House debates

Tuesday, 15 August 2017

Bills

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Amendment Bill 2017; Second Reading

12:09 pm

Photo of Tim WattsTim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

As I was indicating yesterday, climate change is the critical issue of our generation. It is happening right here and right now, and we are seeing the real-world effects not only in Australia but around the world. Ban Ki-moon has eloquently pointed out that we're the last generation that can take steps to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Urgent revisions of the Reef 2050 plan were recommended by an expert independent panel led by former Chief Scientist Ian Chubb which would have enabled 'mitigation, adaptation and management of the reef in the face of inexorable global warming'. A World Heritage Committee report released this month confirms that global action is required to save the reef and that, if the world doesn't keep global temperatures in line, the reef will continue to deteriorate. It is unacceptable that the government will not act to protect one of Australia's most precious resources.

In the 1970s, the Whitlam government established the nation's very first maritime reserve to protect the Great Barrier Reef. Labor released the world's largest network of marine protected areas and national parks in 2012, under the previous Labor government. This network was based on the latest science and extensive community consultation. Labor has a strong record of protecting our oceans and its ecosystems. While we were in government, we expanded shipping movement surveillance across the reef. Labor's shipping policies promoted the use of experienced Australian pilots to navigate the reef, which not only protects the reef but also supports Australian jobs.

When the member for Warringah was Prime Minister, he put our plans on hold. Now the Prime Minister directly attacks them. Carbon emissions have risen by 1.4 per cent in the last year. The government's own projections on emissions show that Australia will fall well short of the mark regarding our obligations under the Paris Agreement as a result of this Prime Minister's climate and energy policies. It is time for the Prime Minister to find a backbone, stand up to his party and start doing what he knows is right. The member for Wentworth once said that he would never lead a party that was not as committed to genuine, effective climate change action as he was. Those words have been put back in the closet, along with the leather jacket from his Q&A days. It's time for action to deliver on protecting the reef and its ecosystems by introducing better climate and energy policy.

Over the last few months, we have seen the government's plans to reduce the protection of oceans. No other government in the world has ever removed so many hectares from conservation areas before. It's a sad state of affairs when Australia is making history by taking huge steps backwards on ocean protection. Prime Minister, putting your head in the sand will not help you find the solutions our reef desperately needs. This government's failure on climate are far reaching. Not only do they threaten the reef but they also cause emissions to rise and electricity prices to rise. They cost us jobs in the renewal energy sector. The government have refused to acknowledge the danger that climate change poses for the reef. Their answer to climate change is an ineffective and expensive $2.5 billion climate policy—something the Prime Minister has previously referred to as an 'environmental fig leaf' to cover a determination to do nothing. Those opposite and their willingness to sacrifice our environment for short-sighted and short-term economic gains, illusory economic gains, has been illustrated by sustained budget cuts to environmental programs. The environment portfolio has approximately half the resources that it did when Labor was in power. You can't be serious about protecting the reef unless you're also serious about climate change policy.

Beyond direct reef protections we must stop the land clearing that is happening in Far North Queensland. The Queensland Auditor-General has reported that land clearing in the Great Barrier Reef catchment area has tripled as a result of the former LNP-Newman government's law changes. An important part of the 2050 Great Barrier Reef sustainability plan was to get land clearing laws in Queensland back under control. This government has not done a thing to enact our commitment to the World Heritage Committee, UNESCO, in its 2050 sustainability plan. A key part of the variety of commitments made in this plan were designed to stop the Great Barrier Reef from being placed on the endangered list. Australia needs an ambitious, commonsense pathway to a low-pollution economy. The Labor Party has a clear plan, with six key elements focusing on leading renewable energy economy, cleaner power generation, building jobs and industry, cutting pollution, carbon capture on the land and increased energy efficiency. The environment will always be a priority for the Labor Party. We do not see the false dichotomy between protecting the Australian environment, protecting the Great Barrier Reef and fighting for Australian jobs and the Australian economy.

Indeed, I was very pleased to see the recent announcement by the Leader of the Opposition that a Shorten government will inject $1 billion into new tourism infrastructure in northern Australia to support the industry and to create new jobs. This new Northern Australia Tourism Infrastructure Fund will provide financing and concessional loans to build new tourism infrastructure in northern Australia. Well, I can tell you, you can build all the infrastructure you want, but if you lose the biggest drawcard, if you lose the Great Barrier Reef—one of the most iconic drawcards of the Australian tourism industry—this will be for nought.

