House debates

Wednesday, 28 October 2009

Committees

Climate Change, Water, Environment and the Arts Committee; Report

7:16 pm

Photo of Michael DanbyMichael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too am pleased to make some comments on this report of the Standing Committee on Climate Change, Water, Environment and the Arts into climate change and its environmental impact on coastal communities. This committee was very ably chaired by my good friend the honourable member for Throsby. She is to be commended for this excellent report, which I think will make a real difference to the way Australians think about the possible impact of climate change on their everyday lives.

I too represent a coastal electorate, including the bayside communities of Port Melbourne, South Melbourne, Albert Park, St Kilda and Elwood. Must of the western part of my electorate is built on sand dunes. If you look at the old maps of Melbourne, you will see that much of my electorate was saltwater swamp before the seawalls were built. Over the generations, thousands of homes, ranging from workers’ cottages in Port Melbourne to the mansions of the wealthy in Beaconsfield Parade, have been built along the foreshore. These many coastal homes as well as beaches, foreshore parks, marinas, yacht clubs and many other amenities in my electorate will be put at risk if the sea level continues to rise as a result of the uncontrolled climate change brought about by human activity. Even a slight rise in average global temperatures causes the volumes of the oceans to rise as water expands when it gets warmer. This is felt in increased sea levels.

The report of the standing committee on climate change documents that the damage caused to Australia by rising sea levels will be far more serious than the loss of suburban amenities, although this is certainly important to the people of my electorate. It will cause grave and irreversible harm to some of our great national assets. These include the Great Barrier Reef, which will be put at risk if the surrounding waters get both warmer and deeper; Kakadu National Park, which is at risk of flooding with salt water; the Coorong and Lower Lakes of South Australia, already in serious trouble because of the drought, also risk salt water flooding; the beaches of the Gold Coast, and we saw that in all of the television coverage of this excellent report; the Sunshine Coast; the 90-mile beach in Gippsland; and the great suburban surf beaches of Sydney and Perth—

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