Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I believe I was at the point, just before question time, of outlining to the House the rescue plan and other initiatives of the Rudd Labor government in relation to climate change and the Great Barrier Reef. The rescue plan is a key component of the $2.2 billion Caring for our Country initiative to restore the health of Australia’s environment and to build on improved land management practices. The $200 million five-year reef rescue plan includes $146 million for a Great Barrier Reef Water Quality Grants Program, $12 million for a Healthy Reef Partnerships Program, $10 million for a Great Barrier Reef Water Quality Research and Development Program, $22 million for a Water Quality Monitoring and Reporting Program, and $10 million for the Land and Sea Country Indigenous Partnerships Program. In addition, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Climate Change, Water, Environment and the Arts has announced an inquiry into climate change and environmental impacts on coastal communities. The committee will inquire into and report on issues related to climate change and environmental pressures experienced by Australian coastal areas, particularly in the context of coastal population growth.

As a World Heritage listed area, the Great Barrier Reef is one of the most significant coastal zones of Australia. It is important that, in addition to the commitments announced in the budget and the work being undertaken by the standing committee, the government take other measures to conserve and protect our most precious natural assets. The protection of areas such as the Great Barrier Reef is provided for through legislation—most specifically the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975. It is through this legislation that we are able to have a modern, future-focused regulatory framework for securing the long-term protection and ecologically sustainable management of the Great Barrier Reef.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef, covering some 344,400 square kilometres of unparalleled biodiversity and unique ecosystems. The Great Barrier Reef is 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. The Great Barrier Reef consists of a network of reefs—about 2,900 in total—and is home to thousands of species. Extensive areas of seagrass meadows, mangrove stands, salt marsh, and sand and mud areas provide a diverse range of habitats for many species. The diversity of the Great Barrier Reef’s natural values makes it a particularly unique and valued ecosystem.

In addition to the importance of preserving the natural beauty of the Great Barrier Reef and the many species that rely on it to survive, we must ensure the protection of the Great Barrier Reef for the benefit of the economy. The Great Barrier Reef is extremely important to the local, state and national economy. The reef and the surrounding coastal and catchment areas support substantial economic activity. The catchment area adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef comprises 22 per cent of Queensland’s land area and 20 per cent of its population. Around 80 per cent of land in this area supports agricultural production. The major urban centres are Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton and Gladstone. Each is a key port and has a population of between 26,000 and 140,000. The population along the Great Barrier Reef coast is currently around 850,000 and is expected to grow to one million by 2026.

There is significant economic activity in the Great Barrier Reef and surrounding coastal and catchment areas. Some of these activities occur solely or partly within the marine park itself, such as tourism and fishing. However, these two activities in particular also have strong links to many land based businesses such as equipment suppliers and seafood processing. Many industries that contribute to Australia’s overall economic prosperity, such as coal and sugar, rely on access to or passage through the marine park. An efficient and cost-effective port system is essential to such industries. Mining and tourism are the largest industries in catchment areas adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef. Shipping activity within the Great Barrier Reef region and the Torres Strait facilitates substantial economic activity in Australia. There are approximately 6,000 ship movements of large vessels exceeding 50 metres in length in the Great Barrier Reef each year, plus some 1,500 tourism vessels, and 25,000 commercial and recreational fishing vessels. Bulk carriers make up around 40 per cent of ships using the Great Barrier Reef—10 per cent are oil tankers, 24 per cent container vessels and 22 per cent general cargo.

Tourism and recreation are important ways for people to experience and learn about the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef and help conserve this World Heritage area. I am one of those fortunate people who have had the opportunity to visit the Great Barrier Reef and in fact had my honeymoon scuba diving on the reef. To those who have never been there I strongly encourage you to go and experience this amazing area. It is so extraordinary that it cannot be adequately described. It is one of those areas that you truly have to see to believe. That is, of course, part of the reason why the Great Barrier Reef is a World Heritage area.

Approximately 1.9 million tourists and 4.9 million recreational visitors visit the Great Barrier Reef each year. The total contribution of tourism to the regional economy is estimated to be $4.2 billion, with some 9.3 million visitors to the region in 2003. This is projected to increase to $6.5 billion by 2020. Around 19 per cent of international visitors to Australia visit the Great Barrier Reef catchment area. In 2004 there were over 1.9 million visits to the Great Barrier Reef. Around 75 per cent of overnight visitors to the Great Barrier Reef are domestic, with about half of these coming from interstate. The tourism industry is the largest employer of all industries in the coastal and catchment areas of the Great Barrier Reef, providing approximately 40,000 jobs in the region. There are 840 commercial tourism operators in the marine park.

Commercial and recreational fishing, including charter fishing and spearfishing, are another major and longstanding use of the Great Barrier Reef. Major commercial fishing began in the 1950s. Currently there are 17 commercial fisheries operating solely or predominately in the marine park. It is estimated that there are around 198,000 recreational fishers using the Great Barrier Reef, including the catchment areas adjacent to the reef. The annual catch of these fishers is estimated to be around 8,500 tonnes. Recreational fishers are estimated to have spent between $80 million and $201 million on fishing activities in 2003.

Uniquely for a marine park and World Heritage area, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park abuts and overlays some of Australia’s most important military training areas and facilities. With regard to cultural values, there are around 470 shipwrecks in the marine park. Approximately 30 of these have been identified as historic. Various islands have operating lighthouses, ruins and other sites that are of cultural and historical significance. Two such sites are listed on the Commonwealth Heritage List. The sites comprise cast iron and timber light stations constructed in the 1870s that were important navigational aids in the development of regular coastal shipping in the difficult waters of the inner route of the Great Barrier Reef.