Tens of thousands of jobs rely on the Great Barrier Reef. These are jobs that will be sustained. They are not just for an initial start-up period, not just for the construction period of a project, but are permanent jobs that communities across regional Queensland can rely on long into the future, but only if we have a government that is willing to do what it takes to protect the Great Barrier Reef. The Labor government recognised that the World Economic Forum's 2017 travel and tourism competitiveness index ranked Australia seventh for overall competitiveness but 14th for overall infrastructure. That's why we're taking action. This $1 billion infrastructure fund for tourism in regional Australia, in North Queensland, will have a positive impact on building jobs for our nation. But, again, it will all be for nought if we sacrifice the reef in the interim.

I've had an overwhelming response from my constituents about the future of the reef. I thank all the constituents who've taken time to write about this very important issue. They may not have faith in the government's approach to the management of this issue and the government's commitment to defending the Great Barrier Reef, but I can assure them that the Labor Party is committed to protecting this iconic Australian asset. Labor will continue to fight for the environment, we will continue to do what it takes to fight climate change and we will continue to fight for the preservation of the Great Barrier Reef, not only for the benefit of this generation but for the benefit of generations to come.

12:16 pm

Photo of Adam BandtAdam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

It comes as no surprise that the government brings a bill to this parliament that says it is about protecting the Great Barrier Reef but doesn't mention global warming or climate change once. Under this government's watch, pollution keeps going up and up, climate change keeps getting worse, and they chuck around lumps of coal in parliament and pretend the problem doesn't even exist. What's also distressing is that throughout this whole debate on the Great Barrier Reef so far we haven't heard a word from either the government or the opposition about something that is going to turbocharge global warming and affect the Great Barrier Reef, and that is the Adani Carmichael coalmine that's proposed in Queensland. We know, because we've been put on notice now for a very long time, that global warming threatens our way of life in Australia, because we now face going to every Christmas holidays wondering where the next bushfire's going to hit, how bad the droughts and heatwaves will be and whether, when the next cyclone hits, it will be power packed because the hot air above the sea is filled with heat and moisture, which makes these cyclones much more devastating and pack a much bigger punch when they land.

Our way of life is under threat from global warming like never before. But it doesn't just threaten us in this country; it threatens nature and it threatens those parts of Australia, like the Great Barrier Reef, that people thought would be there forever. Two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef has now been devastated by severe coral bleaching. We've had back-to-back summers of bleaching that scientists previously just didn't think was possible. An aerial survey by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies of the reef's 2,300-kilomoetre length showed that 1,500 kilometres of our Great Barrier Reef had been bleached—on our watch.

As the former Chief Scientist has made crystal clear, the biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef is global warming. And, as the UNESCO centre has made crystal clear, the biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef is global warming. Ian Chubb, the former Chief Scientist, led an independent expert panel and said we need a complete rethink of how we manage the reef because the reef is undergoing major long-term damage that may be irreversible unless action is taken now and that the planet has changed in a way that is unprecedented in human history. We have not seen this happen to the reef before and, whilst that might be extraordinary, it's the rapidity of this change that should be ringing alarm bells for this parliament. We shouldn't be introducing bills to talk about the Great Barrier Reef and not mention climate change, and we shouldn't, in this parliament, be doing everything that the government and Labor can to facilitate the Adani Carmichael coalmine. We've been told the reef is in trouble, we've been told that global warming is getting worse, we've been told that global warming is the single greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef and we've been told, by our former Chief Scientist, that we've got to limit global temperature rises to 1.2 degrees if we're to have a chance of saving the reef. So we have to do even more than we've agreed to in Paris if we want to have a chance of saving the reef.

You would think, with us being put on notice about all of those things, that parliament could make some responsible decisions—but, no. Here comes a bill about the Great Barrier Reef that doesn't even mention climate change, and the Liberals, Labor and the Nationals are working hand in glove to light the fuse on a climate bomb that sits in the Galilee Basin in Queensland. What we know is that, if all of the coal that's in the Galilee Basin is dug up and burned, that's the equivalent of what all the European Union countries together put out in a year. We are talking countries' worth of pollution that sits under the ground in the Galilee Basin. We are talking about a coalmine at a time when scientists have told us that, if we're to have a decent chance of stopping dangerous global warming, we need to keep 80 per cent of our fossil fuel reserves in the ground. In other words, we've been put on notice that, to have the best chance of protecting the reef and protecting our way of life, 80 per cent of all existing coal reserves need to stay in the ground. Instead, we're having a competition between Labor and the Liberals to see who can dig it up and burn it the quickest.

