Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy (Senator Hume) to a question without notice I asked today relating to mass coral bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef.

I've been here for nearly 10 years. I've consistently asked questions about the changes we have seen in our oceans as the Greens' ocean portfolio holder. I have chaired multiple Senate inquiries in the Environment and Communications References Committee into warming oceans, into the grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. I've consistently asked questions in estimates not just to changes we're seeing in the Great Barrier Reef but to changes off my coastline in Tasmania—indeed, all around the country. Ten years ago I wouldn't have believed it if you'd sat me down and said, 'Senator, you're going to witness these changes.' I wouldn't have believed you, even as someone who cared deeply about the oceans and someone who followed climate change so closely.

I've asked questions at Senate question time for 10 years now. I have been laughed at when I have raised the issue that our oceans are dying. I was told I need to get a hanky by the head of government business when I raised the very first results of the 2016 mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. I tell you, Deputy President, that it is hard today not to be filled with rage and despair at the response that I got from this minister to the fourth mass coral bleaching on the greatest natural wonder of this planet in the last six years. This bleaching is in a La Nina year. God help us if the reef is bleaching in a La Nina year.

We know, from the IPCC science, that on a business as usual scenario—our current trajectory—we are witnessing the terminal decline not just of the Great Barrier Reef but of many of our ocean ecosystems. This is a fact. The IPCC says that even on a two-degree warming scenario, which is the current Kyoto protocol, we are still going to see a 99 per cent decline in the coral cover in the Great Barrier Reef. That's on a two per cent scenario. We have already seen radical changes on one degree of warming—one degree above pre-industrial levels—so imagine a doubling of that, and that's somehow a good result?

All I want from this government is truth—no more denial. I would like to see them come out and say that climate change is the biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef and we know that climate change is warming our oceans, and what is causing that is predominantly the burning of fossil fuels. Why aren't we talking about this in here all day, every day? Why isn't it on the news? Why has it barely been reported? Why are we so distracted with other things when our planet is changing before our eyes and we can act? We'll only act if people understand what's at stake. It's the only thing. They will only vote for change if they know how serious this is. It might be a simple question: why aren't we talking about this every day? Why isn't it on the news every night? Why do Labor and the Liberals not talk about this issue? Well, the answer must be simple too. It is because they are complicit in the changes we are seeing on the Great Barrier Reef and in this ocean.

We know we need to cut emissions by 2030 by 75 per cent to have any chance of even meeting 1.5 degree of warming. There will be 50 per cent more heat stored in the ocean than we already have, and that's with a 75 per cent emissions reduction by 2030. But what do we get? We get laughable targets from the two major parties, which are worried about their own political fortunes. They're worried about annoying the hell out of their fossil fuel donors.

It is not good enough, and I urge Australians to vote for the Barrier Reef, to vote for our oceans. Send the strongest possible message this federal election that whoever forms government needs to act. The strongest possible message you can send is to vote green.

Question agreed to.