Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise to speak on the Antarctic Treaty (Environment Protection) Amendment Bill 2010. The coalition supports this bill. It builds on measures that we put in place in government to ensure that Australian Antarctic Territory is protected, that it is guaranteed not just for the present generations but for generations many decades and centuries down the track. Antarctica is a place of majestic beauty, and it is a joint responsibility of all sides of this House to take steps to protect it, to ensure and to guarantee that Antarctica will remain a pristine wilderness for generations and centuries hence.

This particular bill does a number of basic, simple things. It is not an enormous bill in and of itself, but it aims to amend the Antarctic Treaty (Environment Protection) Act 1980, a Fraser government bill, to broaden the definitions of flora and fauna protected and not permitted to be brought into Antarctica. In essence the key amendments are these: firstly, to give authority to the minister to include invertebrates as specially protected species, and it prohibits invertebrates being taken from Antarctica; secondly, it broadens the definition of certain natural organisms; thirdly, it increases the safeguards of specially protected species—for example, the amendments tighten the permit system for introducing organisms into Antarctica; and, fourthly, it strengthens offences relating to accidental introduction of non-native organisms by visitors to Antarctica. This adds a layer of additional protection to those already in place under the original Fraser government legislation.

The broader context is this: the Antarctic Treaty and the Madrid protocol set out the fundamental basis for an international cooperative regime for the preservation, maintenance and long-term protections for the great Antarctic continent and the waters around it. Australia is one of 12 original signatories to the Antarctic Treaty. It was signed in Washington on 1 December 1959; it came into effect on 23 June 1961. Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the UK, the US and the USSR were all signatories. The aim of the treaty was to protect Antarctica from environmental harm and not allow the continent to be the object of international discord, and those objectives have largely been achieved. The governing body of the treaty, the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, meets annually. It continues to sign new parties with 47 parties now signed on, which includes the 12 original signatories and 35 acceding states. Only 28 of these signatories are permitted to participate in decision making.

Against that background, I want to make it clear that we believe that the system has been working well. We are proud that the original international program was signed by a coalition government—the Menzies government—and that the legislation was brought in by the Fraser government and we are happy to add to and support the measures outlined in this bill. However, I would note that there is one element of discord—that is, prior to the 2007 federal election the Labor Party’s policy was:

… Labor … will support World Heritage listing—

for Antarctica—

working with other nations to give Antarctica the environmental status it deserves.

Questions were raised at the time as to whether or not there was serious intent behind that proposal. On 1 May 2006 Anthony Albanese, then shadow minister for the environment, issued a statement entitled ‘Make Antarctica a World Heritage Area, not a mine’. The statement said:

A Federal Labor Government will support World Heritage listing …

Not long after the election the policy was changed on the Labor Party website to:

… Labor will work to further strengthen the Antarctic treaty system, with particular emphasis on enhancing environmental protection.

The express, clear and absolute election promise was dropped. That sounds and feels like what has occurred with the more high-profile issue of whaling. The policy exists there in name—but the intention has been abandoned, the delivery has been abandoned and it will never occur.

In June 2009 Senator Wong, representing the minister for the environment, stated in response to questions from Senator Bob Brown:

… the benefits of a World Heritage listing have already been achieved or exceeded in Antarctica through the international agreement that comprises the Antarctic treaty system.

Nothing had changed since prior to the election. The policy was a fraud upon the Australian people. It was not the reason the election was won or lost but it was part of an ongoing and systemic pattern of misleading in relation to environmental issues. We have seen the collapse of the Home Insulation Program, with enormous human consequences; the collapse of the Green Loans Program; the termination of the solar rebate program, in direct breach of an election promise; and the express, clear and absolute breach of the election promise over whaling. It is important to point out to the House—this issue has not been widely known—that the Labor Party, prior to the election, promised that it would support World Heritage listing. It did so largely in response to the work of Geoff Mosley, a former head of the Australian Conservation Foundation, a person who is passionately committed to the long-term future of the Antarctic Treaty as well as the Antarctic wilderness area. The Labor Party made a promise that it never intended to keep. It broke that promise after the election. The very least that could happen is that it could apologise to Geoff Mosley.

I note that in June 2009 there was a Senate motion calling on the Australian government to ‘pursue the lead role towards inscribing Antarctica on the World Cultural and Natural Heritage list’. The coalition supported the motion. The Labor Party opposed the motion. It was the very thing that they demanded and promised prior to the election; it was the very promise that was broken after the election. That is simply to put in context the pattern of misleading and deceptive conduct. However, this bill is a positive bill. We support it. I commend it to the House.

