Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks, President. My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment, Senator Cormann. Last night Minister Hunt approved the world's largest coal port, at Abbot Point, in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage area, as well as another coal-seam-gas liquefication plant at Gladstone Harbour, also in the World Heritage Great Barrier Reef. These approvals for more coal and gas exports to worsen global climate change came on the same day that the government tried to repeal our climate laws.

The Abbot Point approval allows dredging of three million cubic metres and offshore dumping of that sludge. The minister says the dredgers will have to offset that by saving 4½ million cubic metres of sediment from running off land to the reef, yet under the reef rescue program, with the full resources of the Commonwealth and Queensland and the hard work of farmers, in five years only one-twentieth of the amount of sludge that is planned to be dumped offshore from Abbot Point was stopped from entering the reef. How is it even possible that the dredgers will be able to save 20 times that amount? Who will enforce these conditions when the government wants to put Campbell Newman in charge of the reef and when you have sacked half the environment workers?