Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008, which is a very important bill for our country in meeting its international obligations, in securing and protecting its vast waters and the vast seaborn ecosystem which exists within them, and, importantly, ensuring that there are adequate funds available for the restoration of the environment and for the compensation of those affected in the event of a major oil spill.

This bill has three schedules. The first enacts the supplementary fund protocol. This adds a third tier of compensation to the existing international system of compensation which in its totality will increase the amount that can be paid in the event of a major oil spill from about A$350 million to A$1.3 billion. Schedule 2 puts in place the MARPOL amendments—MARPOL is an acronym used for the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships—which amend requirements for waste management and increase the penalties for breaches of those requirements. Schedule 3 of the bill provides for amendments to the existing shipping and marine navigation acts, providing for definitional amendments so that there is consistency in a number of terms, particularly the term ‘Australian port’, throughout our maritime legislation. The intent of all of these measures is to provide much greater clarity and certainty in Australian maritime law. Importantly, what they will also do is ensure that there is adequate financial compensation available in the event of an oil tanker spill.

Before I go into the substance of the bill, I wish to welcome students from the Epping West Public School who are in both galleries above us. I very much welcome them to parliament today and to Canberra and hope that they enjoy their visit and learn a lot. This is a very important debate for them to be listening to.

The Rudd government views this legislation as very important for the protection of our marine environment. As an island state, obviously the entirety of our border is coastline, and those waters form very much a part of the heart of our national identity. Our country is ‘girt by sea’. This legislation is also very important for our economy. The Australian commercial fishing industry, for example, enjoys the third largest fishing zone in the world—a fishing zone which is a consequence of the large coastal area that we have and the 200 nautical mile area extending from our coastline, which gives us a fishing zone of 11 million square kilometres. Commercial fishing is the fifth largest food-producing industry in Australia. It is worth approximately $2.2 billion to our economy—$1.5 billion in exports.

Tourism is also a very important industry for our economy. In 2005-06 the tourism industry in Australia was worth $81 billion. It amounted to 4.6 per cent of the total Australian workforce and it contributed to over 11 per cent of Australia’s exports. From the point of view of regional Australia, where my electorate is, tourism is a very important sector because 47c of every tourism dollar is spent outside Australia’s capital cities. In the year to 30 April 2008 there were 5.6 million international visitors in Australia and, of those, 60 per cent went to a beach at some point during their visit, which highlights how important the sea is to our tourism industry.

Geelong is a town which is very much based upon water, both in terms of our bay and our proximity to the surf coast. Aquaculture is an industry which has long been associated with Geelong, but it is an industry which is growing at a rapid rate right now. Aquaculture in Geelong employs 470 people and contributes almost $70 million to the regional economy. In addition to aquaculture, tourism is very much becoming a major theme for Geelong’s future. It is an incredibly large industry in Geelong right now and it is one of the fastest growing industries in our region. In the year ending March 2008 there were 2.1 million overnight stays by visitors to the Greater Geelong region. In the year ending March 2008 domestic visits were up by 3.3 per cent and international visits were up by 10.3 per cent. Tourism contributes almost 7,000 jobs to the local Geelong economy and amounts to 5.8 per cent of the total employment in the Geelong-Otway region. Again, the relevance of water to tourism in Geelong is very clear: 55 per cent of domestic visitors to Geelong and 41 per cent of international visitors to Geelong enjoyed a visit to a local beach during their time in Greater Geelong.

The Great Ocean Road is one of the major tourist attractions not only for our local region but for Australia. It is one of the great motoring drives in the world, and Geelong is very much the gateway to the Great Ocean Road. Torquay, about 20 minutes from Geelong, is described as the home of surfing—arguably the international home of surfing. Billabong, Rip Curl and Quicksilver all have a very strong presence in Torquay, and Torquay is home to the famous Bells Beach.

In a sense highlighting the significance of the coastline to Geelong is a recent initiative of the Department of Defence, and I note the Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement, the honourable member for Charlton, has just entered the chamber. The HMAS Canberra is currently in Geelong being demobilised. The HMAS Canberra is going to be taken to the coastal side of the Bellarine Peninsula, where it will be sunk, and it will become a major scuba-diving attraction for our region.

