Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to support this important legislation, the Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008, which, as the member for Shortland has rightly pointed out, will ensure that there is sufficient compensation available if, by chance, there is an oil spill from an oil tanker in Australian waters. This legislation will increase the maximum amount of compensation available for a single spill from $350 million to approximately $1.3 billion. Australia is currently party to a two-tiered liability and compensation scheme applying to pollution damage resulting from oil tankers under which the maximum amount of compensation available is only $350 million. It is not surprising then that there have been several major oil spills where the current two-tiered system of compensation proved insufficient to provide full compensation to all claimants. Some examples of that are the Nakhodka off the coast of Japan in 1997, the Erika off the coast of France in 1999 and the Prestige off the coast of Spain in 2002, where the maximum amount of compensation afforded by the two conventions currently in place, to which Australia is a party, proved to be insufficient. So this legislation, which will increase the maximum amount of compensation available, is very important.

If you look at our coastline in tropical North Queensland and Cairns in the seat of Leichhardt, where I am from, and the Great Barrier Reef, or you travel up through my electorate to the Torres Strait or further around to the Northern Territory and the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, you will see beautiful waters where the impact of an oil spill would be devastating. Down the Western Australian coast there are significant oil and gas fields and significant movements of shipping, which again place our coastline at risk. That $350 million would not go very far if these coastlines were impacted. There is beautiful coastline in South Australia. Everybody knows of the beautiful experiences people have on the Great Ocean Road. Imagine the impact of an oil spill from a tanker down in that area or even on the beautiful beaches on the northern and southern coasts of New South Wales. These are pristine areas of Australia. We need to ensure that we have in place legislation that enables proper compensation if there is an oil spill from an oil tanker.

As the member for Leichhardt, from the great city of Cairns, and as a representative of tropical North Queensland I am going to spend most of my time talking about the benefits of this legislation to the Great Barrier Reef because of the potential threats to the Great Barrier Reef from oil spillages. Currently, as I understand it, we are party to two protocols that put in place compensation of $350 million but we entered into another protocol which was brought into force internationally on 3 March 2005. It is the third protocol that this legislation specifically deals with. It raises the amount of compensation available to approximately $1.3 billion per incident. The supplementary fund, the amount between $350 million and the $1.3 billion approximately, will be provided through a levy on both public and private entities receiving more than 150,000 tonnes of contributing oil per year in contracting states. In plain English, we are talking about not having this fund come into force unless there is a need for compensation beyond the $350 million and, if it were, it would be in place on only larger oil-producing companies—BP, Caltex, Mobil—or some of our large miners like BHP, Alcan or possibly Rio Tinto. This levy would not be put in place to raise these additional funds until after the first two tiers were utilised up to $350 million. If it were necessary, it would not impact on small business but on large businesses directly involved in utilising large amounts of oil or directly involved in the sale of large amounts of oil.

Although $350 million, which is the amount available for compensation at present, sounds like a large amount of money, it is not a large amount of money if you look at the impacts of an oil tanker spill on a place like Cairns and tropical North Queensland. This is an economy that is very much built on tourism. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, when introducing the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 recently, estimated the value to Queensland of tourism to the Great Barrier Reef to be $6 million. In my seat of Leichhardt, of which Cairns is the centre, Tourism Tropical North Queensland estimates the value of tourism to be over $2 billion. We have welcomed 2.3 million visitors per year to tropical North Queensland, and they alone spend $821 million. When you add the flow-on effects from that, there is a contribution to the local economy of more than $2 billion. Tourism provides approximately 30,000 jobs directly and indirectly; it is a very significant industry in Cairns and tropical North Queensland. It is based on more than two million people coming from all around the world to my region to see icons like the Great Barrier Reef—icons that would be significantly impacted if we were to have a major oil tanker spillage in the region. It would have flow-on effects on not only the environment—which would be tragic—but also the local region and the local region’s economy. When we talk about the value of tourism alone in my region, $350 million would not go very far. It is extremely important that we put in place this legislation to ensure that there is sufficient money available to properly compensate people.

Business tourism in my electorate is valued at $100 million as a direct result of business visitors. We have 920 business events, bringing more than 70,000 delegates to the region, every year. They come up there because they want to not only do business but also enjoy our beautiful environment, and the Great Barrier Reef is a very important part of that. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority describes the Great Barrier Reef as one of the richest, most complex and diverse ecosystems in the world. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park begins at the tip of Cape York in Queensland and extends south almost to Bundaberg. The area is larger than Victoria and Tasmania combined and stretches more than 2,300 kilometres along the north-east coast of Australia. It is a significant environmental icon. It is an extremely valuable environmental icon, and we need to ensure that we have resources available to protect it from the risk of oil spills.

I have had some wonderful experiences on the Great Barrier Reef. Members may not know that prior to entering politics I spent some time considering my future. As part of that, I took 12 months off from work and spent several months sailing from Townsville across the top of Australia around to Broome. I spent a significant amount of time cruising through the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef.

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