In Queensland, where, according to government figures, there are almost 70,000 jobs reliant on a healthy reef, the Queensland Labor government can't move quickly enough to give free water, a free pass for native title laws and other environmental laws and free coal to the multinational company Adani so that they can dig it up and export it. This is Labor doing this. And they're aided and abetted by the Liberal-National Party here in Canberra, because the government here wants to take $1 billion that could be going to schools and hospitals and put it into Mr Adani's pocket, essentially, by building a rail line that, on any reading, a company that wants to make money out of wrecking the planet should have to fund itself. It shouldn't be taking money.

You expect that from the Liberals, but what is galling is Labor's complicity. The message to the Liberal Party is clear but is not getting through, which is that we need to act on climate change. They seemingly don't care. They seemingly don't care, because the climate deniers and the Trumps on the backbench dictate what Prime Minister Turnbull does. We are going to keep fighting the government, but we've almost given up on them because they are, effectively, run by the coal lobby. But Labor now has an opportunity. If the Leader of the Opposition, today, stood up and said that if he wins the next election he will stop the Adani Carmichael coalmine, it would not go ahead because this project is so precarious that it's relying on the old parties bankrolling it and supporting it to go ahead. So there's an opportunity.

Today, I want to give Labor that opportunity to vote for it. We've heard lots of speeches from Labor about the importance of protecting the reef and acting on climate change. The message is simple, Labor: your choice is between Adani and the reef. You can't have both. Choose which one you want. I move, as an amendment to the second reading amendment moved by the member for Watson:

That all words after "notes" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"that global warming is the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef and calls on the government to immediately take all available steps to stop the Adani Carmichael coal mine".

Labor could stop the Adani Carmichael coalmine today by voting for this amendment and making a very clear statement that, if it wins the next election. it will not allow the coalmine to proceed.

There is precedent for this. You only have to go back and look at what happened in the Franklin Dam campaign. In the Franklin Dam campaign there was a rogue state government intent on wrecking something that was of crucial importance to Australians. A people's movement was built up around that to stop the damming of the Franklin. That people's movement got a commitment out of the then Labor opposition that, if it won power, it would stop it from going ahead and would override the rogue state government. That people's movement won, the government was changed, the dam was stopped and we are all much better for it.

We can fast-forward now to today and press repeat on that. If the Leader of the Opposition today responds to the growing people's movement that says, 'It is time to leave coal in the ground and switch to solar,' then this coalmine could be stopped and the Great Barrier Reef and the Australian way of life protected. It is no longer possible to walk both sides of the fence on this. It is no longer possible to say, 'We're in favour of a bit more renewables locally, but we're quite happy to ignore the world's scientists, dig up all the coal that we have here in Australia and have it exported and burnt overseas.'

In doing so, Labor and the Liberals are relying on the drug pusher's defence: 'If we don't sell it to them, someone else will.' What rubbish! We don't dig up and export asbestos anymore on the basis that someone somewhere in a rogue state might supply asbestos. We used to clad our housing in asbestos because we thought it was a good idea. Then we learnt that it kills when it's used in that way and so we phased it out. We were put on notice. We used to think there was no harm in tobacco. Then we were put on notice about the harm that tobacco causes, and so we're now in the process of restricting the use of tobacco. So it is with coal: it makes no difference to the atmosphere whether the coal is dug up and burnt here or somewhere overseas; it adds to pollution at a time when we cannot afford to add to pollution at all.

To give us a decent chance of protecting our way of life and making sure that the quality of life that we leave for our kids and grandkids is better than the one that we've enjoyed, we need to leave coal in the ground. That includes the coal at Adani. If your concern is about jobs, you cannot put in jeopardy the nearly 70,000 jobs that depend on a healthy reef for the sake of what Adani said in court under oath will be 1,400 jobs over a decade—1,400 jobs! They've also said elsewhere that they want to automate their mine from pit to plug. So anyone who thinks this is some job bonanza is kidding themselves. But, if jobs is the argument you're relying on, you are trading off almost 70,000 jobs dependent on a healthy reef for maybe 1,400 jobs that will be gone once the mine is automated.

We have an opportunity here in this House now to take a stand. This parliament could actually make a meaningful contribution, far more meaningful than anything the government has done, to the fight against global warming. As I've said, pollution is actually rising on this government's watch. We're meant to be cutting pollution and it's rising on this government's watch. What we can do is say, 'Australia will not be a climate criminal that aids and abets others in the burning of coal.' It's time to take a stand. We know where the Liberals stand, because they're the party of climate deniers.

