Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to the High Seas Biodiversity Bill. Australia is an island continent with one of the world's largest maritime jurisdictions and bordered by three major oceans. Our economy, our environment and our way of life are strongly shaped by the sea. For the people of Curtin, this connection is deep. The Indian Ocean shapes our ecosystems and is part of our daily life, whether through recreation, tourism, science, culture or livelihoods. Just off shore from my electorate runs a major migratory corridor for humpback and blue whales. These species move between Australian waters and the high seas along ancient pathways that are critical for feeding and breeding. These so-called blue corridors extend well beyond national jurisdictions.

The oceans are critical to our way of life in Curtin and in Australia, but they're under threat from climate change, pollution, exploitation and extraction through bottom trawling, mining and drilling. Too often the natural world is overlooked in exchange for near-term profits. Here in parliament, we must fight for our oceans and the infinite intrinsic wealth they provide to us all. So it's with great pleasure today that I support this bill which ratifies Australia's international commitment to global protection of international waters under the high seas treaty. It provides the first legal mechanism to protect our oceans beyond national jurisdiction.

The high seas cover two-thirds of our planet's surface, yet less than one per cent are protected. This bill and this treaty enable more comprehensive ecological protection of biodiversity hotspots by creating an interconnected network of protected zones. The bill allows Australia to demonstrate regional leadership in the Indo-Pacific, and it demonstrates respect for First Nations philosophies towards sea stewardship. There does, however, remain a responsibility on Australia to exhibit strong leadership in implementation, particularly when it comes to funding enabling institutions as well as continued action to support Indo-Pacific neighbours and climate mitigation.

The bill represents the domestic legal ratification of all elements of the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction agreement, commonly referred to as the high seas treaty or global oceans treaty. The agreement does three things to promote marine conservation in these important oceanic zones. Firstly, it establishes a legal framework to designate marine protected areas on the high seas. No legal mechanism to protect international waters existed prior to this treaty. With this new legal pathway, the international community can set aside areas of the open ocean for protection—no fishing, no mining and no exploitation—to allow marine ecosystems to recover and fulfil their ecological functions. This is the ocean equivalent of creating a national park. Secondly, it requires stringent environmental impact assessments be undertaken by corporations and states that plan to conduct activities on the high seas. Such assessments involve considering how adverse impacts can be prevented, mitigated and managed to best support biodiversity and ecosystem health. The provision is strengthened by the requirement to evaluate cumulative impacts, which enables a comprehensive appraisal of the potential harmful effects of activities on complex, interconnected ecological systems. Thirdly, the bill establishes transparency and reporting arrangements for marine genetic resources, recognising the growing scientific and commercial interest in biodiversity found on the high seas. These mechanisms represent a fundamental shift in the legal governance of the ocean.

I've taken a consistent stance on global ocean protection in this parliament. In August last year, I wrote to Minister Watt and called for immediate ratification of this treaty. That letter was a direct call on the executive to stop delaying and to honour the spirit of leadership Australia had shown in the treaty's negotiation. I reminded the government of our 30 by 30 commitment—the pledge made by the international community, including Australia, at the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2022—to protect 30 per cent of the world's land and oceans by the year 2030. The high seas treaty is an essential mechanism for delivering on the ocean component of that commitment.

I've also spoken in this House about the overwhelming concern for this issue that has been expressed to me by 500 constituents from my electorate of Curtin. This showed that my community was really concerned about the lack of protection for the high seas globally. The potential to create a global interconnected network of marine protection areas, MPAs, across the high seas has long been called for by conservation experts and may now be a reality. A network of high seas MPAs would function as the connective tissue for global ocean protection. Huge areas of ocean which are essential for regulating climate, providing fish stocks and supporting biodiversity are now essentially eligible for protection from habitat destruction, exploitative fishing practices—including those with high bycatch rates of non-target species and bottom trawling—and disruption of biological carbon sequestration processes. The ecological benefits are huge.

Our oceans do not respect national boundaries. The currents that flow through Australian waters connect to every ocean on Earth. The humpback and blue whales that use blue corridors parallel to my electorate of Curtin also rely on international waters for migration and reproduction. Protecting isolated patches of domestic waters can only go so far to ensure sustainable and holistic protection of interconnected marine ecosystems. Furthermore, this extension of MPAs would amplify the effects of Australia's own domestic marine protection efforts as well as provide the economic co-benefits of improved long-term fish stock viability and protection of marine industries, such as tourism, fishing and aquaculture.

