Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Great Barrier Reef is Australia’s greatest natural asset, an economic powerhouse and an extraordinary ambassador for Australia. The reef draws people to Australia and it draws Australians to Northern Queensland. It captures the imagination like no other Australian icon. It is a place that offers serenity and stability, beauty and pleasure. It is, as the Great Barrier Reef Foundation have noted, ‘The largest, most pristine continuous coral reef archipelago on earth’, a natural icon that links to our national identity. We in Australia are so fortunate to be able to say that we come from the home of the Great Barrier Reef. But the truth is that our greatest natural asset is crook—really crook. I often wonder whether the Howard government cares at all about the fate of the reef. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Amendment Bill 2007 is remarkable for what it does not do. It does not offer a plan to maintain a healthy reef into the future.

The bill before the House seeks to implement recommendations of a 2006 review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975. I want to pick up on the key aspects of that review and this bill. But, before I do, it is important to set the scene. The Great Barrier Reef is an extraordinary natural wonder. It is the world’s largest World Heritage area—2,000 kilometres of World Heritage wonder. It is the world’s most extensive coral reef system. It has the world’s richest diversity of faunal species. There are some 2,800 individual reefs, 1,500 fish species, 175 bird species, some 4,000 species of mollusc—an incredible figure—1,500 species of sponge, 500 species of seaweed and more than 30 species of marine mammals.

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Service Economy, Small Business and Independent Contractors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s a lot of diversity.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is an extraordinary range of marine biodiversity and species diversity on the reef. There are 940 islands. The GBR is the jewel in the crown. The northern part of the reef is believed to be 18 million years old and the southern part is believed to be two million years old. These are staggering statistics. The reef is a place of staggering beauty. This is our inheritance and we have a responsibility to protect it for future generations.

Of course, we do not just have a responsibility to maintain the ecological integrity of the Great Barrier Reef; we also have a responsibility to maintain the jobs and the regional towns that are dependent on a healthy reef. Around 200,000 jobs are directly dependent on a healthy Great Barrier Reef, a reef that generates about $4.3 billion for the Australian economy. That is a substantial commitment that the Great Barrier Reef makes, not only in terms of its environmental heritage and richness but also in terms of its economic productivity.

But there are real threats to the future of the reef. The science is very clear. The unreleased Australian chapter of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report Climate change 2007: climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability lays out a bleak future for the Great Barrier Reef. It says that, by 2020, 60 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef could be regularly bleached; by 2050, 97 per cent of the reef could be bleached each year; and by 2080 there could be ‘catastrophic mortality of coral species annually’ and a 95 per cent decrease in distribution of Great Barrier Reef species. There could be a loss of 65 per cent of Great Barrier Reef species in the Cairns region alone.

An international team of scientists working on the Great Barrier Reef has found a clear link between coral disease and warmer ocean temperatures. World-first research at 48 reefs spread along 1,500 kilometres of the Great Barrier Reef, combined with six years of satellite data on sea temperatures, has revealed ‘a highly significant relationship’ between ocean warming and the emergence of a disease known as white syndrome. And of course, ocean warming is a consequence of climate change. White syndrome is one of a number of unexplained coral diseases which scientists have observed to be on the increase globally in recent years. This is enough to make you weep. The Great Barrier Reef is dying before our very eyes and, frankly, it does not seem as if the Howard government gives a damn.

The government cannot say it was not warned. It has received report after report for almost a decade about climate change and its likely impacts—similar warnings, growing in strength with each report. The truth is the Prime Minister’s in-tray is littered with reports warning of the threat of climate change to the Great Barrier Reef but his out-tray is filled with cobwebs. Look at the government’s own March 2005 Climate change risk and vulnerability report. That report identifies the reef as one of ‘a handful of highly vulnerable regions [that] can be identified that should be given priority for further adaptation planning and response’. The report goes on to say:

Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef are expected to see multiple dimensions of change. The Reef itself is likely to suffer from coral bleaching events, which have long recovery times and flow on effects for the whole ecosystem. Climate model projections suggest that within 40 years water temperatures could be above the survival limit of corals.