Importantly, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a long and continuing relationship with the Great Barrier Reef and its natural resources. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the traditional owners of the Great Barrier Reef region. For over 60,000 years their traditional connections have been part of the unique living maritime culture. There are more than 70 traditional owner groups along the coast from Bundaberg to the eastern Torres Strait Islands. Their traditional customs, spiritual lore and beliefs continue to be practised today. Their values for and interests in the islands, reefs and waters within the Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait include physical places, story places and a range of other cultural and historical values.

It is for all of these reasons that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has such a significant role. The authority is the principal adviser to the Australian government on the care, development and management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The authority was established by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act. The bill before the House seeks to enhance the capabilities of the authority.

This bill arises from a review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975 which was released in 2006. That review, not surprisingly, found that the act has served its purpose well over the past 30 years but needs to be updated and better integrated with other legislation to meet future needs and challenges. This is understandable considering the changes over the past 30 years in scientific evidence on climate change and also the changing nature of the economy. The bill implements recommendations 18 to 28 of the 2006 review and will establish, through this implementation, a modern and robust regulatory framework. This framework will provide the capability for the efficient and effective protection and management of the Great Barrier Reef into the future.

I turn now to the specifics of the bill. It will establish a modern framework for the administration of the act and for the management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. This framework will be aligned and integrated with, but not duplicative of, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and other legislation. It includes a new objects section, recognition of the World Heritage values of the Great Barrier Reef and application of principles such as ecological sustainability and the precautionary principle. The bill will establish the act as the basis for environmental impact assessment of and approval for actions in the marine park that involve significant environmental impacts. This includes establishing the marine park as a matter of national environmental significance under the act.

There will be enhanced capability for investigation and evidence collection as a consequence of the passing of this bill. In particular, inspectors appointed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority will be allowed to use the investigation related powers of the EPBC Act for the purposes of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act. The bill will also provide a wider range of enforcement options, allowing for a more tailored and targeted approach to enforcement. This includes new administrative mechanisms, expanded availability of infringement notices and the introduction of civil penalty provisions.

Enhanced deterrents and encouragement of responsible use of the marine park are also provided for in the bill. This includes the adjustment of penalties to ensure they are neither too lenient nor too harsh, depending on the circumstances; the introduction of alternative sanctions such as remediation and publicity orders; and the establishment of an ‘environmental duty’ that will apply to marine park users, similar to that which applies under state legislation. As we would all appreciate, with so many users—domestic and international, recreational and commercial—it is important to have this flexibility in applying penalties. The bill will also establish new emergency management powers allowing the authority to respond to incidents presenting a serious risk to the environment of the marine park. These powers will complement and be subservient to those of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

I have already spoken about the significance of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park to Indigenous people. This bill will rectify one of the Howard government’s failings. It will honour an election commitment by the Rudd Labor government to reinstate a requirement for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to include an Indigenous member.

As I have stated, the act has served its purpose well but needs to be updated and better integrated with other legislation to meet future needs and challenges. That is what will be delivered by the changes I have briefly summarised. As noted in the overall findings of the review, the Great Barrier Reef is iconic to Australians and internationally. This is recognised in its listing as a World Heritage area. As a party to the United Nations Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, 1972, Australia has acknowledged a duty:

... of ensuring the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations of the cultural and natural heritage ...

and that it will:

... do all it can to this end, to the utmost of its own resources ...

Arising from the 2006 comprehensive review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act, we now have before us a bill that seeks to implement key recommendations. This bill demonstrates the Australian government’s commitment to securing the future of the Great Barrier Reef and it strengthens our capacity to preserve this important feature of our nation’s and the world’s heritage for future generations.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am privileged to live on the edge of the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. Of course, my home is in Townsville. It is the headquarters of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and I have had a close association over many years now with the works of the authority and the wonderful works that the people of the authority have carried out in protecting this major national and world asset.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park stretches more than 3,200 kilometres down the Queensland coast. Just imagine where you would end up, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you went 3,200 kilometres starting in Victoria. You would not be in Victoria, not by a long way. It is a very large area off the north-east coastline of our country. The park covers 345,400 square kilometres and it is the world’s largest World Heritage area. I think we as Australians can be very proud of that.

It was in the term of the last government—and I was certainly very much a part of it—that the government completed a review into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act and the authority. That was completed in 2006. We then released a response accepting all of the recommendations while pushing for new criminal sanctions for some breaches of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park regulations. The essential changes were to update the act to reflect the fact that the Great Barrier Reef had been World Heritage listed, that the coalition government had introduced the EPBC Act and that there were gaps in emergency management powers. The new bill also picks up the coalition government’s decision to move beyond a criminal penalty only system to allow for specific performance, such as reef recovery or civil penalties, for breaches such as fishing in no-take zones.