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Antarctic Treaty (Environment Protection) Amendment Bill 2010, which is designed to ensure that Australia’s legislation conforms to the revised international obligations contained under Annex II to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty. The protocol deals with the conservation of Antarctic flora and fauna.

Essentially, this bill imports into Australian domestic law the more stringent protective arrangements contained in the international agreement known as the Madrid protocol. It is worth noting and celebrating the fact that Australia was the principal architect of this agreement, which significantly improves the protection afforded to Antarctic biodiversity. As the minister has indicated in relation to this bill, the important amendments it contains have the effect of adding a new provision that enables the minister to declare invertebrates as specially protected species and to set restrictions on the taking of native invertebrates; strengthening the existing protections for specially protected species; making the existing permit system more robust in order to tightly control any authorised introduction of organisms into the Antarctic; and updating and sharpening the offences that exist to ensure people take even greater precautions against the inadvertent introduction of exotic organisms into the Antarctic. This includes creating several new offences such as the offence of the accidental introduction of micro-organisms, or indeed any organism brought to the Antarctic other than as food.

Australia has long regarded the Antarctic as a region with which we have a special connection and therefore a special relationship and duty of care. There continues to be a strong sense in the community that Australia has a natural stewardship role when it comes to the Antarctic and that we exercise this role both on our own behalf and as a nation acting cooperatively in the best interests of all people and all living things. That is what a universal commitment to biodiversity conservation is all about.

Australia’s modern role as one of the chief protectors of the Antarctic dates back to the middle of last century, by which stage several nations had established permanent research stations on the icy continent. The Antarctic Treaty was developed out of the International Geophysical Year 1958-59 project, a multination research initiative focused on Antarctica and binding together the work of those national research stations. The treaty itself was signed on 1 December 1959 by 12 nations that had been active in that effort: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States and the USSR.

The agreement covers everything south of 60 degrees latitude, and it is one of those documents remarkable now for its clarity, brevity and durability. In six pages and 14 articles the treaty requires, among other things: that Antarctica should be used exclusively for peaceful purposes; that there be a guaranteed freedom to conduct scientific research on a cooperative basis, including the exchange of scientific personnel and the free dissemination of research data; that there be no nuclear explosions or disposal of radioactive waste in Antarctica; that there be an observer and inspection regime to ensure treaty compliance; that parties give advance notice to one another of all expeditions; that signatory nations meet periodically to discuss measures to further the objectives of the treaty; and that parties observe both the stipulated settlement procedure and the established mechanism by which the treaty can be modified.

This agreement, which entered into force on 23 June 1961, can be acceded to by any United Nations member state, and it currently has 47 signatories. Its potency as an international instrument is demonstrated by the nearly 40 years of cooperative consensus decision making that have evolved from the treaty and through the work undertaken in the annual Antarctic Treaty consultative meetings. From both the treaty and this meeting process have flowed a range of further agreements and a set of related organisations, which together are referred to as the Antarctic Treaty System. Those subsidiary agreements themselves include the Agreed Measures for the Conservation of Antarctic Fauna and Flora, adopted in 1964 to protect native animals and plants, to restrict the taking of birds and seals by the application of a permit system and to prevent the introduction of non-indigenous organisms; the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals, an agreement which establishes conservation standards for any hunting of seals, which thankfully did not resume in the 20th century and does not occur there now; and the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, adopted in 1980 in response to the unregulated fishing of krill, a key species within the Antarctic marine food chain.

Importantly, this convention relied upon an ecosystem approach to rightly consider the Southern Ocean as a biosphere, consisting of an integrated set of species and marine environment conditions. This agreement continues to govern the sustainable fishing of wholly marine species in the Southern Ocean. The last component of the treaty system is the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty. This was adopted in 1991 to ensure that the full range of Antarctic protections was brought together in a consolidated, comprehensive and legally binding form. The protocol designates the Antarctic as a natural reserve devoted to peace and science. It prohibits mining, it requires that all proposed activities be subject to prior assessment for their environmental impacts and it requires that contingency plans for use in responding to environmental emergencies be developed. It is in the annexes to this protocol to the original Antarctic Treaty that detailed provisions for the protection and conservation of the Antarctic are contained. Annex II updates the rules specific to the protection of flora and fauna, and it is from annex II that the amendments in this bill derive their substance.