Australia now has an opportunity to demonstrate strong leadership in the Indo-Pacific region through implementation of this treaty. Our relationship with other nation states across the Pacific, South-East Asia and the Indian Ocean is defined, in large part, by the sea—that is, by fisheries, shipping lanes, shared ecological systems and the existential threat posed by climate change to low-lying nations. Especially for those Pacific neighbours for which the health of the ocean is not an abstraction but a foundation of national survival, our leadership sends a powerful message: we hear you, and we're willing to back our words with legal commitments.

For many First Nations communities across this continent and its islands, ocean protection contains strong cultural and spiritual dimensions. The concept of sea kin, which is the understanding that humans are in a relationship of kinship and obligation with the sea, is central to cultural identities and practices for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The migratory pathways of marine species are cultural highways and storylines that connect people to country. Harms posed by exploitative fishing, destructive mining and pollution are cultural as well as ecological. They sever connections and silence stories that have existed for tens of thousands of years. The high seas treaty's framework for environmental impact assessment must, as it's implemented, incorporate Indigenous knowledge, perspectives and voices. Australia's leadership in implementation should be guided, in part, by those who have been stewards of this ocean for the longest time.

I also want to acknowledge something that is too rarely celebrated in this place, which is multi-partisan collaboration. Australia has spearheaded treaty negotiations over nearly two decades under both Labor and Liberal governments. Throughout multiple rounds of intergovernmental conferences at the UN, evidence based diplomatic dialogue and the final agreement reached in New York in March 2023, sustained Australian engagement from both sides of politics has helped to shape one of the most significant ocean governance agreements to date. I commend the opposition's support for the ratification of the treaty today. Conserving our oceans and our natural world should be a fundamental pillar of our conservative parties. Australia has shown that environmental leadership does not have to be a partisan cause. I hope that this spirit of cooperation can continue to guide environmental and climate reform in this place.

While I wholeheartedly welcome this treaty into domestic law, Australia's ratification is seriously overdue. Despite being a champion in the negotiating room, as well as being one of the first countries to sign the treaty in 2023, we were not among the first 60 nations to ratify the agreement. Our absence from this group of first-movers is significant, as their support was required to trigger the actual entry into force of the international commitment. We may have missed out on a valuable opportunity to shape the norms and operating institutions of the treaty body. Our slowness to approve created a confusing, indefensible position in which we'd helped to write a treaty that we'd not ourselves agreed to be bound by. The Australian people do deserve more decisive, clear leadership on environmental protection.

Passing this bill is an essential next step in Australia's continuing commitment to responsible ocean governance, so where do we go from here? I believe there are three critical ways forward. Firstly, there's leading on implementation as we initially led on negotiation. Australia must now invest the resources, the institutional capacity and the political will to ensure that this treaty delivers its intended outcomes. The upcoming federal budget must include dedicated resourcing for Australia's obligations under this treaty, including for the regulatory frameworks needed to conduct environmental impact assessments. The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water; the Australian Maritime Safety Authority; and scientific agencies must be properly equipped to act.

Playing a leading role in implementation also means identifying priority areas for protection. Australia is particularly well placed to work with others to advance proposals for high-seas marine protected areas in regions of clear ecological significance and connectivity to our own waters. These include areas such as the South Tasman Sea and the Lord Howe Rise, between Australia and New Zealand, which are recognised biodiversity hot spots and have been identified by scientists and conservation experts as strong candidates for high seas protection. There's also a compelling case for cooperation with neighbouring states to progress protection of key areas in the eastern Indian Ocean, where high seas waters connect directly with Australia's marine parks and support migratory species including whales, turtles, sharks and seabirds. Establishing well-designed science-based marine protected areas in these regions would support biodiversity, safeguard migratory pathways and strengthen the ecological resilience of ocean systems that flow directly into Australian waters.

Secondly, there's committing to ongoing climate action to underpin biodiversity protection. The high seas treaty is a powerful tool, but it cannot succeed in isolation. Marine biodiversity is under threat not only from direct exploitation but from the cascading effects of climate change. No marine protected area can fully insulate its ecosystems from a warming ocean. If we're serious about the goals of this treaty, then we must also be serious about reducing our emissions.

Thirdly, there's sustained leadership for Oceania neighbours. Leadership in this context means more than showing up to international conferences such as the Pacific Islands Forum. Instead, it's capacity building, technology and information sharing, and maintaining open and inclusive channels for dialogue. We must prove that we're a leader in ocean governance, not the reluctant, delayed signatory we've sometimes appeared to be.

I'm proud to advocate for and support this bill. It's a significant step in the right direction, providing a strong legal foundation for responsible stewardship of our global high seas. I commend the bill to the House.

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