The government also released at the time a statement of expectations. When we finalised our response, the review concluded that the authority should continue as a statutory authority comprising a group of statutory office holders collectively responsible for the functioning and governance of the authority. The review also confirmed the rule of government in establishing expectations of the authority in relation to overarching performance objectives, values and application of broader government policies. The review recommended in recommendation 13 that, to provide structure, clarity and transparency in the setting of government expectations and the oversight of performance, the minister issue a regular statement of expectations and the authority respond with a statement of intent.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 before the parliament tonight is welcomed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. It brings the authority into the modern world. The recent history of the authority has propelled it from Townsville onto the world stage. I well remember what happened in the community and particularly the fishing community when we made the major decision to protect the World Heritage listed area through the increase in no-take zones. I well remember standing up before a meeting of 1,000 fishermen who wanted to take me out the back and hang me from the highest tree. But I stood my ground and stood in front of that community and said, ‘In the long run this will benefit the fishing industry, it will benefit the tourism industry, it will make sure that our country’s name as a protector of World Heritage will be enhanced and we may in fact get some dividends for the rest of the world.’ Later on in this presentation I will enlarge on that and indicate that I was right and the fishermen were wrong. We proceeded. The minister at the time was David Kemp and, to his eternal credit, he stuck by the policy, knowing that it was the right way to go, and so did the Prime Minister at the time. They made sure that we got the outcome that we wanted for the World Heritage area.

I was really pleased then that yesterday the Australian Institute of Marine Science—which is also based in Townsville along with other related organisations such as James Cook University and MTSRF—issued a press release. I would like to indicate to the House and my colleagues one of the outcomes of the green zone policy that was introduced. The press release goes like this:

Dramatic evidence that protected fish populations can bounce back rapidly from the impact of years of heavy fishing has been obtained by a team of marine scientists working on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR).

A spectacular recovery in coral trout numbers on unfished reefs has been reported by researchers following the imposition of a strict no-fishing policy across 33 per cent of the total GBR area in 2004, to form the world’s largest network of no-take reserves.

A team led by Professor Garry Russ of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University, Dr Hugh Sweatman of the Australian Institute of Marine Science and supported by the Australian Government’s Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility—

which is what I referred to before as MTSRF—

has found coral trout numbers rebounded by 31-75 per cent on a majority of reefs which had been closed to fishing for as little as 1.5 to 2 years.

That is a terrific outcome. That has been reported now around the world. That outcome has attracted world attention to what we have been able to achieve.

For the closed inshore reefs of Palm Island, for example, which is an Indigenous community in my electorate, there were increases in coral trout population densities of 65 per cent to 75 per cent compared with reefs left open to fishing. What that says to fishermen is that, if you have no-take zones, the fish grow larger and produce more fingerlings. Those fish then go outside the no-take zones and in fact there are more fish for the fishermen to catch. But the thing is sustainable. The green zones, therefore, are very much working and the science supports that. I am pleased to see that the emotion that I saw at that meeting of 1,000 fishermen has been replaced—I think the fishermen realise this now—by science and it has been demonstrated that fishermen are better off because of what has happened.

There are currently some hot-button issues in the marine park. One of them is shale oil. That will not have been mentioned in this debate, but it is a hot-button issue. It is an emerging issue with what is happening with the world fuel supply at the moment. There are very significant shale oil beds stretching from Gladstone right up to the Whitsundays—very significant areas indeed. There will be pressure one day for them to be mined. There was an attempt quite some years ago in Gladstone to run pilot plants on this, but the problem is that the shale oil goes out under the sea and therefore under the marine park. That is something that we very much need to come to grips with. It currently impacts on the park if dredging goes on in that area. That disturbs the shale oil beds and, of course, you get pollution in the reef waters.

Another issue that has emerged during this sitting of the parliament has been the fear that carbon sequestration technology would be allowed to be used underneath the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. What generated that fear was that the bill that was presented to the parliament—last week, I think—did not rule out allowing carbon sequestration under the marine park. I am very pleased that the government has since said, ‘No, it’s not our intention to allow that.’ But I have certainly said publicly that when it comes time for the formal debate I will move an amendment to the bill, which I am sure the government will support in view of its announcement last week, that the bill include the prohibition of carbon sequestration under the reef. What alerted us, of course, was that a few weeks ago in the Australian a map was published showing areas underneath the marine park suitable for carbon sequestration. I guess that that rang alarm bells. It is a good process where the community can be alerted, the government will respond and we all get the outcome that we want. I thank the government for responding in the way it has.

There are two other issues that I want to alert the House to. The first one is the issue of sharks in the east coast inshore fin fishery and the pressure that is being put on that population. We have to manage that and make sure that the sharks are not further threatened in the way that they currently are.

Finally—and this is a very important issue to me—there is the potential extension of the park to the east of its current boundary. There are areas of sea, coral cay and so on in that very large area which are being fished inappropriately right now. There is really no management of it. We need to manage it, but there is no management because it is not in the park and because, if it were to be in the park, funds are needed to do that. Others have made claims that we should establish a park from our boundary all the away to New Caledonia. There are reasons for that, but this has to be done in bite-sized chunks. I think it is perfectly proper right now to be considering an extension of the marine park to the east, perhaps to Australia’s EEZ boundary, and to provide the authority with the funds to manage it.

Of course, that introduces another hot-button issue: resources. The authority does need resources to manage compliance and enforcement. You heard me say earlier that this is an area of 345,000 square kilometres that the authority is required to manage and it does need the resources. I appeal to the government to look at that issue in the next budget because, without proper resources, it is a ‘paper park’. I say it again: without proper resources it is a ‘paper park’—and nobody wants that. The government does not want it; the alternative government does not want it; the people do not want it. We want to make sure that the way we go is the right way to manage the authority.