It is also a time now for the opposition to take a stand. It is a very simple amendment. Immediately, take all available steps to stop Adani's Carmichael coalmine. Vote for this amendment, signal a change in position from the federal Labor Party and we can stop this Carmichael coalmine stone dead. We know that the Adani Group is now begging everyone for finance. We know that banks in Australia will not touch it with a barge pole. We know they're now hopeful that the government will write them a cheque, and they're also hopeful that the government will give them all the approvals they need to continue to allow Australia to facilitate pollution.

We have the power under federal law to say we're going to regulate the amount of pollution that Australia generates, we're going to regulate how mining takes place in this country and we're going to regulate the protection of the environment. Here, today, we can do far more than something symbolic; we can contribute to stopping the Adani mine in its tracks. So I urge everyone in this parliament, especially the opposition, to support this amendment. Then we will have done something real that future generations will thank us for.

Photo of Sharon ClaydonSharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Photo of Andrew WilkieAndrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

12:32 pm

Photo of Mark ButlerMark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | | Hansard source

I thank the other speakers, particularly the previous speaker, for their contributions to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Amendment Bill 2017. The previous speaker and the other house know Labor takes very seriously the threat of climate change to the one natural wonder of the world for which Australia has stewardship responsibilities—that is, the Great Barrier Reef. We have in the chamber today the former environment minister, who did a great deal of work with Queensland state governments and NGOs to put in place programs to secure the health of the reef. We've been very clear, particularly as the reef has experienced two very serious bleaching events in only the last 18 months, that the principal threat, the most serious threat, to the Great Barrier Reef is the threat of climate change. That is why we have been so vocal about the need to get climate change policy back on track in this nation.

Under the last Labor government carbon pollution came down by 10 per cent because of our suite of policies in climate change and energy, many of which I acknowledge were strongly supported and advocated by the Greens party. Since this government came to power, given its insistence on dismantling all of those policy frameworks and attacking the renewable energy industry, carbon pollution, unsurprisingly, as the member for Melbourne pointed out, has started to rise in this country—such that Australia now is the only major advanced economy where carbon pollution is rising rather than coming down. That will have a range of very significant impacts on Australia.

It has led to the destruction of thousands of jobs in the renewable energy industry while jobs are soaring across the world. It has meant Australia has not been able to participate fully in the investment boom, in clean energy and in clean technology. It also means we are not discharging our responsibility to our children and grandchildren to safeguard the health of this continent—a very vulnerable continent—in our agricultural regions, coastal communities and, as this bill deals with, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, the Great Barrier Reef.

We've had a look at the amendment moved by the member for Melbourne, seconded by the member for Denison, to the member for Watson's second reading amendment. Were the Greens and Labor able to have some discussions about this, I imagine we'd be able to agree on some words, particularly around the issue that is before the federal government and the national parliament now, which is the question of taxpayer-funded subsidies through the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to the Adani coalmine, particularly to the railway line. I know that Labor and the crossbench are in furious agreement about that question. And were, for example, the member for Melbourne willing to consider an amendment to his amendment that would stop any taxpayer subsidies to the Adani Carmichael coalmine, there would be agreement between the Labor Party and the member for Melbourne and the member for Denison.

Unfortunately, we're getting quite close to the end of the debate on this bill—I know the assistant minister is about to sum up for the minister on this—but I do make that invitation here, with the member for Watson in the chamber as well, for the member for Melbourne to have some discussions with Labor about a form of words that would secure the support of the opposition, as well as the crossbench, on a second reading amendment.

12:36 pm

Photo of Keith PittKeith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party, Assistant Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) Share this | | Hansard source

I thank all members for their contributions to the debate on the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Amendment Bill 2017. The bill will prevent plans of management from being revoked if regulations giving effect to these plans are repealed. In particular, where regulations are repealed due to the sunset process, the bill will ensure this does not trigger an automatic revocation of corresponding plans of management. Plans of management are a key environmental management tool to ensure that activities within the Great Barrier Reef are managed on the basis of ecologically sustainable use.

Now, while the amendments made by the bill are small and technical, I appreciate the crucial role these amendments will have in ensuring that the Great Barrier Reef continues to be protected and conserved by the protective measures in the plans of management. The government is committed to ensuring that the Great Barrier Reef, one of the world's greatest natural treasures, is protected for the future. This bill will support the continuing protection of this World Heritage area. I commend the bill to the House.

Photo of Rob MitchellRob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

The original question was that the bill be now read a second time, to which the honourable member for Watson moved an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The honourable member for Melbourne has moved an amendment to the amendment that all words after 'notes' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment moved by the honourable member for Melbourne be agreed to. There being more than one voice calling for a division, in accordance with standing order 133 the division is deferred until after the discussion of matters of public importance.

Debate adjourned.