Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wentworth for his question and commend him on his leadership in his electorate during the COVID-19 pandemic. As an island nation, our oceans are the highest priority for all Australians. We care about too much plastic being in our oceans, about healthy fish stocks, about our marine ecosystems and about an ocean environment that supports tourism and communities. Australia's ocean economy in fact supports nearly 340,000 full-time jobs and contributes more than $80 billion to the national economy each year.

As part of the 2021-22 budget, the Morrison government announced a $100 million investment to continue leading the world and our region in managing our ocean and coastal environments, and contributing to the global task of reducing emissions. This includes $39 million to reinforce Australia's position as a world leader in marine park management. Another round of the marine parks program in fact open today—$11 million to incorporate sea country in Indigenous protected areas; $30 million to conserve, restore and account for blue-carbon ecosystems and share that expertise with the Pacific and our international partnerships; and $18 million to protect iconic marine species like sea turtles and seabirds such as the eastern curlew.

This builds on the Morrison government's $67 million investment in last year's budget that prioritised measures like tackling the impacts of ghost nets. In this space, we recently successfully trialled a device that has allowed two foreign fishing nets—these weigh four tonnes and are several kilometres long—to be safely retrieved from the waters of the Torres Strait so they don't harm our marine species. Fish, turtles, dolphins and seabirds get tangled up in these walls of death.

Internationally, Australia is a member of the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, and we're a member of the Global Ocean Alliance. We support a global target to protect 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030. In fact, we're already at 37 per cent, and, with the consultations that the assistant minister for territories and I are having around the Indian Ocean territories, that may well soon be 45 per cent of our oceans.

All of this builds on the strong track record of coalition governments in protecting the ocean. From John Howard, who created the world's first oceans policy, through to the Morrison government's unprecedented $2.2 billion investment in the Great Barrier Reef, it is the coalition that has consistently worked towards the health of our oceans and the wellbeing of our coastal communities.

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