The next five years are critical, in my view. There have to be these strategic outcomes. The World Heritage values of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park have to be protected. No-one would disagree with that. We have to halt and reverse the decline in water quality of the marine park and to minimise the risk of degradation of the marine park arising from coastal development, downstream impact of land use or other activities. I am certainly not satisfied that all of the work that is being undertaken at the moment in relation to water quality is sufficient to get the outcome that we need. There are tremendous pressures on the Barrier Reef lagoon from what is occurring on the coast.

We have to achieve protection and wise use of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park by ensuring that all fisheries in the marine park are ecologically sustainable. I think that is certainly under control, and, with the operation of the EPBC Act, we will be able to ensure that that outcome is achieved. We also have to have ecologically sustainable tourism and recreational use of the park provided for in partnership with the community and industry. That too is happening. I think that we should pay tribute to the tourism industry in North Queensland, who do in fact properly accept their responsibilities in relation to the management and the sustainability of the marine park.

I also want to pay tribute to the management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, particularly to CEO Dr Russ Reichelt, who is widely experienced, having been previously the CEO of the Australian Institute of Marine Science and also the CEO of the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre. In Russ we have a good person who is doing an excellent job, leading a team of very dedicated people who have, as their vision, that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park be the best protected and managed marine park in the world. They understand that their role is to be the principal adviser to the Australian government on the control, care and development of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and that they will be responsible for the management of the marine park.

When you look at how they articulate their aims and values, you see that they are second to none. That is why the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is known and respected around the world as a leader in protecting World Heritage areas in the tropical environment. I thank the people of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, who do such a great job. I thank them for the way they interact with the community and their customers. I know that Australia will go on being very proud of what this nation has done in relation to protecting the great diversity in the Great Barrier Reef.

Chris Trevor (Flynn, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. The Great Barrier Reef is one of the world’s most important natural assets. It is the oldest living system in the world and began to form over 600,000 years ago. The Great Barrier Reef as we know it today has evolved since the last ice age—that is, over 6,000 years. It is the biggest single structure made by living organisms and is large enough to be viewed from space. The Great Barrier Reef is home to some 1,500 of the world’s marine fish species, over one-third of its soft coral species and six of the seven species of marine turtles. It is also home to one of the world’s remaining populations of dugong, a species of which has been listed internationally as vulnerable to extinction. The bill before the House demonstrates the Australian government’s commitment to securing the future of the Great Barrier Reef, and I support it wholeheartedly. We need long-term protection and ecologically sustainable management of the Great Barrier Reef. The bill will help achieve this objective.

The Great Barrier Reef off Queensland’s east coast, including the electorate of Flynn, is an international tourism icon. It is made up of some 2,900 unconnected coral reefs stretching over some 2,000 kilometres from south of Papua New Guinea to Bundaberg. There are also about 900 islands within the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef is a massive formation and is the only living structure that can be seen from the moon. Astronauts describe it as a thin white line in the blue ocean. The living reefs of today have grown since the last ice age. All of the sandy islands within the Great Barrier Reef are less than about 6,000 years old. Complementing the reef’s natural wonders is a rich cultural heritage. For thousands of years, this unique marine environment has been central to the social, economic and spiritual life of nearby coastal Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The Great Barrier Reef was inscribed as a World Heritage area in 1981 in recognition of its natural significance. It is the largest World Heritage area ever established. Under the World Heritage convention, Australia has an international obligation to protect, conserve, preserve, present and transmit this magnificent area for all future generations. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the traditional owners of the Great Barrier Reef region. For over 60,000 years, their traditional connections have been part of the unique living maritime culture and today their traditional customs and spiritual law continue to be practised in their use of sea country and natural resources. Sea country refers to areas of sea that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups are traditionally affiliated with. There are more than 70 traditional owner clan groups along the Queensland coast from the eastern Torres Strait Islands to just north of Bundaberg. Each of these groups hold a range of past, present and future cultural and heritage values for their land and for surrounding sea countries.

The bill presently under consideration will bring about a modern and robust regulatory framework providing capability for the efficient and effective protection and management of the Great Barrier Reef into the future. The bill implements recommendations 18 to 28 of the 2006 review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975. That review established that the GBRMP Act has served its purpose well over the past 30 years but needs to be updated and better integrated with other legislation to meet future needs and challenges.

This bill will bring about a modern framework for administration of the GBRMP Act and management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park that is aligned and integrated with but does not duplicate provisions of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and other legislation. It includes a new objects section, recognises the World Heritage values of the Great Barrier Reef and applies ecological, sustainability and precautionary principles. It makes the EPBC Act the basis for environmental impact assessment and approval of actions within the marine park involving significant environmental impacts. This includes establishing the marine park as a matter of national environmental significance under the EPBC Act. It will bring about capability for investigation and collection of evidence—in particular, by allowing inspectors appointed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to use the investigation related powers of the EPBC Act for the purposes of the GBRMP Act. It will bring about a wider range of enforcement options, allowing for a more tailored and targeted approach to enforcement which includes new administrative mechanisms, expanded availability of infringement notices and the introduction of civil penalty provisions.

This bill will bring about deterrence from misuse and encourage responsible use of the marine park. This includes adjusting penalties to ensure they are neither too lenient nor too harsh, depending on the circumstances; the introduction of alternative sanctions such as remediation and publicity orders; and the establishment of an environmental duty applying to marine park users, similar to that applying under state legislation. It will bring about new emergency management powers allowing the authority to respond to incidents presenting a serious risk to the environment of the marine park. These powers will complement and be subservient to those of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. The proposed bill will honour an election commitment to reinstate a requirement for the authority to include an Indigenous member.

