mismanage data and can’t get their story straight, writes Jenna Cairney.

THE State Government just seems to keep digging in deeper over its duck hunting decision.

In Thursday’s Mercury, we reported that senior public servants had advised Primary Industries Minister Guy Barnett to curtail the season.

The government’s principal wildlife management officer sent a draft minute to the Minister strongly recommending the government cut back on this year’s hunting.

Game Services Tasmania supported the push.

They argued that other states were reducing the numbers of ducks allowed to be shot by hunters and that Tasmania needed to help repopulate interstate waterbirds by also playing a part.

Minister for Primary Industries and Water, Guy Barnett seemingly ignored expert advice from his own patch regarding duck hunting, until other bureaucrats stepped in. Picture: RICHARD JUPE

After the publication of our story, Tim Baker, secretary of the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment, issued a statement saying Minister Barnett had never been given the minute and that he himself was responsible for making the decision.

He goes on to say that the information used by the Mercury was incomplete and that there had been no significant decline in wild duck counts for 2020.

His comments don’t seem to stack up.

The department on Thursday released data showing counts for several species of waterbirds. Each show declines between 2019 and 2020 – although not to historic lows.

Now the Greens and the wildlife groups will never support duck hunting, so their position isn’t news.

Did DPIPWE’s Minute go up to the Minister?

If not, why not?
If so, why was it ignored?

What conversations happened between Mr Baker and the Minister’s office?

It beggars belief such a highly charged political decision to ignore science & DPIPWE staff advice ...
2. #politas

— Cassy O'Connor 🍀 (@CassyOConnorMP) July 16, 2020

A lot of readers might not really care about waterbirds and some of you might love nothing more than grabbing your gun and blasting a few feathered friends right out of the sky.

But surely what we can all agree on is that we expect our government to make decisions on the best information available.

The Greens did request, via Right to Information, all the advice pertaining to the government’s decision about the duck hunting season.

Any additional advice they say they’ve received before approving the start of the season wasn’t included in that information request.

Why?

It is the job of the government to take the advice of the experts and balance that up with environmental needs as well as the needs of any other stakeholders.

None of the government’s explanations seem to stack up.

Duck hunting is what “makes Tasmania great” according to Mr Barnett. Picture: Peter Ristevski

When asked about duck hunting in parliament, Mr Barnett was emphatic that it was one of those things that “makes Tasmania great.”

That comment flew in the face of the senior public servants who asked Mr Barnett – via a seemingly unread minute – to keep eight duck hunting areas closed because “acceptance of this recommendation would clearly demonstrate to the community that the Gutwein government is managing wildlife based on sound biological principles rather than tradition.”

As they say, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck … on the facts presented it’s fair to say the government has become a sitting duck. It’s been left exposed to criticisms from the Greens and animal welfare organisations.