And 40 years is within the lifetimes of many people in our country. You have to ask: what action has the Howard government undertaken in response to this stark warning? This is not just an environmental question. A 2005 Access Economics study found that tourism associated with the Great Barrier Reef generated over $4.48 billion in the 12-month period 2004-05 and provided employment for about 63,000 people. The marine tourism industry is a major contributor to the local and Australian economy. These employment statistics are significant, and the contribution that the reef makes to local, regional and national economies is substantial. In 2007 there are approximately 820 operators and 1,500 vessels and aircraft permitted to operate in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

Tourism attracts approximately 1.9 million visitors each year. That is an extraordinary number of people who come to enjoy the beauty, amenity and qualities that the Great Barrier Reef' has to offer. The reef is simply the lifeblood of regional and local economies. That is why the Howard government’s line—a calculated line—that Australians have to choose between a healthy economy and a healthy environment is so wrong. The Great Barrier Reef’s extraordinary environmental values and its profound contribution to our national economy go hand in hand and provide the clearest rebuttal that Australians could ever seek of the false choices that are put forward by the Howard government when the Prime Minister and others put the line that we have to maintain protection of jobs at the expense of looking after the environment. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Great Barrier Reef brings billions of dollars into the Australian economy and is directly responsible for the employment of tens of thousands of Australians. So the question is this: how much new money do you reckon the government allocated in last night’s budget to deliver a healthy reef? The answer is that at last night’s budget, the 2007 budget, $30 million over four years—some $7 million or so a year—was allocated to the Great Barrier Reef in new funding. That, frankly, is pitiful. The government has announced $15.9 million over four years for field management. Labor would like to see the details of the field management, but that is something which we broadly support. The government has also announced $14.2 million for the continuation of the water quality monitoring program and that that money will come from the Natural Heritage Trust. So we will wait to see whether that is new money, but it is a program that we would welcome.

These are small initiatives by any reckoning, made by a government that does not understand the huge climate change challenges facing Australia. A forward looking government would have used a federal budget to develop and implement an action plan to help protect the Great Barrier Reef from the effects of coral bleaching and to protect Australian jobs and industries dependent on a healthy reef. A forward looking government would have used a federal budget to implement a national climate change strategy that would include ratifying the Kyoto protocol, cutting Australia’s greenhouse pollution by 60 per cent by 2050, establishing a national emissions trading scheme and seriously investing in renewable energy and clean coal.

A forward looking government would have announced serious long-term measures to cut Australia’s soaring greenhouse pollution. But that is not what we got in last night’s federal budget. Climate change is a massive challenge for Australia but the Howard government is simply trying to slay the dragon with a feather. The federal budget will not stop Australia’s greenhouse gas pollution from soaring by 27 per cent by 2020. The federal budget will not build a strong Australian clean energy industry. The federal budget will not create new Australian clean coal jobs. The federal budget failed the climate change test. That is what happened last night when the Treasurer brought down his budget: the government failed the climate change test.

The other thing a forward looking government would do is to cherish Australia’s past—to recognise that our natural and cultural heritage is the cornerstone of our modern society. That is why I find it staggering that the government still has not placed the Great Barrier Reef on Australia’s Natural Heritage List. A Natural Heritage List without the Great Barrier Reef is like a cricket hall of fame without Sir Donald Bradman—but that is precisely what we have. The Natural Heritage List came into force in January 2004; it is now 2007. It beggars belief that the government has not got around to putting the reef on the Natural Heritage List. We are entitled to ask ourselves whether it is incompetence, tardiness or forgetfulness, or whether the Howard government is just taking the Great Barrier Reef for granted. Is it taking the people who depend on a healthy reef for granted, as well? The government seems to have given up on the Great Barrier Reef, our greatest national natural treasure.

Previously the government took a very courageous step when it announced it was protecting 33 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef from fishing and other extractive industries. I want to take this opportunity in the House to pay tribute to the then environment minister, David Kemp, who will always be remembered for that initiative—one which Labor supported. But what has the government done since then? It announced a structural adjustment package for the fishing industry. Initially, the structural adjustment package was worth $31 million. Now it has increased threefold, flowing out to more than $87 million—an extraordinary miscalculation. Fishermen and land based businesses that rely on reef derived income are entitled to compensation for economic loss caused under the Representative Areas Program, which increased the reef green zones. They deserve compensation; they do not deserve the mess that is the compensation package.

The National Party and some of the more conservative elements of the Liberal Party have worked hard in the past to destroy Dr Kemp’s legacy. Strong campaigns have been launched against the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the zoning plan. On 1 March 2005, the then National Party senator-elect Barnaby Joyce was quoted in the Courier Mail as opposing the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s existence as an independent agency. He said:

GBRMPA is out of control ...We are having too many problems and we should bring it totally under government control and baby-sit it for a while.

On 26 October 2004, the member for Dawson said:

What we’ve had is a statutory body in GBRMPA that is out of control that has put, I think, no real scientific basis for the arguments they’ve put forward.

It must never be forgotten that the Queensland Nationals did a preference deal with the Fishing Party at the last election on the basis that GBRMPA’s powers be moved into the department where the minister would have control of all decisions. This helped get Senator Joyce elected.

