Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The world was going to come to an end if the skyrail were built! The world was going to come to an end if Port Hinchinbrook were developed! Yet here we are, five to 10 years later, and the skyrail is a huge tourist attraction—and has it had any impact on the environment, on the rainforests, there? Not one bit, not one iota, except that it has allowed ordinary mums and dads to see the rainforests. You do not have to be an out-of-work radical green ‘environmentalist’ to walk through the rainforests and enjoy them; you can now do that in a cable car up the top with no impact on the environment. It is the same with Port Hinchinbrook, a marvellous development that attracts a lot of people, gives a lot of people enjoyment and is an amenity for that town. The world has not come to an end. The mangrove trees are still growing. Senator Faulkner, another Sydney based environment minister, might be surprised to know, given some of the things he said in this chamber at the time, that the mangroves have continued to grow, as we all told him they would.

The point I am making in all of these things is that governments, in the decisions that they make, should be very careful about what impacts those decisions will have on people living in country areas. I think it is very important that if for good and serious reasons governments as a whole take decisions which impact upon people’s livelihoods—and I do not think the instances I mention fit into the category where it is actually necessary, but some of the things done with the Great Barrier Reef were serious and sensible things that needed to be done—those people must be compensated by the government, in other words by every other Australian, for the loss of their employment, their income-making ability. It is essential that that happens. Our government was good in that respect in relation to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park zoning plans. It has not been quite so good, I understand, in relation to some marine parks in the Tasmanian area, and that is something that I will be following through. But it is essential, as a principle, that where governments do take these steps for the proper purposes of the environment those affected must be compensated by the government. (Time expired)