Geelong is very much based on Corio Bay. Indeed, Corio Bay is why we are where we are, with the establishment of the port of Geelong on Corio Bay in the mid-19th century. Whereas for much of the last few decades in a sense Geelong has turned its back on the bay, in recent years we have started to realise how important and how beautiful the bay is and the role that the bay is going to play in our future. The development of the waterfront along the city edge of the bay has become one of the most impressive things about Geelong. The common which exists on the city waterfront has become the heart of public life in Geelong, being the base for a number of public events and for a number of markets. It has become very much the centre of community life.

Indeed, the city of Geelong has a north-fronting aspect to the bay, which is something unique in Victoria. It is bordered on one end by Cunningham Pier. Cunningham Pier is a very historic pier. When Australia was said to ride on the back of the sheep, in fact the great majority of wool that was exported from Australia left from Cunningham Pier. At the other end of the common is a proposed development of the old Yarra Street Pier. Both of these will contribute greatly to the aspect of Corio Bay.

If you go further around Corio Bay to the north you will find Osborne House, a very historic building which sits on a hill and has perhaps the best view over Corio Bay. There are plans in this precinct for a public performance area, a marine maintenance facility, restaurants and accommodation. From all of this it is clear how important Corio Bay is to Geelong. Without a doubt it is the key asset of our city. From the Osborne House development through to Eastern Park, we are going to see Geelong face the bay once more, incorporating it very much into our lives.

A major theme for the future of Geelong is becoming a lifestyle-tourism city. With its raised peninsula, the hills around the bay and its proximity to the surf coast, it is a place that people come to visit. It is also a place where people who intend to work in Greater Melbourne can live. Being a lifestyle-tourism based city is very much a key to Geelong’s future.

This bill is important for the people of Geelong not only because that is part of our future but also because of another facility which is housed on Corio Bay—that is, the Shell refinery, one of the largest refineries in the country. We in Geelong are very lucky to have Shell as part of our city. For more than half a century Shell has been a very important contributor to the local economy and a very important contributor to local jobs. It is a good corporate citizen and it is now very environmentally sensitive, particularly about its refinery. Growing up near the refinery, I am perhaps a bit biased, but I think there is a certain industrial aesthetic to that refinery, being particularly beautiful at night—but perhaps that is just me. Importantly, what it means is that there are a number of oil tankers which are sailing our waters on a regular basis. The Helcion, the Helix and the Zemira are ships owned by Shell, all of which represent cutting-edge technology; we are lucky to have those ships plying our waters. There are also other ships which go through our waters, which have, for example, Panamanian or Liberian registration.

The shipping channel actually hugs the coastline on Corio Bay, coming within a few hundred metres of the attractions which I have just described. So, whilst of course the events that we are talking about are incredibly unlikely, were the worst to occur it would be critical for Geelong that we have in place the appropriate legislative infrastructure to provide for adequate funds to restore our immediate environment and to compensate those who are affected. It does not take much imagination to see that, were there to be a significant oil spill in Corio Bay, or indeed along the Surf Coast, it would be absolutely devastating to the community of Greater Geelong, which is why this is such an important bill for our community.

This bill is a reflection of the Rudd government’s commitment to addressing environmental issues. In that sense it does stand in stark contrast to the behaviour of government in the Howard years—a government which did not sign the Kyoto protocol; a government which continually questioned the existence of human caused climate change; a government which was reactionary in its approach to water management; a government which had a myopic focus on nuclear power as being the only solution to our woes. Currently we see the Liberal opposition flip-flopping all over the place in terms of its position on a national emissions-trading policy. Indeed, the member for Wentworth, when he was the minister for the environment introducing into this House the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Bill in August last year, cited it as a first step in the phased introduction of a carbon-trading scheme, and he said that it would be:

... the most comprehensive emissions trading scheme in the world, broader in coverage than any scheme currently operating anywhere.

And yet we saw in the House over the last couple of days the now spokesperson for the environment during question time starting to raise a fear campaign about an emissions-trading scheme being implemented by the Rudd government. It indicates that the Liberal opposition have no credibility at all when it comes to the issue of the environment or the issue of climate change. That does stand in stark contrast to the Rudd government, which wants to build upon its environmental credentials. This bill is very much a part of that.