This bill forms part of the Rudd Labor government’s commitment to securing the long-term protection of the Great Barrier Reef. It will establish a modern and robust regulatory framework that provides capability for the efficient and effective protection and ecologically sustainable management of the Great Barrier Reef into the future. The Great Barrier Reef forms part of my electorate of Flynn. Within the far eastern border of my electorate lie some wonderful islands—and I encourage all Australians to visit them. Some of these islands, forming part of and surrounding the Great Barrier Reef, are included in the electorate of Flynn and will benefit from this legislation. They include but are not limited to Heron Island—the jewel in the crown—Wilson Island, Lady Musgrave Island, Fitzroy Reef lagoon, Lady Elliot Island, North West Island and Mast Head Island.

Heron Island is a jewel of an island with an extensive complex of reefs. You can experience world-renowned diving at Heron Island as well as snorkelling, fishing, reef walking and nature walks. Heron Island lies some 72 kilometres off the coast north-east of Gladstone and covers a total area of some 18 hectares. The waters are teeming with colourful life and, between October and March, green turtles laying their eggs and hatching baby turtles are joined on the island by up to 100,000 terns and mutton-birds nesting and raising their young. I have had the fortunate and great opportunity to spend many a time with my wife and family on this fantastic island. Only two years ago, at Christmas, we spent some time there and witnessed hundreds of turtles laying their eggs.

Lady Musgrave Island, just to the south, is the southernmost island of the Capricorn-Bunker group. It is a 14-hectare coral cay with 1,192 hectares of surrounding reef. The island is a major seabird and turtle nesting area. It has a central pisonia forest surrounded by fringing vegetation including coastal she-oaks, octopus bushes, pandanus and bird’s beak grass. Fitzroy Reef is the largest reef in the Bunker group. It is a 3,650-hectare closed ring reef with a large, deep lagoon which can be entered through two narrow, natural channels.

North West Island is a 100-hectare coral cay at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. It is situated some 75 kilometres north-east of Gladstone and is the largest of nine islands in the Capricorn Bunker group. North West Island’s pisonia forest is the largest occurrence of the species in Australia. North West Island is also a major seabird nesting area and the largest green turtle nesting site on the southern Great Barrier Reef.

Mast Head Island is the second largest island on the nine vegetated coral cays in the Capricorn group of islands. It covers 45 hectares and lies between the Irving and Polmaise reefs and Erskine Island, approximately 60 kilometres north-east of Gladstone, the community in which I live. Mast Head’s population of nesting loggerhead turtles is the fifth most important in the South Pacific region. While Mast Head Island is a minor nesting area for green turtles, it forms part of the Capricorn-Bunker nesting area, which is of world importance. Mast Head also has the highest diversity of seabirds and shore birds of all the islands on the Great Barrier Reef. It is an important seabird nesting area, particularly for black noddies and wedgetail shearwaters.

I have been very fortunate in my life to have lived and breathed the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef in the electorate of Flynn and the surrounding areas. I am well qualified to speak on its spectacular beauty and the need to preserve it by way of the passage of this legislation. I am so grateful to be part of a government that is taking additional steps to protect it. I have swum on it, I have dived on it, I have fished on it, I have holidayed on it and I have even lived on an island very close by it.

I spent a lot of my childhood years on Curtis Island, just to the east of Gladstone. Curtis Island has a magnificent eastern coastline of beaches and headlands overlooking the Coral Sea. It is an interesting location for recreation: swimming, bushwalking, bird and turtle watching and exploring wilderness areas. It is a home to the wonderful people in my electorate of Flynn. How do I know this? As I say, I used to own a home there. But, after one of my sons ran through a plate-glass door, my wife stood on a stingray and another young son sustained severe head injuries in a freak accident, I thought it was time to move on while my luck was still in.

Another island in my electorate is Facing Island. From where I live, I can see it every day and I pray some days that I could swim over and be on it. Facing Island was named by Matthew Flinders in 1802. It is largely a sand island with beaches and rocky outcrops on the eastern side, including Sable Chief Rocks, which extend out several hundred metres. Mangroves and estuaries form the shoreline on the western side. On the eastern side there are volcanic and exposed reef formations together with protected Aboriginal middens. To the west of that island is Tide Island, where my mother grew up with her sisters and parents during the Depression, living off the sea on bountiful supplies of fish, including barramundi and jewfish and an unending supply of that famous crustacean, the Gladstone mud crab.

In my short life on this earth, as I have said, I have lived and breathed the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef and I am so grateful to the Rudd Labor government for moving this legislation in this House. It is our duty to protect the reef. I am honoured and proud that the Rudd Labor government is doing just that with this legislation. No doubt the Labor member for Capricornia, Kirsten Livermore; the member for Dawson, James Bidgood; and the member for Leichhardt, Jim Turnour, would be as proud as I am. I have travelled extensively and stayed on islands forming part of the Great Barrier Reef in their electorates too, including Great Keppel Island, Brampton Island, South Molle Island many times, Dunk Island and Lindeman Island. I hope to journey to Hayman Island at Christmas time this year.

I have seen a lot of changes over the years to the Great Barrier Reef not only in my electorate of Flynn but in other electorates to the north. Old salts can speak more definitively of these changes than I, but suffice to say that one of the biggest challenges facing modern-day politicians is to protect this great wonder of the natural world. This needs to be done for future generations to enjoy. I unequivocally and wholeheartedly on behalf of all Australians commend this most worthy bill to the House.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Much as I greatly respect my colleague the member for Flynn, I cannot say that I commend the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 to the House. Like my worthy colleague, I have done a fair bit of scuba diving in my day on the reef. We North Queenslanders live in paradise and we love and enjoy it. I have a reason for saying I do not share his and every other speaker’s enthusiasm for this bill, much as I respect and like the member for Flynn.

