George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I hear Senator Macdonald associating himself with that remark; nobody in this chamber today has had more to do with the Great Barrier Reef over his career in public life than Senator Ian Macdonald. A recent Australian Institute of Marine Science study found that the coral cover increased by 19 per cent across the marine park between 2012 and 2015, nearly doubling in the southern sector due to good early recovery from cyclones and floods. For visitors, the recent surveys show that there are still many reefs throughout the marine park that have abundant living coral, particularly in popular tourism locations such as the Whitsundays, Cairns and Port Douglas, and even further north. The Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan needs a strong bipartisan approach to achieve the goals we set ourselves. In the plan, the Australian government and the Queensland government have jointly committed to invest a projected $2 billion over the next 10 years, and the Commonwealth government welcomes the cooperation of the Queensland Labor government. (Time expired)