Simon Kennedy (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition proudly supports the High Seas Biodiversity Bill 2026. This legislation is necessary to finally put in place the UN high seas treaty after years of delay under Labor. The people of Cook are huge supporters of the ocean—as am I. Proudly announced as Australia's best beach in 2026, Bate Bay is the pride of the Sutherland Shire, much of Sydney and much of Australia.

The coalition has a proud history on seas and marine parks. It was the coalition who created the first marine park, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. It was the coalition that created our first national oceans policy. It was the coalition who made the Great Australian Bight Marine Park, in the member for Grey's electorate. It created the framework that allowed the south-east marine parks to be created, and it did the first large expansion of marine parks. So the coalition have a proud history of supporting our seas and the environment, and we're keen to continue that by supporting this bill.

Under the leadership of the coalition, Australia was engaged in the UN negotiations on these issues, ensuring that Australia's exclusive economic zone, which is the third-largest in the world, was legally recognised. As a nation, we've benefited enormously as a result of this in terms of protecting our environment and managing our abundant national resources and beautiful oceans. The negotiations for the high seas treaty happened under the coalition government until 2022. The Albanese government became a signatory to the treaty in 2024, and it's taken Labor around two years to get to this point of ratification. Already more than 80 other countries, almost 85, have ratified this treaty. Our understanding is Labor are now only getting to this as there are international meetings later this year. We're getting there late, but it's better late than never—almost the 85th country. It is especially disappointing when the coalition had offered bipartisan support for this legislation throughout the entire process.

This bill seeks to create a new regulatory regime and rules to implement obligations under the treaty, including on marine genetic resources and digital sequence information, area based management tools and environmental impact assessments. This should be done in a way that complements and does not duplicate existing global and regional rules and settings. In addition, the government has adopted the global target of protecting 30 per cent of the world's marine areas by 2030. This is a noble idea. We know this Labor government is often big on targets but let's hope they can follow through on the delivery. When it comes to many other targets, they're falling short, but we hope to work with them to ensure that our seas are protected, that it's in the national interest and that it's bipartisan with both. The coalition looks forward to the government's plans in this area, working with them to make it bipartisan. We understand some of the plans to help achieve the target are being reviewed. We look forward to that more detail, and we look forward to working with this government to protect our national oceans, to protect these treasures and to protect the local environment.

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