Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Milne, you completely ignore the place of the regulations as part of this process. They were updated in consultation with the environmental movement in December 2005, just very recently. The regional marine planning process deals with the interaction of all ocean users. That is the primary purpose of that process. It is primarily to make ocean users aware of other rights, be they environmental, fishing or petroleum. There are two things that we are dealing with. You have the regulations under which the environmental conditions are dealt with as part of the act, and which were updated, as I said, in 2005, and you have the basic fundamentals of the regional marine planning process.