Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

The Great Barrier Reef is Australia’s greatest natural asset, an economic powerhouse and an extraordinary ambassador for Australia. The reef draws people to Australia and it draws Australians to Northern Queensland. It captures the imagination like no other Australian icon. It is a place that offers serenity and stability, beauty and pleasure. It is, as the Great Barrier Reef Foundation have noted, ‘The largest, most pristine continuous coral reef archipelago on earth’, a natural icon that links to our national identity. We in Australia are so fortunate to be able to say that we come from the home of the Great Barrier Reef. But the truth is that our greatest natural asset is crook—really crook. I often wonder whether the Howard government cares at all about the fate of the reef. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Amendment Bill 2007 is remarkable for what it does not do. It does not offer a plan to maintain a healthy reef into the future.

The bill before the House seeks to implement recommendations of a 2006 review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975. I want to pick up on the key aspects of that review and this bill. But, before I do, it is important to set the scene. The Great Barrier Reef is an extraordinary natural wonder. It is the world’s largest World Heritage area—2,000 kilometres of World Heritage wonder. It is the world’s most extensive coral reef system. It has the world’s richest diversity of faunal species. There are some 2,800 individual reefs, 1,500 fish species, 175 bird species, some 4,000 species of mollusc—an incredible figure—1,500 species of sponge, 500 species of seaweed and more than 30 species of marine mammals.

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