The National Party always saw the review of GBRMPA as the vehicle for destroying GBRMPA and rolling back the protection of the Great Barrier Reef. On 25 March 2006, the Courier Mail reported that the Howard government was planning to reduce the marine protection boundaries of the Representative Areas Program and to abolish the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority as an independent agency. I am pleased to say neither of those two things happened. I am also pleased that GBRMPA remains a statutory authority. I want to pay tribute to the member for Grayndler, who was my predecessor as shadow minister for the environment, to Senator Jan McLucas and to Labor’s candidate for Leichhardt, Jim Turnour, for their hard yakka and dedication to the protection of the Great Barrier Reef.

Labor prevented the destruction of GBRMPA, but there are still aspects of this bill that are concerning. The bill replaces the Great Barrier Reef Consultative Committee with a non-statutory advisory board and removes the requirement for specific representation from the Queensland government or the interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Labor is concerned that the partnership with the Queensland government, which has been such a hallmark of the work of GBRMPA, has in effect been shredded. The opposition is also concerned that there may not be the opportunity for proper representation from Indigenous communities, which ought to be a feature of the proposed new arrangements. Labor is also concerned that other interests, including the tourism industry, may not be adequately represented on GBRMPA or the advisory board. That is a matter the government ought to give full consideration to. I call on the environment minister to make a commitment to a genuine partnership with the Queensland government, to a genuine engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and to a real and genuine engagement with all the industries that are dependent on a healthy reef. A place must be found for everyone at the table.

I am pleased—and Labor welcomes—that the government is establishing a five-yearly outlook report for the Great Barrier Reef. The environment minister has stated that a regular and reliable means of assessing the protection of the Great Barrier Reef will be provided through a formal outlook report that will be tabled in parliament every five years and that this report will cover the management of the marine park, the overall condition of the ecosystem and the longer term outlook for the Great Barrier Reef. This report clearly is an important measure and it has Labor’s support. This report will be peer reviewed by an appropriately qualified panel of experts appointed by the minister. Labor welcomes those measures but seeks confirmation from the minister that the peer report will be a public document, as this is not provided for in the bill before us.

Labor notes that the minister will be responsible for any future decision to amend the zoning plan and that any such decision will be based on the outlook report and advice from the authority. Labor also notes the minister’s commitment that engagement with stakeholders on the development of a new zoning plan will be improved and the process made more transparent—that is clearly necessary—with comprehensive information being made publicly available throughout the process that will include the rationale for amending the zoning plan, the principles on which the development of the zoning plan will be based, socioeconomic information, and a report on the final zoning plan and its outcomes. In addition, each of the two public consultation periods will be increased from one month to three months. We welcome the extension of the public consultation period.

It is important there is integrity in the process, and it is important there are ongoing commitments to better protecting the health of the Great Barrier Reef. That is why I call on the government to join Labor in opposing oil drilling and exploration near the Great Barrier Reef. I foreshadow now that I will move consideration-in-detail amendments to extend the boundary of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park region to the Exclusive Economic Zone, and I call on the government to support those amendments.

I am deeply concerned that the government’s agenda is to proceed with the oil exploration and drilling near the Great Barrier Reef. Just last year, Geoscience Australia published a map which indicated the potential for exploration and drilling in this region. Under the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975, any oil drilling or prospecting in the Great Barrier Reef region is prohibited. My consideration in detail stage amendments will seek to extend the region so that oil drilling and prospecting in the Great Barrier Reef region, the region east of the boundary of the current marine park to the Exclusive Economic Zone, will be prohibited.

Whilst it is the case that the governance and associated measures contained in this bill are supported by the opposition, it remains a fact that the government’s abysmal record in seriously addressing climate change is a significant impediment to ensuring protection of the great natural treasure that is the Great Barrier Reef into the future. I hereby move:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: “whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1)

affirms the object of the Principal Act - the protection of the Great Barrier Reef - but notes that the future of the reef is threatened by both short term and longer term factors, including climate change;

(2)

notes that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in 2007 that by 2050, 97% of the Great Barrier Reef could be bleached every year as a result of climate change;

(3)

condemns the Government’s incompetent handling of the structural adjustment package for the Great Barrier Reef Representative Areas Plan, which has seen the budget blow out from $31 million to more than $87 million;

(4)

calls on the Government to develop and implement an action plan to help protect the Great Barrier Reef from the effects of coral bleaching and protect Australian jobs and industries dependent on a healthy reef as part of a national climate change strategy; and

(5)

calls on the Government to prohibit mineral, oil and gas exploration in Australian waters adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park”.

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Service Economy, Small Business and Independent Contractors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I sat here with an element of disbelief as I heard the member for Kingsford Smith putting forth his vision for the Great Barrier Reef. I could not help but think that a lot of the problems, misconceptions, scare tactics and emotional claptrap that continues to be driven about this comes from his background in the cradle of the extreme greens. There is no science in these arguments.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Garrett interjecting

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Kingsford Smith, you had your go.

Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He stands up in his place and talks about a whole range of issues here. One of the figures that I picked up here, which is basically one of the lies that was projected through the whole of the representative areas debate, is that 33 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef is now being protected. It is not 33 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef that is currently protected; it is 33 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which goes way outside the Great Barrier Reef. In fact, over 70 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef is protected.

This is where the issues started to come in. You have those like the previous speaker—coming from the ‘extreme green’ angle—who believe that people have no place in the environment. They believe that the only way you can manage these places is by shutting them down completely and removing people out of them—they do not know what the word ‘sustainability’ means—and, in doing so, destroying people’s livelihoods unnecessarily. That is what happened in relation to the management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

I am certainly pleased to have the opportunity to speak here on the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Amendment Bill 2007, because these are very important amendments. They emanate from a review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which was completed last year. The review and its report delivered on a promise made by this government in 2004 after the travesty known as the Representative Areas Program. This legislation has been born out of a need and a desire of all government members to ensure that this type of event does not ever happen again. We cannot turn back the clock; we must learn from the experience, and we should not be repeating the sins of the past.

When these amendments come into force on 1 July this year, they will ensure the authority of future management decisions will not be exclusively within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority but that the impacts will be considered back here. The amendments will provide a seven-year moratorium for the future adjustments to provide stability—and this is absolutely necessary—and certainty for businesses and communities, which have suffered so unnecessarily in the years since the current zoning plan was imposed. They will also provide a regular and reliable means of accountability, assessing the protection of the marine park through a report that will be tabled in the parliament every five years, and this will be peer reviewed by a panel of experts appointed by the minister. That will ultimately mean that it will be the minister’s responsibility for future decisions about opening the zoning plan for amendment. Importantly, the process of engaging with stakeholders on future changes—and this is the area that was missed out significantly during the last process—will be improved and formalised, including extending each of the two public consultation periods from one month to three months. These are, in my view, very positive but very necessary changes.

If there is a reservation, it is the fact that unfortunately these changes have come a little too late for many of my constituents who have been impacted by these agendas. Anybody who has any doubts about the extent of the misery and the financial ruination wreaked by those ideological zealots who were in charge of this process through the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority need only speak to people—good, honest, hardworking people—whose businesses and livelihoods have been destroyed, absolutely devastated, by this process; unfortunately, in many cases, totally unnecessarily.

I first expressed concerns about the rezoning in 2002 when it was first mooted, but I was reassured by the senior executive of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority that the whole process would be based on science. On that basis, I accepted it. I accepted that advice in good faith. I spoke to the recreational fishing people, commercial fishing people and tourism industry people. They all agreed that, if science were applied to this and the science said that any activity—irrespective of what it was, whether it was swimming on the reef, fishing on the reef or a commercial activity—was deemed to be unsustainable, any such activity had to stop immediately. Every one of them was prepared to give up their livelihoods on that basis.

Unfortunately, that was the first lie. When the first round of plans came out and was presented to the stakeholders, everybody was quite pleasantly surprised. They believed that everything was okay, that it was quite reasonable. Even though the ‘extreme greens’ were promoting the idea that only three per cent of the reef was protected—a bit like the member for Kingsford Smith’s little slip with the words in his contribution—in fact it was three per cent of the marine park. So about 22 or 23 per cent of the reef was protected at that point in time. We were assured by the authority that they were looking at 25 per cent of the reef. They were looking at bioregions. At the end of the day, they ended up with over 70 per cent. You can imagine the impact that that has had on users of those reefs.

They presented those maps, and the maps appeared to be okay. They seemed to have a minimum impact, as we were assured by the bureaucracy. But the interesting thing was that the bureaucracy then invited the reef users, the marine park users, to mark the areas that they could never afford to lose, so that they could be taken into consideration in the final determination. The coordinates of those areas were very specifically marked on the map. When the next draft came out, every single area that had been marked by those reef users as an area they could not afford to lose was marked in either green or yellow, excluding them. And that set the tone for the treatment.