Recently we had a great tragedy in North Queensland. Young Sam Hyytinen was taken by a shark off Tully. Huck, his father, is a good friend of mine, a bloke I like very much. I watched Huck that night on the television and the interviewer said, ‘What can we do to ensure that this terrible occurrence never happens again?’ Huck said: ‘You will do nothing. My son’s death will not be used by you to restrict the young men of North Queensland from going onto the reef and enjoying the great fun that my son’s life centred around.’ Sam was a leading free diver, diving without scuba gear, and one of the better divers in Australia. He loved the sea and the reef. I rang Huck because I was deeply moved by what he had said and done. There was a huge crowd, probably 1,000 people, who turned up for the funeral. There was great respect for the Hyytinen family but also I think a lot of them, like me, regarded it as our duty to turn up.

GBRMPA considers it their duty to eliminate people from the reef. They are not northerners. Every person I have met there has nothing in common with the member for Flynn or the member for Kennedy. They are not our sort of people. But they are people who have very great power. I was asked about the flagging tourism industry of North Queensland. It is a very seriously flagging tourism industry. From discussions with Paul Kamsler and other leading lights in the Cairns region, it looks like there has been a drop of 50 per cent. Where we had 200,000 Japanese coming to Far North Queensland we may have only 100,000 to 150,000 next year. That is very serious stuff indeed.

One thing that struck me when I was the northern development minister was that each new $100-plus million resort created its own market. To stay alive it would chase up Japanese people to come to Australia. Other people would come with them. They would not all necessarily go to that particular resort. They might come back next year and go to some other resort. The creation of each resort built the tourism industry of North Queensland. In a very great act of generosity, Peter Beattie at the funeral of Joh Bjelke-Petersen attributed both the tourism industry of Australia and the coal industry of Australia to Bjelke-Petersen. The only thing I disagreed with Peter on was that he should have also included the aluminium industry—and I will not go into that tonight.

We did everything humanly possible to facilitate the building of those $100 million resorts. In Queensland—and I am not saying just in North Queensland; some of them are on the Gold Coast—each year a $100-plus million resort was built. Quite frankly, since Bjelke-Petersen left the scene I am not aware of a single resort being built. Now we are reaping the whirlwind which we sowed with people like GBRMPA. They are anti people and anti North Queensland. They do not march to the same drum—or have the same belief system—that the member for Flynn or the member for Kennedy march to. They are different sorts of people altogether.

It is with no great pride that I tell the House that three years ago Queensland became the third most litigious state on earth. There are so many laws in Queensland which much litigation flows from that we became the third most litigious state on earth after California and a Midwest state in the United States. I am told that we were displaced last year by New South Wales. The great thing about being a North Queenslander was that you could go into the great jungles of North Queensland or out on the Barrier Reef to go fishing or scuba diving and it was so exciting and so much fun. Today, if you go out on the water in North Queensland you are looking over your shoulder all the time because the men in the uniforms are following. They are all over the place. There are national park rangers, GBRMPA rangers and Customs officials. There are hundreds of boats out there. They are men in uniform who restrict our freedom.

Every time we pass a law in this place it is at the expense of the freedom of Australians. Our legislation grows in inverse proportion to the freedom of Australians. Australians have never appreciated their freedom. The American national anthem has the word ‘freedom’ in it four times. None of our national songs have the word ‘freedom’ in them. We had so much freedom in the early days when the place was empty and we could go anywhere and do anything we liked. From listening to the member for Flynn, his childhood and his upbringing were similar to my own. You could just go anywhere and literally do anything.

We understand that there have to be some restrictions, but I am not aware of GBRMPA having agreed to any proposal put forward to them unless the state government or the federal government bought in and heavied them, and there are only two or three occasions that I can remember when that occurred. We had a dirty, filthy mud hole created by the greenies. They had huge demonstrations and stopped the project at Port Hinchinbrook from going ahead. It was a grubby, muddy little creek that was always a disgrace, as far as I was concerned, with some moth-eaten scrub around it. Some people wanted to do some development there. Because they were stopped, they went broke and we were left with a great big giant mud hole.

The then Premier of Queensland, Wayne Goss, quite rightly described it as—and I will not denigrate the senator—his mud hole. Goss was right. I blamed myself; I was the minister then. A kilometre of coastline there was just a dirty great giant mud hole leaking muck into the ocean. It was there for nearly 20 years. We never saw greenies demonstrate about that. When someone came in to try to fix it up they demonstrated all day—morning, noon and night. My rage and anger were such that the police had to conduct me away from one confrontation, which ended up on the front of the Sunday Mail newspaper.

The point I am making is that that is a beautiful asset of Queensland now. They have put rock all around what was the great mud hole so that no mud leaks into the channel at all. What was a very moth-eaten piece of scrub is one of the most beautiful spots on the coast. Cardwell was not like other parts of North Queensland where you have beautiful jungle and big beaches. That is not the scene at Cardwell at all.

