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

I thank the member for her question. Australia is very lucky to have 17 World Heritage places like the Great Barrier Reef, magnificent natural and cultural assets, sites of global significance. The fact is we keep them in trust for the future whilst we benefit from them now in many ways. In particular, our 17 World Heritage places are places of significant economic value. They are economic assets that generate annually around $12 billion and support around 120,000 jobs. That is a lot of employment for this country.

I am asked about threats to our World Heritage sites. In August I released a report that says that our iconic World Heritage properties face increased threats from climate change. This report, The implications of climate change for Australia’s World Heritage properties, assesses the likely impacts of climate change on these places. Sites including the Sydney Opera House, the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu National Park, the Tasmanian Wilderness and the Greater Blue Mountains area are identified as particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts. Effects include reduced rainfall, higher sea and land surface temperatures, more severe storm events, ocean acidification and rising sea levels. The most concerning thing about this report is that many properties listed for their natural values, amongst them the Great Barrier Reef, the Gondwana Rainforests, Fraser Island and Shark Bay, have a low capacity to adapt to climate change impacts. They are going to be difficult to protect from those effects of climate change.

I am asked what the government is doing to address these threats. The answer, Mr Speaker, is plenty, including building up the resilience and capacity of these places to adapt to the dangers that climate change presents. We are preparing the first ever climate change adaptation plan for Australia’s World Heritage and iconic areas. We are also providing significant funding to better manage individual World Heritage areas of which the $200 million Reef Rescue program under Caring for our Country is one example.

Today I have announced that the Rudd government will invest an additional $38 million in the conservation and preservation of Australia’s World Heritage places through the Caring for our Country program. The Caring for our Country World Heritage funding will address a range of environmental challenges, from eradicating pests on Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean to protecting the biodiversity of Shark Bay in Western Australia. In the Gondwana Rainforests, stretching up the north-east coast of New South Wales into the south-east of Queensland, we will provide almost $3.2 million over four years to help protect these ancient forests that house more than 200 rare and threatened plant and animal species. In western New South Wales private landholders in the Wallangra Lakes region will be assisted to combat erosion and pest plants and animals, helping ensure that the World Heritage values of this ancient region, which has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, remain intact.

The government is profoundly committed to safeguarding these special places. We can do that directly through good management, adequate funding and a heightened awareness of the need to act. But we must also act by introducing a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme so that Australia can play its part in addressing dangerous climate change here at home and globally. With support from those opposite, we can bring through this important measure. It is in the national interest, it is in the international interest, and, critically, we can give upcoming generations the best chance of experiencing some of our most cherished places, our World Heritage areas.

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