We had a coastal trawl industry which had been assessed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and by Environment Australia as the first ecologically sustainable coastal trawl fishery in the world—they were waiting on certification—but the changes to those maps, taking those areas out, totally wiped them out. There was clearly an intent within the senior bureaucracy of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to get rid of reef and marine park users. They did this with the marine collectors, the commercial trawling industry, the line fishermen and the recreational fishing industry. They drove a wedge between each of the user groups, creating conflict, and they used that opportunity to go in and amend the maps accordingly. Make no bones about it, every one of the people affected by that was committed to stepping aside—losing their business if necessary—if it was deemed to be unsustainable. But it was no longer an issue. It was driving the same agenda, the same mantra, that was pushed by the member for Kingsford Smith in his previous interests as a member of the extreme greens and influenced very strongly by some members of the senior bureaucracy within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

I said to Minister Kemp that this would have a devastating effect on industry. I suggested to him that it could have as much as $2 million worth of impact on our industries. The minister said to me: ‘That can’t be possible, because the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has advised me that the maximum impact will be $1.5 million. What are you doing? You are stirring up a lot of trouble about nothing.’ But he erred on the side of caution and set aside $10 million in the original bill just in case the compensation was a little more—just in case the authority had miscalculated. We have not paid out $85 million, as was suggested by the member for Kingsford Smith. We are moving towards $200 million. There was another claim just the other day. Lyle Squire has a third generation small family business which breeds corals and collects small marine fish for aquariums. They have been doing it for three generations and it has been deemed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to be totally ecologically sustainable. I was advised a couple of days ago that they are looking at a compensation package of $3.5 million to compensate them for their loss—a small family business absolutely devastated.

We have lost so many businesses because of this, and so many of them have been lost totally unnecessarily. Mitchell’s Marine, which is owned by Wayne and Sally Bayne, is a marine retail outlet which has been successfully trading since 1984. The impact of the actions by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority resulted in their unit number of sales falling by almost 40 per cent in both commercial and recreational markets—they just went into freefall. This has resulted in staff reductions, downsizing of premises and slashing of costs. It means a once-valuable asset that has provided security for the owners’ family and its future retirement has been unnecessarily and permanently damaged by a government department which is allowed to provide misinformation to government on which to base its decisions.

Another one is Bill Izzard. The day after the rezoning he woke up to find that he had lost nearly 90 per cent of his available grounds. He was collecting a specific product which they call leader prawns. He was targeting the aquaculture industry. He was very successful and he was very specific in what he was targeting. He needed only a very narrow area from which to take his product. He was one of those who sat down and marked those areas—none of them on the reef. He said: ‘These are the areas I need. Without these areas my business will go broke.’ This is where they took 90 per cent of his business. They wiped him out. It is just a disgrace. As Bill said, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back and started the downhill spiral, sending dozens of family fishers like him to the wall. The industry has shrunk, investors have lost confidence and the industry has continued to lose experienced skippers and crews.

Marlin Charters at Airlie Beach is another one. It has been successfully operating since 1989. Its owner, Ken Bryant, was another victim of the scam. He was told, ‘Tell us which locations are important to you and we will make sure that we leave them alone.’ In fact, the opposite happened and, with the stroke of a pen, much of the operating grounds were lost. Left with virtually nowhere to operate, the business has suffered a 72 per cent drop in income. That has left the business absolutely devastated. I received an email from Ken the other day. He said: ‘I’ve had my business destroyed by RAP. I’m approximately $100,000 in debt and to date have been offered nothing in compensation or assistance. My life has been devastated by RAP, with no assistance or compensation. I need assistance not next week, not tomorrow, but now. I’m contemplating bankruptcy or, sadly, suicide.’ That is the sort of impact it has had on the lives of so many people.

McLeod Engineering, a land based business, is another example that I would like to highlight, because it demonstrates the flow-on effect for many onshore businesses as well. They are an iconic business which has been operating in the Cairns area for over 30 years. They provide marine engineering services for both recreational and commercial services. The introduction of the rezoning by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has seen their business halved. Staff levels have been reduced by 40 per cent and the owner is fighting to protect what is left of his once-thriving business. With a bleak future ahead, the owners are now left with no alternative but to reassess their commitment to the industry as they oversee the unnecessary destruction of their life’s work. I could go on. There have been dozens of these cases.

I have got to say that I was very disappointed that I was not listened to back in 2002 when the first tranche of this legislation came through. I have to give credit to the then Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Campbell, who did listen. He started the process of introducing the bill that we are talking to today and he was able to help us to gain some ground and to at least give some dignity, by trying to help them restructure, to some of those people who have lost so much. I also give credit to the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Mr Turnbull. He and his office have been very helpful in trying to sort out these problems.

The member for Kingsford Smith made reference to some individuals from the other side of politics that claim to have made some effort up there—but they were never heard of during the whole debate. We talk about Senator McLucas and others and about the previous shadow environment minister—I know his name; it is Mr Albanese, but I am not sure of his seat—

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is the member for Grayndler.

Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, the member for Grayndler. They actually fed a lot of the deception that created this problem and made no effort at all to try to do anything to save the situation. He talks about ‘a forward-looking government’ that would protect the industries and people depending on a healthy reef. What a load of nonsense! You do not see a forward-looking government on the other side, I can assure you of that, when we are talking about this. This was not about protecting the reef; this was all about pushing the lock-out views of the extreme greens. Unfortunately, some sections of the bureaucracy were captured by it and so many individuals’ healthy businesses that were very dependent on a healthy reef were destroyed unnecessarily. As I said at the beginning of my speech, had there been any issue as to sustainability then each and every owner of those businesses would have more than willingly walked away from the industries involved and started again, accepting that they could not afford to impact on what was their livelihood.

So I am pleased to see these legislative amendments coming through. I hope that by bringing these amendments through we do not allow this type of fiasco to occur again. I hope that we can resolve the outstanding problems of so many of those businesses that are struggling to survive. The government has been very generous in dealing with this issue, but unfortunately in some cases making assessments has taken far too much time. As I can understand the complexities of some of these businesses, I am sure there was no understanding by their owners at the beginning, given the misinformation that was being provided by the bureaucracy at the time, of the changes. There was no way that they would have been able to appreciate their impact and the damage that was being done.

On a final point, I refer to another matter raised by the member for Kingsford Smith. It was a little red herring, which was right up there with all the doom and gloom, about drilling on or around the Great Barrier Reef. This is a perpetual chestnut. Every time when they run out of good ideas they slip this one in. The reality is that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is protected in a way that it has never ever been protected before and there is absolutely no risk whatsoever of it being drilled or impacted. There is legislation in place that makes sure that will not and cannot happen. But it is all part of their scare tactics. When they have no ideas and they are looking at these ideological agendas that they try to push, they come out and push this nonsense about drilling on the reef, trying to frighten people. Those that know know it is absolute nonsense and there is no basis of fact whatsoever in it.

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport, Roads and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While it was a privilege to have been in the House to hear the member for Leichhardt, I must say, as he has raised the issue of drilling, that I would have thought, as the member for Leichhardt’s electorate includes a huge slice of the Great Barrier Reef, he would have raised practical problems, such as the crown-of-thorns starfish, and talked about the need to give the industry up there greater assistance than it is currently receiving from the government. He should have noted the huge challenge to the industry at this very point in time and not raised some futuristic debate about drilling on the Great Barrier Reef—but then he is not known for practical solutions to readily evident problems.

It is a great pleasure to speak to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Amendment Bill 2007. It is a very important bill. It is of critical significance to one of my shadow portfolio responsibilities, tourism. We all appreciate its importance. To be fair to the member for Leichhardt, he too understands the importance of the tourism industry. It is a $75 billion industry that employs over half a million Australians. It is a huge driver of jobs, especially for young people, in Australia, especially in regional communities. We appreciate that each year there are over two million visitors to the Great Barrier Reef, with the latest Access Economics report citing marine tourism directly related to the reef as being worth a huge $5.8 billion and employing 63,000 people. So the reef is exceptionally important not just to Queensland but also to our national economy. From Cooktown to Cairns, Townsville, Mackay and Gladstone, marine tourism is a significant export earner underpinning the area’s economy and dwarfing other industries such as commercial fishing. It is second only to mining.

The opposition understands how important tourism is to the region, and this is why I stand here today to express concern over some aspects of the bill. Unfortunately, this bill essentially seeks to amend the act to implement in some instances key recommendations of the Uhrig review whose intent might be wrong. There are several key commonsense amendments proposed by the bill, yet there are also some potentially damaging aspects that could undermine the growth potential of Australia’s tourism industry and its marine tourism sector in particular.

The bill makes the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources responsible for any future decision to amend the zoning plan and replaces the Great Barrier Reef Consultative Committee with a non-statutory advisory body. The members of the Great Barrier Marine Park Authority will be increased from a minimum of two and a maximum of four to a maximum of five. I note that the authority currently consists of a full-time chairman and three part-time members. One of the part-time members is nominated by the Queensland government. The current act also provides for one of the part-time members to be appointed to represent the interests of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities living adjacent to the marine park. Unfortunately, and this is very important, the bill no longer provides for the automatic representation of the Queensland government or the interests of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. That is just plain wrong.

In fact, the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources has been given greatly increased powers under the bill to appoint members of the authority and the advisory board, and caution should be exercised in adopting these amendments. There are no guarantees any more that the interests of the Indigenous communities and the Queensland tourism industry will be adequately represented on the appropriate advisory body.

The reef is the most significant attraction for tourism within the Northern Queensland region, with about 80 per cent of tourists visiting the reef at least once during their visit. It is also important to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have a long and continuing relationship with the Great Barrier Reef region and its natural resources. The reef also provides opportunities for local communities to grow and become self-sustaining. Trade networks, beliefs, music, art, laws and creation stories are still alive and continue to this very day within these communities. Empowering Indigenous peoples through involvement in all tiers of management will help develop effective and acceptable solutions for key Indigenous issues and is crucial for effective management of the marine park.