Some 3,000 reefs make up the Barrier Reef—it is not a single reef. It covers 35 million hectares. It is as big as Italy. There are 360 species of hard coral; 1,500 species of fish; 4,000 species of mollusc—shellfish, if you like; 400 species of sponge; and 800 echinoderms—starfish and urchins, if you like. In my scuba diving days starfish were prominent and nothing else was prominent, so I do not doubt for a moment that they have caused a lot of trouble. There are 500 micro-algae—seaweed, if you like. Women get injected with one of those seaweeds to make them look young, so it is a very valuable product. There are 23 species of marine mammal. Six out of seven of the world’s marine turtles and 30 per cent of the world’s soft coral are found on the reef. I thank the Institute of Marine Science, specifically Janice Lough and Katharina Fabricius, for making me look very erudite.

In sharp contrast, there is the deceitfulness and restrictiveness of GBRMPA—and, quite frankly, I cannot help but use the word ‘Gestapo’ in relation to them. Let me give you an example of the evilness of GBRMPA. They came out and said that the dugong was under attack and we had to close down a whole stack of fishing on the east coast. They declared that the dugong numbers had dropped clean in half. They put out a report, but nobody bothered to read it. But I did, because I was gunning for GBRMPA, and I was very interested to see just what their scientific information was.

In the first serious meeting I had with them, I said to Virginia Chadwick, ‘You put your figures on the table on the diminution of marine populations.’ She turned around to her chief lieutenants at GBRMPA and looked at them, and they did not say anything. I said: ‘Virginia, the reason they are putting nothing on the table is because those figures indicate that the marine populations have gone up, not down. That is why they won’t put anything on the table.’ I asked: ‘How do you justify wiping out half of the fishing fleet and, I might add, about half of the tourism as well?’ This was because recreational fishermen and the tourist operators were hit by these restrictions from GBRMPA. I asked: ‘How do you justify this?’

The gentleman there, second-in-charge to Virginia Chadwick, said, ‘I justify it on the basis of the precautionary principle.’ I had never heard of this, and I asked: ‘What is that?’ He said, ‘Well, we could be on the edge of disaster; we could be right on the edge of a cliff.’ I asked: ‘You’re not serious?’ and he said, ‘Yes, of course I am serious.’ I said: ‘A meteorite might be flashing in from outer space too. I mean, we are talking about science here. You are going to take away the livelihoods of 3,000 North Queenslanders on the basis of a precautionary principle—a bit of rubbish; just a discretionary power to do anything you like with and no-one can assail you.’

I am sorry, but the government, the previous government and, I must admit, I voted for the environmental protection act that had the precautionary principle in it. I did not pick it up. I did not understand it. We were not briefed on it in the party room. And some of you newer members will realise that you are the mushroom club, regardless of which party is in power. I did not pick that up, but I put my name to giving these people unlimited discretionary power. There is no reference to the minister; they have unlimited discretionary power.

You will not find a word against GBRMPA from amongst the fishermen or any of the tourist operators—unless they are drunk and it is late at night and they are talking to me and nobody else—because they are terrified of them. They have the discretionary power to do anything. They can smash you and destroy you tomorrow—as they did with the livelihood of 3,000 North Queenslanders. As to those waters that GBRMPA are supposed to be protecting so well, we know the figures because they have been through the House on many occasions. Whilst they have restricted Australian fishing licences to 6,000—they have said we can only have 6,000 Australians fishing in the water—we have continuously had 12,000 foreign fishing vessels in our waters. So that is how good GBRMPA are and how well they are protecting a third of the Australian coastline.

Going back to the Institute of Marine Science, it was said of Dr Joe Baker, who founded the institute, that he should have got a Nobel Prize. But one of the reasons that this very great man did not get a Nobel Prize was that he attributed every single achievement of the Institute of Marine Science to other people. He was a very generous man. He was a man, I might also add, who played lock forward for Queensland and, if it had not been for Johnny Raper, he would have played lock forward for Australia. Under Dr Joe Baker, the institute did coral coring, which can give us a weather pattern going back 2,000 years. This is absolutely vital information when we are talking about climate change and all of those things.

The coral coring breakthrough was just the most brilliant piece of science; it really was. It opened a door to knowledge that we never dreamed we could access. The institute found out that coral spawned on a single night—a quite remarkable achievement in itself. None of the world’s marine scientists had ever been able to figure that out, but the Institute of Marine Science did. The institute found out about and delineated the feeding cycle of barramundi. Sometimes people might describe Dr Joe Baker as a bit green. I might too, but he took great delight in pointing out to me that the mangroves play an integral part in the feeding cycle of the barramundi, which meant we had to leave the mangroves alone.

The prawn and fish farming industry of Australia stands as a great monument to Joe Baker. It stands as a great, tragic gravestone indicating the work of GBRMPA. When Baker came to us in 1984 and said that we needed an industry, there was not one single prawn or fish farm operating commercially in Australia. There were some experimental ones but there were none operating commercially. A number of them had opened but they had all gone broke and collapsed. The government did not take them very seriously. But Baker was relentless in his pursuit of convincing the Queensland government that we should be going in that direction. He eventually convinced us, and we got the prawn and fish farming industry of Australia underway. I think at one stage we were producing about $250 million worth of prawns in Queensland.

We expected to catch up to Thailand. North Queensland has very suitable waters for prawn farming—the most suitable waters in the world, actually. We thought we could catch up to Thailand. We had a greater length of coastline and more amenable circumstances than Thailand. They were doing $2,000 million a year, and we felt that by about 1995 to 2000 we would catch up to them. We reckoned that they might have gone up to about $2,500 million and we would also be up to $2,500 million. When the government fell in 1989, we were pretty hopeful that we were getting there; we were going to catch them.

