Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 is supported by the coalition. It is a particularly important piece of legislation. It has been through the lower house and received the support of all parties there. I will not go through the terms of the bill in full, but it does implement in Australia the protocol of the 2003 International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage, generally known as the Supplementary Fund Protocol. It also introduces amendments to the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act, known as the MARPOL amendments. It has amendments to the ship levy legislation relating to the definitions of an ‘Australian port’ and ‘collector’.

We as a country have every reason to be a signatory to the international maritime conventions ensuring adequate compensation is in place in the event of an oil spill in Australian waters. The introduction of a third tier of compensation will ensure adequate compensation is available. Compensation liability is currently limited and has in instances proved insufficient for major oil spills. The supplementary fund will be financed through levies on public or private entities in receipt of more than 150,000 tonnes of contributing oil per year in contracting states, but levies, interestingly, will only be collected after the oil spill has occurred and after the first two tiers of compensation are exhausted. There was some discussion upon whether collecting the levies after the event is the appropriate way to do it, but I understand that after lengthy debates at the international level the world community has been convinced that those who would have to pay would pay after the event.

Why I particularly wanted to speak on this bill was to again highlight how important the protection of our sea is to Australia. We are an island continent, we have one of the largest coastlines of any country in the world and by world standards our waters are clean and pristine. Although some in Australia would at times denigrate the efforts of various governments—most notably the efforts of the last government—to protect the marine environment, it is acknowledged worldwide that the waters in Australia are amongst the best protected anywhere. And thanks to former environment ministers Senator Hill, Mr Kemp and Senator Campbell we have, over the last 11 years, built up a series of pieces of legislation and arrangements to protect our very pristine waters. There is still more that we can do. One of the great initiatives of the Howard government was the setting up of marine national parks around Australia. These were not without controversy and they were not without some opponents, but we proceeded with that in what is again an international first. And the number of marine parks we will have around Australia over the next decade or so will be a leading example to the world of Australia’s innovation in protection of the sea.

It is particularly important that we do that for places like my own state of Queensland, which relies very heavily on the tourism attracted to our marine assets—particularly the Great Barrier Reef. But I hasten to add that the beaches of the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, plus the Great Barrier Reef and the adjacent towns and communities, are real magnets to international tourists. For all of those reasons it is essential that we do what we can to protect and enhance those fabulously attractive and pristine beaches and marine ecologies. Fishing, pearling and coastal communities are also all dependent upon our marine environment and an oil spillage would have enormous financial and environmental implications for Australia. It is when you are faced with a situation like that that you realise the implications and the vulnerability of our seas, our marine environment and our coastline. And it is times like that that we understand why we, as a parliament and as a nation, must be prepared to make a commitment to sign up to protocols like those that are the subject of this bill. Australia has very busy ports and shipping channels and we have the fifth largest shipping task in the world, so it is essential that we become involved in these areas.

I mentioned the beaches of the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast. Quite substantial shipping comes into the Port of Brisbane, but those of you who understand the Brisbane port will realise that on coming out of the Brisbane River the ships turn north and go along the inside of Moreton Island, up to Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast, before they turn west and out into the open sea. Real care needs to be taken to ensure those shipping lanes are maintained in the very best manner, in the very best way. Right along the coast we have enormous shipping, both inside and outside the Barrier Reef. There is even domestic shipping coming from Weipa, around the top of Cape York and down to Gladstone carrying the very precious raw commodity that ends up as aluminium. It is very important that we have pilots, where necessary, both inside and outside the reef. It is very important that we take on all of these measures.

This bill shows Australia’s commitment to cleaning up any oil spills if they should ever happen. We hope and pray that there is never an oil spill, that there is never any need whatsoever to call upon this fund to clean up after an oil spill. We would hope that all of our precautions have ensured that oil spills do not occur, but if they do occur anywhere around Australia’s pristine coastline then we need to have the funds necessary—and enormous funds would be required—to ameliorate the impact of a spillage from an oil tanker. This bill does have the support of the coalition, it is a bill that I think will have the support of all Australians and I commend it to the Senate.

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Prime Minister for Social Inclusion) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In summing up the debate on this important piece of legislation, I thank Senator Macdonald for his contribution and for his acknowledgement that the Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 is being supported by all parties. It is an important piece of legislation and one that needs to be put in place. The supplementary fund protocol was adopted in 2003 by the International Maritime Organisation, and it entered into force internationally on 3 March 2005. It goes without saying that it is a long time between 2005 and this legislation actually coming into the parliament. It is a piece of legislation that this government was certainly keen to ensure was enacted as quickly as possible.

The bill will ensure that compensation to Australian victims following an oil spill from a tanker incident is maximised and that adequate financial resources are provided for clean-up costs, economic loss, property damage and to help with the natural recovery of Australia’s affected marine environment. From a global perspective and for our international reputation, it is important that Australia becomes a contracting party to the supplementary fund protocol because our ratification will add support to the protocol and will encourage more countries to become parties—so it is a very significant piece of international legislation from our perspective.

We are very fortunate, as Senator Macdonald said, that we have not had any oil spills in Australia on the scale of some of those that have occurred overseas. The two most significant incidents involved the Princess Anne Marie off the Western Australian coast in 1975, where approximately 15,000 tonnes of oil were spilt, and the Kirki, also off the Western Australian coast, in 1991, where approximately 18,000 tonnes of crude oil were spilt. Since that time we have been free of those kinds of disasters and we certainly want to ensure that, in the unfortunate circumstance such an oil spill were to occur again, we have comprehensive arrangements in place to respond. Yet, in spite of the dedication and professionalism of the men and women involved in response activities, there is still the potential for significant pollution damage and for this to affect a range of industries and, of course, our pristine marine environment.

The bill, as we have heard, creates a third tier of compensation for damage resulting from spills of oil from an oil tanker so that the maximum amount payable increases up to 750 million special drawing rights—approximately $1.3 billion per incident. The bill also ensures that compensation to Australian victims following an oil spill from a tanker incident is maximised and that adequate financial resources are provided for clean-up costs, economic loss, property damage and to help with the natural recovery of Australia’s affected marine environment. The bill also amends the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983 and the Navigation Act 1912, giving effect to those MARPOL amendments, and it amends the ship levy legislation relating to those important definitions of what is meant by ‘an Australian port’ and a ‘collector’, and to that end it is very good legislation for our environment and I certainly commend it to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.