It is for these reasons, and for the sake of our environmental heritage, that we need to ensure that the reef is managed effectively and according to best practice. The marine park, as we appreciate, is enormous and spans over 344,400 square kilometres. The reef sprawls for over 2,000 kilometres and is made up of about 3,000 individual coral reefs. Like the ecosystems that define the beauty of the reef, management of the park is complex and diverse in the range of issues that need to be addressed. Coral bleaching, nutrient run-off, overfishing, warmer ocean temperatures, coral disease, rainstorms and pest outbreaks—like the crown-of-thorns starfish—are all factors that need to be addressed in actively managing the marine park.

A lot of attention has been given over recent years to the issue of the crown-of-thorns starfish, commonly known as COTS. They are not an introduced species as they inhabit most coral reefs around the world. However, if the natural conditions of the reef are altered, outbreaks occur with devastating effects. In 2003, for instance, there was an outbreak on the reefs between Cairns and the Whitsunday Islands which cost operators and the Queensland and Commonwealth governments about $3 million a year to control. When starfish numbers are too large, there is intense competition for food and most types of corals will be eaten, including species that the crown-of-thorns starfish would usually ignore. They can eat so much that they can reduce the hard coral cover from its typical 25 per cent to 40 per cent composition of the reef surface to less than one per cent in a very short period. Such a reef can take 10 years or more to recover. The rate of recovery of reefs from the crown-of-thorns starfish, however, depends on many factors, including the rate of recruitment of corals to the reef and the impacts of cyclones and run-off from the land.

We hear quite often these days about the issue of climate change, but let us talk about the crown-of-thorns starfish, a practical everyday problem that we can actually influence more readily. While the global community still debates what actions need to be taken to address issues arising from warming ocean temperatures, the case study of the increasing frequency of crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks provides an opportunity for Australia to do something practical to conserve what is clearly a critical area to Australia’s tourism industry and the North Queensland Indigenous communities.

Increased human use of coastal zones has amplified the amount of nutrients flowing to the sea and has resulted in an increase in food sources for larvae of the crown-of-thorns starfish, which in turn has led to increased numbers of adult starfish. This then clearly results in outbreaks. Run-off to the ocean naturally occurs whenever it rains and higher nutrient levels are typical after high rainfall, especially after an extended dry period or drought. However, the amount of nutrients reaching the reef lagoons from the adjacent rivers has increased several-fold since European settlement. Research from the CRC Reef Research Centre has indicated that an increased nutrient load could improve the survival of the crown-of-thorns starfish larvae, which could possibly cause outbreaks or increase the frequency or intensity of outbreaks. Recent mathematical models that mimic a tenfold increase in larval survival show that this would lead very quickly to more frequent outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish.

There are real opportunities here for Australia to demonstrate a practical, strong and long-term commitment to not only the environment but also Australian jobs, export earnings and Indigenous culture by addressing the issue of water quality, including the issue of nutrient run-off which contributes, unfortunately, to this challenge to the Australian tourism industry. Water, sediment and nutrients drain into the reef’s heritage area from a catchment of 424,000 square kilometres. The catchment covers 25 per cent of Queensland and comprises 38 drainage basins both on the mainland and the large islands. Added to this, almost one million people live within the catchment area with nearly half of the population living in six coastal cities, indicating significant density in these cities.

Further, open range cattle grazing and sugarcane farming is the major land use in the catchment, particularly along the waterways on fertile coastal floodplains. Farming in the catchment is supported by extensive use of fertilisers, most of which are applied to sugarcane crops on the coastal plains. Over the last 50 years, fertiliser use has risen with the expansion of the industry and its increased application in the farming community. Most of the added fertiliser, specifically phosphorous, becomes bound to the soil and is transported with eroded soil into the waterways. The nature of these fertiliser bounded soil sediments means that they can carry toxic materials further than they would if they travelled alone. The issue of run-off is complex and is influenced by rainfall events and that, in turn, affects the drift of plumes that can result in degradation of the reef by increasing water turbidity and reducing the amount of light that reaches the coral.

Still more research needs to be done to comprehensively understand the cumulative effect of all these factors on the health of the reef, and we need greater leadership at federal level to make this happen. This bill provides for greater powers for the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, and I would encourage the minister to make use of these powers in addressing what I regard as issues very critical to the future of the reef.