Why I talk about a gravestone representing the works of GBRMPA is because the prawn farming industry in Australia has declined to a point where it hardly exists now at all, and Thailand is doing $8,000 million a year. They have gone up from $2,000 million to $8,000 million and we have been just about completely destroyed. As far as I can see, GBRMPA has closed more farms than we have been able to open in those 20 years since 1989, so they have got a lot to answer for.

Going back to the dugong—I got sidetracked—GBRMPA said that the dugong numbers had dropped clean in half. I read their report and I was quite astounded to find out that what they had said publicly was deceitful in the extreme, because the dugong numbers had dropped clean in half on the southern part of the reef, which they had quoted the numbers for, but they forgot to mention the northern half of the reef where the numbers had almost doubled. So when they said that the dugong were dying out, that their numbers had collapsed, they were telling a flagrant lie. They knew from the report that all that had happened was that the dugong had migrated north.

The member for Flynn will be very interested in this, as I was, because I asked myself: why did they migrate north? There had been a big drought throughout Central Queensland so there had been no effluent—run-off, if you like—going out onto the reef from the land. Whether the fertilisers have had anything to do with it, I do not know, but obviously if you fertilise something it grows a lot better. Dugong live off seagrass and, if it is being top-dressed all the time, and top-dressed with a bit of fertiliser as well, obviously the dugong were on pretty good tucker in the southern part, where of course there is very extensive farming taking place—Central Queensland. That piece of information will be very interesting for the member for Flynn and I pass it on to the House. (Time expired)

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. I think the House would agree that the term ‘Great’ is used a little indiscriminately in Australian geography. We have got the Great Dividing Range, which lengthwise is obviously significant but not particularly so heightwise. We have got the Great Sandy Desert and we have got the Great Australian Bight. I am not going to comment too much on those geographical phenomena. However, I will talk about the Great Barrier Reef, off Queensland’s coast, as being a particularly great phenomenon. In fact, it is the largest living organism in the world and, as the member for Flynn indicated, it is visible from outer space. It stretches from the tip of Cape York Peninsula to just north of Fraser Island, covering some 347,000 square kilometres. Thousands of visitors flock to Queensland every year from all over the world to marvel at this environmental wonder. Tourists enjoy scenic flights, reef cruises or snorkelling among the more than 2,800 coral reefs and abundant marine life. In fact, the waters of the Great Barrier Reef offer biological diversity unmatched anywhere else in the world. The Great Barrier Reef was World Heritage listed in 1981, making it the largest World Heritage area in the world—and I repeat that: the largest World Heritage area in the world.

It is estimated that the reef contributes nearly $6 billion to Australia’s economy through tourism alone and sustains some 63,000-plus jobs. It also generates millions of dollars through commercial fishing and recreational activities. Being married to a Cairns girl—a Babinda girl, more accurately—and having had lots of Christmases up with my in-laws I can certainly testify how wonderful the reef is.

But the threat of climate change and other environmental concerns loom large over the Great Barrier Reef. Climate change effects that will directly impact on the Great Barrier Reef include: increased water temperature; increased sea level, increased severity of storms and cyclones; ocean acidification, which obviously will destroy much of the coral; changed rainfall and run-off; and changes to the El Nino southern oscillation phenomenon. And around the world, environmental impacts like coral bleaching, overfishing and marine based pollution are expected to wipe out more than 50 per cent of coral reefs over the next 30 to 50 years. Unfortunately, the Great Barrier Reef has already experienced two significant coral bleaching events in 1998—yes, only 10 years ago—and more recently in 2002. In fact, in 2002 aerial surveys found that almost 60 per cent of the reefs were bleached to some degree.

Another threat to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is pollution carried in coastal water run-off. The fact that climate change impacts on the Great Barrier Reef is not a new science. As I said, there have been significant coral bleaching events back as far as 1998. There have been countless studies and research into the state of the Great Barrier Reef and all of them have called for the government to do more to protect the reef. Back in 2004, World Wildlife Fund Australia and the Queensland Tourism Industry Council released a study, The implications of climate change for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. As well as calling for action on national climate change—issues such as meeting Kyoto targets and investing in renewable energies—the report identified ways to directly increase the resilience of the reef. These included: sustainable management of fisheries throughout the Great Barrier Reef, a plan to improve the quality of water entering the reef from the coast and a responsive zoning plan to respond to emerging environmental threats.

Credit must go to the former government for establishing a network of zones which created a high level of environmental protection and an ecologically sustainable future for the marine park. However, this zoning plan requires greater grunt on the ground to be effective, and the World Heritage listed reef requires a comprehensive climate change plan for the future. This bill before the House will ensure greater long-term protection and ecological management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. It implements the recommendations of the 2006 review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975. This act has been in law for more than 30 years and was introduced at a time when very few people were talking about climate change.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you are obviously too young to remember 1975, but most people were talking about the end of the Vietnam War and Abba. There was an environmental movement, and in retrospect, obviously, maybe we should have listened more to the environmental movement back then. The 1975 act established the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and set up the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to manage the park. The 2006 review found that the authority has served its purpose well but, given that so much has changed since 1975, including the marine park’s World Heritage listing and the greater effects of pollution and climate change, the time has come to modernise the act. The bill before the House is long overdue. It establishes a new framework for the protection and ecologically sustainable management of the Great Barrier Reef. I seek leave to continue my remarks later, so the House can deal with a Senate message.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.