Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last year, I led a parliamentary delegation to New Caledonia and Fiji. While we were in New Caledonia, we met with the SPC, a cooperative body consisting of 22 Pacific island nations along with Australia, New Zealand, France and the US. We received a briefing on the impact of climate change in the region. Now, we're all aware of the member for Dixon's, the now Leader of the Opposition, comments. He seemed to think water lapping at the doors of Pacific island nations was a joke. I know Senator Wong still hears about this whenever she is in the Pacific. It was not only a cruel comment; it was very impolitic and undiplomatic, and it has set back Australia's international relations in the region.

Our Pacific family is very much concerned about rising sea levels. But they also told us about the other impacts of climate change in the region. Traditional fish stocks that used to be situated fairly close to shore are now moving out into deeper water as the seagrass beds that the fish feed on have been dying off closer to the coast because of warmer ocean temperatures. While this might seem like a minor thing, what it means is that fish stocks, a major source of food and income for this island nation, are moving out of New Caledonian waters and into international waters. That means their exclusive economic zone is losing this valuable resource and their fish stocks are being plundered by fishers from other regions.

Australia's previous lack of action on climate change, alongside with the opposition leader's scorn for its impact on the Pacific, had very real international repercussions for the country. At the 2022 federal election, Labor promised a fresh approach to leadership and the environment. We said we would do things differently. We would rebuild our international relationships and rebuild respect for our role in the region and in the world. We would listen to our neighbours, and we would work with them to bring peace and prosperity to the region. Vitally, part of that is putting the environment front and centre, back where it belongs.

Crucially, we recognise that without a serious environmental agenda it would be impossible to establish trust in the Pacific, and without global cooperation all our good intentions on the environment would fall short. That was the vision we took to the last election, and it's what we've been delivering on for the past 26 months. Our changed stance on our role in the region and in the world was noticed and welcomed. French President Emmanuel Macron said: 'You are back. We need you in the Indo-Pacific strategy. And climate and oceans is part of that strategy.'

Protecting nature is a human rights issue. It's an economic opportunity. It's also a foreign policy issue and a security issue, as around the world we continue to experience more frequent record-breaking heat waves, more frequent record-breaking floods, more frequent record-breaking storms, more frequent and fiercer bushfires, and Atlantic sea ice at record-breaking lows. This is a crisis demanding leadership abroad and action here at home. That is why, immediately after taking office, our government submitted stronger climate targets to the United Nations, legislating net zero by 2050 and passing our safeguard reforms through the parliament. We have seen a massive increase in renewable projects being approved, because, unlike uncosted, no-detail, fantasy nuclear reactors, international capital sees Australian renewable energy projects as a good investment. This is how we become a renewable energy superpower at home, and it's becoming increasingly essential to our relationships overseas.

Climate change and clean energy are now officially the third pillar of our US alliance. We've signed an official agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency, working to protect the environment and share critical information and data. We are addressing all three aspects of our triple planetary crisis: climate, pollution and biodiversity loss. We are delivering on our 30-by-30 commitment, protecting 30 per cent of the land and sea by the end of this decade. Since coming to office we have added an extra 40 million hectares of land and sea to areas under protection.

We're also delivering on our pledge to stop new extinctions in Australia with our stronger international environmental laws. We have a new EPA to enforce those stronger laws on the ground and our Nature Repair Market bringing new funding to the work of protection and restoration. There is more than $500 million to save native species and deal with weeds and feral predators. There is work that begins by measuring what matters in our budget, tracking biodiversity loss, land protection, air quality, waste and climate change.

These commitments on 30 by 30 and zero new extinctions are supported by every state and territory. By adopting these targets domestically and updating our national biodiversity strategy, we breathe life into our international agreements and encourage other countries to follow our lead. We have tripled the size of the Macquarie Island Marine Park, adding an area of protection bigger than Germany. In Queensland, we are protecting the Great Barrier Reef, improving water quality, dealing with crown of thorns starfish outbreaks, phasing out dangerous gillnet fishing within the World Heritage area and blocking a coalmine that would have risked polluting the marine park—work that UNESCO acknowledged was making significant progress for the reef; work that stopped the site been listed as in danger.

We are driving an international push to protect Antarctica and the Southern Ocean from exploitation, campaigning for a new east Antarctic marine park, which would protect over one million square kilometres of penguin and whale habitat, an area the size of NSW. We are continuing Australia's historic leadership on whale protection, upholding the moratorium on commercial whaling, ensuring the survival of these amazing creatures.

We're also dealing with ocean pollution. Our oceans are, by their nature, global. We're fighting for an ambitious global treaty on plastic pollution. In the ocean to Australia's north we are pulling out ghost nets that have drifted into our water—nets that are six miles long and more—killing turtles, dolphins, sharks and fish. Australia joined the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution. We are seeking a treaty with binding international laws which pushes countries to clean up the pollution that is choking our environment. But we also want producers to take responsibility for the plastics that they are generating and to minimise demand for plastics in the first place. It's the same philosophy we're applying to the circular economy here in Australia, rebuilding new recycling facilities and regulating packaging standards. This is already taking millions of tonnes of waste out of landfill every year. In our region Australia is funding the Pacific Ocean Litter Project, with $16 million to reduce single-use plastics.

Our government is backing global action. We are adding ambition to international agreements. We're also giving direct support to countries in our region, helping other countries protect their mangroves and seagrass beds with our Blue Carbon Accelerator Fund. It's reviving thousands of hectares of mangrove forests in Indonesia, the Philippines and Madagascar and aiming to increase mangrove coverage by 20 per cent this decade, which will help fish and birds breed and protect coasts from storm surges. Here at home, we're restoring these vital carbon sinks in Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia.

Our international development program is also assisting our neighbours to deal with their environmental challenges across the Indo-Pacific. For example, with our help, Palau is currently building its first utility-scale solar farm and battery storage facility, with all the social benefits that come from that.

In the same spirit, we're helping Pacific countries to build their weather monitoring and prediction services, through the Bureau of Meteorology working with local agencies to better forecast their climate's oceans and tides, helping them deal with emergencies and climate change. We're collaborating with our neighbours on other areas of science and research, bringing together reef and ocean managers from across the Pacific, led by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, because, if we share the same problems, we should actively share the solutions.

Australians live in the most beautiful country in the world. We have a duty to protect our world heritage—those places with outstanding universal value. Our government is investing in that national estate by doubling our funding to national parks like Uluru-Kata Tjuta and Kakadu. We're actively extending it by progressing nominations for Murujuga Cultural Landscape, Cape York, the West Kimberley and the Flinders Ranges. We're using this experience to grow our Indigenous world heritage profile, with $5.5 million for First Nations to lead future bids.

It's a shared vision we're supporting in the Pacific and around the world, while doing the necessary work at home on dealing with our triple planetary crisis: climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. We're working every day to protect more of what's precious, restore more of what's damaged and manage nature better for our kids and our grandkids.

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