There is also an opportunity for the Commonwealth to demonstrate leadership in addressing the issue of outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish on the reef. Managing the starfish is a labour-intensive and expensive exercise and is only practical in small areas—often the areas that are frequented by tourists who expect a high cover of coral. The industry accepts that it is impossible to eradicate the starfish from reefs where they are in outbreak densities, but there is still a lot more that could and should be done.

Some tourism operators in the Cairns region, for the purposes of protecting the future of the region and their own operations, invest up to $300,000 a year in crown-of-thorns starfish control programs. During active outbreaks, operators may need to remove 200-500 starfish every day in an effort to keep selected sites free of starfish. Since February 2002, the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators—with whom I met recently—have been running a starfish control team that has conducted control efforts at 169 sites on 57 reefs. They are clearly pulling their weight, but they expect more assistance from the Australian government. It is estimated that over 100,000 crown-of-thorns starfish have been removed as a result of this exercise. This number of starfish could conservatively consume 50,000 square metres of coral per night.

However, there have also been episodes where the number of crown-of-thorns starfish has been so great that the in-house programs have been unable to maintain sustainable levels on-site. To give you some idea of how serious and widespread these outbreaks can be, the current starfish outbreak on the reef occurred in the northern waters of the reef in 2000 and has progressively moved south. Tourism operators, in partnership with the Queensland government, applied for funding from the Commonwealth for a control program when the outbreak occurred in 2000. Some 18 months later, in 2002, the funding was made available—if anything, too late. By this time, the outbreak was well established and covered an area from Lizard Island in the north to Bait Reef in the Whitsundays. Further funding has been sought, granted and expended; however, the future of the control program now remains unclear. That is something to which both sides of politics have to give serious and urgent consideration.

When I state on behalf of the opposition that there is a real opportunity for the Commonwealth to demonstrate leadership, the outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish are a case in point. It is a practical, realisable challenge to both sides of government. One has to ask why there was a delay of 18 months in providing the necessary funds. We have to have a contingency process which enables a draw-down of the funds when the problem occurs. This was a costly delay that enabled the outbreak to become well established, and the outbreak now requires more funding and more labour to control. There is a clear need, in actively and effectively managing the marine reef park, for consideration to be given to establishing a contingency fund that allows the industry to access funds promptly when it needs them so that it can curb the extent of any outbreak.

The opposition have long been critical of the lack of federal leadership when it comes to the tourism industry, and this is another case in point. The marine tourism industry employs over 60,000 people in the cities and towns along the reef and is critical to the Queensland and Australian economies. Why then have we let, for five long years, an outdated and inadequate management system stay in place?

The key amendments of this bill, as resulting from the Uhrig review, do allow for some improvements to the management of the marine park. There are also some amendments that should be welcomed with caution. Not allowing automatic representation from Queensland or the Indigenous community is a cause for concern. There are also areas not addressed through these amendments that need attention if we are to conserve our Great Barrier Reef effectively into the future, not just to allow international visitors to admire its beauty but for our children and grandchildren to enjoy.

I commend the bill to the House and, in doing so, indicate our support for this second reading amendment. As I have indicated, this is an exceptionally important bill. It is about the future of the tourism industry and jobs for many Australians. I commend the bill and the second reading amendment to the House.

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In speaking to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Amendment Bill 2007, it seems an appropriate time to remember that it was the Fraser government in 1979 which first established the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park on the Capricornia section of the reef. It was also the Fraser government which prohibited exploration and drilling for petroleum in the area of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. In 1981, the Great Barrier Reef was inscribed on the World Heritage List. These were all actions of a previous Liberal government and a demonstration that we have had a good strong track record on the environment but have always been able to balance it with other things. The bill that we are considering provides for a management plan which will incorporate the needs of tourism—there is $5 billion in tourism to the Great Barrier Reef—but also the needs of fisheries in that area.

The Great Barrier Reef was inscribed on the list of World Heritage areas in 1981. It became the largest area of World Heritage, covering some 35 million hectares on the north-east continental shelf of Australia. It is the world’s most extensive coral reef system, yet the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage area consists of much more than just reefs. It is an outstanding representation of a number of significant, ongoing ecological and biological processes. The area consists of 2,800 reefs, ranging in size from one to 100,000 hectares, and provides habitats for many different forms of marine life—including species like the dugong, considered to be endangered on an international scale.

The reef provides food sources for fish, sea urchins and molluscs, is a nesting area for endangered turtles and a breeding area for humpbacked whales. According to the Executive Director of the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators, these are some of the attractions that have led to the creation of a $5 billion reef based tourism industry. So there are very strong environmental reasons for the protection of the reef. But there are also massive industries around it—the tourism and fishing industries—and it is very important to balance all of those areas.

Since the election of the Howard government, the protected zones within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park have increased from 4½ per cent to 33.3 per cent.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 2 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.