All that taken together is probably not the most fascinating narrative ever heard in this place, but such is the painstaking form and plain substance of human agreement at the international level. It is important stuff. It may not sing off the page, but agreements like the Antarctic Treaty constitute the black-and-white, multilateral commitment to clear and enforceable conservation standards. You would be hard pressed to find a better method and means of achieving international observance of agreed environmental management and preservation practices. This bill and these amendments are therefore a further important instalment of Australia’s participation in a very successful protection of the continent of Antarctica and of the Antarctic region as a whole. It is a conservation system that we have been a part of since the beginning and in which we have been an active and effective advocate. I commend the Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts and his department for their excellent work in advancing the cause of Antarctic environmental protection.

In this context a number of achievements from the reported year 2008-09 are worth noting—namely, the fact that through the International Polar Year cooperative research structure Australian scientists participated in 72 of the 228 endorsed research projects; that as the current conveners of three of the four working groups established by the advisory committee on the conservation of albatrosses and petrels, the department continued the work to address taxonomy issues and the gathering of seabird data in relation to population status and trends; that Australia secured an update to the Antarctic protected area management plans for Mawson’s Huts; and, finally and most significantly in relation to this debate, that it was at the April 2009 annual Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting that, in addition to tabling eight working papers and four information papers, Australia led and saw the resolution of the revision of Annex II to the Madrid protocol, which is the basis for the enhanced flora and fauna protections contained in this bill. It was the end of an eight-year process and it was an achievement that we should all recognise and celebrate.

There is no doubt that we are living in a time when the pressure of human life on the environment that sustains us is taking a serious toll on the natural resources and biodiversity of planet earth. The growing human population is matched by an increasing draw on resources per head of population, and this inevitably spells danger for forests, for wetlands and for coastal and marine environments, and so it puts at risk all life that depends on those environmental systems. This includes human life.

In recent decades the global community has come to focus more keenly on those things that we cannot help but share—the atmosphere, the oceans, the climate—as our growth as a species reaches a point where we test the limits of those commonly shared environmental conditions. As we particularly test the capacity of our oceans, our atmosphere and our climate to absorb our demands and our impact without detrimental consequence for life on earth, human and non-human alike, we confront the need to overcome an attitude which we have heard expressed in this place, an attitude that says we should not compromise our own consumption or seek to lessen our own impact unless other nations do so first. It is a recipe for inaction; it is not a recipe for the status quo because there is no status quo. There is only a steepening decline in the quality of our environment and in the biodiversity of our planet. It is a recipe for disaster.

I have said before that I believe we as a civilisation are moving to an era that will be characterised by how we transcend the limitations inherent in a system defined by the autonomy and primacy of a nation-state and by the rising and falling hegemonic balance between so-called superpower groups. It may be that coming to regard one’s own time as the tipping point or knife edge of some critical point in human history is a conceit that every generation tends to form. Yet I think it can be said without exaggeration that we are living in a period in which citizens and their governments will need to find the means to further overcome the current intrinsic resistance to global cooperation. It is one thing to say that multilateral institutions and processes are imperfect, a proposition nobody would dispute; it is another thing to say that the improvement of these institutions and processes is unnecessary and that our engagement and the effort to improve them to give them strength is unimportant.

Next year in June the Antarctic Treaty will mark its 40th birthday in the knowledge that international agreements are fragile things. The treaty allowed at the outset for any party to instigate a review of the agreement at the end of 30 years. Yet in 1991, rather than revising or weakening the treaty as it was, the parties instead reaffirmed the strength and necessity of the agreement by adopting a declaration that recorded the shared intention to maintain and further develop the operation of the Antarctic Treaty System.

Few agreements have functioned as consistently or as well as this treaty in terms of promoting its objectives and presenting a model of this kind of multilateral cooperation. It has been noted by others that the Antarctic Treaty System represents one of the most effective sets of international agreements in operation today. Thanks to this system of cooperation, Antarctic research and monitoring has allowed the international scientific community to see and anticipate certain key atmospheric and climate trends. The ozone layer deterioration is an example, and our response to that problem would not have been as timely and effective without that science. Thanks to this system of conservation, Antarctica, one of the seven continents on earth, remains a fundamentally pristine natural environment and an environment free from both military hardware and territorial conflict. This bill is a relatively small and incremental piece of the Antarctic conservation mosaic, yet with its passage, which I strongly endorse, we will put in place another well-calibrated set of provisions to protect this crucial and beautiful part of the planet.

