Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

There have been questions in the parliament for some time as to whether we had an energy minister or an environment minister. I was wondering during the MPI speech we have just had from the minister whether he might name a single living thing. With 1½ minutes to go, he said the word 'reef'—so there was a moment in his speech where he named a living thing. But what we have seen from the environment minister is that, every time he has stood up, he has wanted to answer energy questions. He has not wanted to talk in any way about what is core business for an environment minister—certainly one of his predecessors, Robert Hill, regarded it as a core business—and that is to actually take a level of responsibility for the environment of Australia and its conservation.

What happened last night is no small deal. What happened overnight at the World Heritage Committee cannot in any way be simply overlooked. What happened at the World Heritage Committee last night was that Australia made an application to join the ranks of Oman and Tanzania, the only two countries that have sought the de-listing of an area of natural heritage. In doing so, they had an extraordinary response from the World Heritage Committee. I was watching it online last night. We had a speech from Colombia and a speech from Germany. But the speech from Portugal was extraordinary—and I quote:

The justifications presented for the reduction are to say the least feeble. Accepting this de-listing today would be setting an unacceptable precedent impossible to deny in similar circumstances in the future. If this committee cares for conservation according to responsible engagement of states parties to the convention when they submit their nominations, we cannot accept this requested delisting.

Last night the chair, having heard three speeches opposing what the Australian government was wanting to do, then asked if any of the representatives on the World Heritage Committee wanted to amend the draft recommendation to in any way support Australia's position. And there was silence.

Algeria, Colombia, Croatia, Finland, Germany, India, Jamaica, Japan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, the Republic of Korea, Senegal, Serbia, Turkey and Vietnam are all doing more to protect the environment of Australia than the Australian government. All of them are doing more to protect the environment of Australia than Australia's own environment minister.

And let us not forget the significance of the Tasmanian Forestry Agreement and the way it came together. Because let us face it: both sides of politics for years had played the same game with Tasmanian forestry and Tasmanian conservation. John Howard did it in 1996 and we, the Labor Party, did it on occasions. That is—they sat down and did deals directly with NGOs, to trade for election pamphlets that they then took to the election that stated that certain areas would be put into conservation and other areas would not.

Instead, for the first time this government decided—and did it work to political advantage; it did not work to political advantage, that is true, but it was the right thing to do—to sit down and to say to the forestry sector: 'If you reach an agreement with the environmental sector, we will back it in.' There were times during that process when we were bagged by the Greens. Please do not tell us that the Greens were backing us the whole way through that because anyone who looked at the news knows that that is not true. We said that if the parties reach an agreement, we will back it in. That is exactly why it happened and for very good reason. Those who understand modern forestry industries understand that you need your export markets, which, increasingly, require certification. The key to certification has been saved for export markets for Tasmanian timber, because the World Heritage Committee had a level of responsibility that the Australian government did not have. It had a level of responsibility of ensuring that the long-term interests of the Tasmanian timber industry to keep that agreement in place did remain in place.

That is why the forestry industry themselves wrote to the World Heritage Committee pleading to reject what the Australian government was trying to do. They had done the right thing by the Australian environment. The tallest flowering plants in the world get protected, the forestry industry gets protected out of this and the political game that the government tried to play is at an end. (Time expired)

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