Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Institute of Marine Science annual report has found that the Great Barrier Reef central section and northern section now have record coral cover. A natural event, a crown-of-thorns starfish outbreak, prevented the southern section reaching record coral cover too. For millennia the reef has witnessed natural events causing coral bleaching. Bleaching results when periods of high solar activity coincide with low tides, when the water cover is insufficient to protect the coral polyps and they die, meaning the reef bleaches. And then it recovers just as quickly, every time. Tropical cyclones bleach the reef and floods deliver fresh water plumes onto the reef, killing saltwater coral polyps. Once the plume dissipates, marine life consumes the nutrients in the floodwaters and the sediment turns into sand. The reef and the coastal environment are renewed.

Recently, in June 2008, record cold temperatures in Queensland caused coral bleaching. For millennia, natural solar, lunar and rain cycles have caused bleaching. What is new is the late 20th century environmental movement hijacking the perfectly normal climate cycle for their own political benefit. If your party's real objective is to control every aspect of life on the reef and along the coast, then be honest and have that debate. The only argument the climate fraudsters can advance in favour of onerous reductions in farm output is 'save the reef'. Well, the reef does not need saving and never has. The public has been deceived.

The left are seeking to shut down agriculture and transfer food production to near urban intensive food production facilities manufacturing food-like substances. Who will own these facilities? Not nature but predatory billionaires, the same predatory billionaires who own and drive the environmental movement for their own benefit. We have one flag, we are one community, we are one nation and we will continue to stand up for our farmers' right to feed and clothe the world.