This bill, as I said at the outset, provides for three schedules. I particularly want to go into schedule 1, which really is the heart of the bill. It deals with the increased compensation available in the event of a major oil spill. Schedule 1 adds to the existing two-tier liability and compensation scheme which applies in Australia a third tier which is currently operating in the international system for compensation. There is important history which I want to take you through which explains the development of these tiers.

The International Maritime Organisation is a specialised UN agency and the body responsible for developing measures to ensure secure shipping and clean oceans, free from ship-borne pollutants. Since 1969 it has developed and redesigned conventions to meet these purposes. The 1969 civil liability convention, including the 1971, 1976 and 1984 protocol amendments, first gave rise to the establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage. That fund capped liability payments at an amount roughly equivalent to A$50 million. The 1969 convention was superseded by the protocol of 1992 and that, including the 2000 amendments, provided for the current two-tier system which operates in Australia today.

The first tier is the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage. In essence, this provides the conditions by which oil tanker owners themselves are liable to pay compensation in the event of an oil spill. It also provides the level of insurance that they need to take out. But obviously that insurance has a limit—it is capped. For that reason, a second tier was put in place—the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage. That provides for compensation above the liability limits of the oil tanker owners’ insurance policies. That fund is financed by contributions by contracting states, and ultimately that fund is capped at about A$350 million.

As other speakers in this debate have indicated, there have been a number of instances of oil spills around the world where the environmental damage and the compensation bill as a result of that have been well in excess of that $350 million limit. The Nakhodka spill in the Sea of Japan in 1997, for example, resulted in a compensation bill of around $500 million. The Erika spill off the coast of Brittany in France in 1999 resulted in a $1.2 billion bill. The Prestige spill off the coast of Spain in 2002 also involved a compensation bill in excess of the limits at that time.

Australia has had its own share of incidents over the years. The member for Isaacs referred to a potential spill which could have occurred from a ship entering into Geelong waters. The Princess Anne-Marie off the coast of Western Australia in 1975 had a spill of almost 15,000 tonnes of oil. The Kirki, again off the Western Australian coast in 1991, spilled approximately 18,000 tonnes of oil. On that occasion environmental damage was only avoided due to very favourable weather conditions. One is left to only imagine what the impact would be were there to be a serious oil spill along the Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of Sydney or, of course, from the point of view of my electorate, in Corio Bay itself. For these reasons it is very important that we put in place this legislation.

This legislation implements the supplementary fund protocol, which increases the liability in the case of a very significant oil spill from about A$350 million to A$1.3 billion. This is done by levying public and private entities in contributing states—public and private entities who themselves receive over 150,000 tonnes of oil per year. Importantly, that levy would only be struck in the event of a major oil spill which extended beyond the current liability limits. The new protocol came into force in March 2005, and, were this bill to pass this parliament and ultimately become enacted, Australia would be, relatively speaking, a world leader in relation to this. There are a number of countries which are already parties to the supplementary fund protocol but we would be among a leading group, and that is also obviously important in terms of encouraging other countries to do the same.

In the time left to me I will briefly mention the remaining parts of this bill. Schedule 2 of the bill involves an improvement to the MARPOL convention. MARPOL, as I said, is an acronym for the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships. Australia has implemented all six annexes to MARPOL by way of the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983, by the Hawke government, and the Navigation Act 1912, by the Fisher government. This will involve implementing changes to annexes I, III and IV of MARPOL which will provide for provisions regarding the upkeep of garbage record books and increasing the penalties prescribed under that legislation.

Finally, schedule 3 gives consistency to the term ‘Australian port’ through a range of pieces of legislation in our maritime law which will be important in terms of reducing the scope for disputes over what constitutes an Australian port in an era where there is increased ship loading and unloading that occurs offshore. In summary, this is an important bill in terms of increasing the amount that can be paid in the event of a major oil spill. It builds upon the Rudd government’s environmental credentials. It is very important for our country, which is so reliant on our coastline and our water. (Time expired)

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