Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last year, I attended the Australian launch of David Attenborough's Ocean documentary. It was a stark lesson in the scale at which humanity is impacting our blue planet. I was struck by images of the bottom trawlers ploughing the seabed, scars so deep they can be seen from space, ripping coral to shreds and destroying ecosystems that took millennia to form.

Every year, 10 million tonnes of marine life are wasted as bycatch. Much of this collapse is invisible to the public, but it's happening on our watch. However, in a way only David Attenborough can, the film also gave us hope. It showed that when we protect, the sea life bounces back quickly and with incredible resilience. The documentary's final plea was simple: protect the high seas; ratify the treaty. With the passage of the High Seas Biodiversity Bill 2026, Australia does exactly that.

Our oceans cover 70 per cent of the earth, inhabit over a million species and absorb 90 per cent of the excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions. For Australia, the stakes are even higher. Our marine industries contribute over $200 billion to our economy and support over 700,000 jobs. And whilst we've protected over half of our own waters, globally it's a very different story. Sixty per cent of the world's oceans lie beyond national boundaries, yet currently only one per cent of these waters are protected. Australia cannot secure a positive environmental or economic future while the rest of the world's oceans remain the wild west.

This bill allows Australia to ratify the UN's high seas treaty, the first comprehensive legal framework in history designed to protect the oceans. Joining 81 other nations committing to a global 30 by 30 target, this treaty allows us to protect our oceans. It's an operational turning point involving scientific reporting and government systems to protect our planet. It's also further evidence that Labor takes the environment and climate change seriously. Since 2022, we've moved past a decade of political pointscoring and returned Australia to its position as a credible global leader in conservation and climate action. We understand that a healthy ocean underpins everything: our fisheries, our tourism, our coastal economies and our cultural identity. As a government, we are protecting the environment not just because it's the right thing to do but because it's fundamental to our long-term national prosperity. The high seas are a shared global responsibility. By joining with 81 other nations, led by Belize, and by ratifying this treaty, we are demonstrating our commitment to international law and to the health of our planet.

I want to thank the advocates who helped get this over the line, including Drew Alsop and Damian Spruce from the Minderoo Foundation, as well as the Parliamentary Friends of the Ocean and the Parliamentary Friends of Sustainable Development. They've all worked really hard to put the environment at the forefront of what a good government does. Be it on this, be it on environmental law reform passed late last year or be it on setting an achievable and ambitious emissions reduction target, I hope that Australians know we have the environment and care for our ecosystems at the centre of what we do. We owe our existence today to a healthy planet, and today, by passing this bill, hopefully we take a step towards ensuring that the existence of this beautiful planet continues for generations to come. We don't have any other option; we need to look after this planet.

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