Before I finish, I would like to pay tribute to Phillip Garth Law, a man known as ‘Mr Antarctica’, who died on 28 February 2010 in his ninety-eighth year. As described in the obituary in today’s Canberra Times, Mr Law was:

… lecturing in physics at Melbourne University in 1947 [when he] became aware that the Australian Government, egged on by Sir Douglas Mawson, had established the Australian National Antarctic Research Exhibition to build meteorological and scientific stations on Heard and Macquarie islands in the sub-Antarctic and to reconnoitre the site for a permanent station on the Antarctic mainland.

The government was looking for a chief scientific officer. He instinctively grasped that this mix of high adventure and science was tailor made for him.

By 1949 [Phillip Law] became the acting officer in charge of the Antarctic Division … and directed its operations for the next 17 years, personally leading 28 voyages to Antarctica during which he … chose the sites and established bases at Mawson, David and Casey on … ice-free locations.

Astonishingly, he also:

… used the annual resupply voyages (despite being chronically seasick on every voyage) to explore 5000km of unknown coastline, and a million square kilometres of Greater Antarctica.

Mr Law used to say that he was ‘one of the last people in the world who’s had the joy of new exploration’.

Phil[lip] Law took a great interest in the living conditions of [people] on the Antarctic stations … [ensuring] there was a comprehensive library of … literature and popular novels, a gramophone and … records … [and] a formal dinner held every Sunday night [with wine].

He never stopped pushing the Australian government to properly resource Antarctic programs. He also wrote a number of books, including Antarctic Odyssey.

Phillip Law remained interested in the Antarctic all of his life. His wife, Nel, who died in 1990, was a teacher, artist and writer. She was the first Australian woman to set foot on Antarctica when Mr Law took her, amid some controversy, in 1961 and she took the opportunity to do some paintings while down there. Phillip Law was decorated for his life’s work with a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1961, the Polar Medal in 1969, Officer of the Order of Australia in 1975 and Companion of the Order of Australia in 1995. He said about Antarctica:

I think anyone who’s been to Antarctica becomes absolutely obsessed with the beauty and grandeur and magnitude of it all … and those rare moments of discovery when I landed on quite unknown shores and raised the Australian flag, and said ‘Here we are for the first time.’

I am grateful to the Canberra Times for providing this very lovely story about Mr Law. Australia and indeed the world owe a great deal to Phillip Law and his love of the Antarctic. He certainly deserves the title ‘Mr Antarctica’.

Mal Washer (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Antarctic Treaty (Environment Protection) Amendment Bill 2010. I have had a long-held interest in the Antarctic and had the privilege to visit there, at Minister Garrett’s invitation, in early 2009. The minister is in the chamber and I would like to thank him for that invitation. It was the end of what was a polar year—it was actually two years, so it should have been called a bipolar year—where Antarctic and Arctic scientists cooperated to do a lot of research. I was horrified to find the extent of acidification of the oceans of Antarctica among the problems of climate change.

Australia claims 42 per cent of the Antarctic as its own territory. This claim constitutes six million square kilometres of the land mass. We also lay claim to—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

We also lay claim to 2.9 million square kilometres of the Southern Ocean which constitute 21 per cent of Australia’s marine jurisdiction. With these claims Australia has a serious commitment to its responsibility in ensuring the sustainable management of that territory. I believe that this is an important piece of legislation which gives effect to our newly revised obligations under annex II to the Madrid protocol as outlined in Measure 16 (2009) of which Australia was a principal architect. The bill amends the Antarctic Treaty (Environment Protection) Act 1980 to give the minister the authority to include invertebrates as specially protected species and prohibits the taking of invertebrates from Antarctica. It also broadens the definitions of organisms and increases safeguards for specially protected species.

In support of these powers there is a strengthening of offences relating to accidental introduction of non-native organisms into Antarctica by visitors to Antarctica. This is increasingly critical as the impact of tourism to Antarctica needs to be managed in such a way as to limit the damage to this important continent. Australia has a proud history in the support of the broader Antarctic treaty system. It was one of the original 12 signatories to the 1961 Antarctic Treaty and has long supported the protection of that natural environment. Australia has had a continuing commitment to the strength and effectiveness of this treaty which aimed to protect Antarctica from environmental harm and to ensure that the continent did not become an object of international discord. This treaty is one of the world’s most successful disarmament agreements and is still supported by 75 per cent of the world’s population. Antarctica was reserved for peaceful purposes, scientific research and international scientific cooperation, and we can be proud of the part we have played in the ongoing development of legislation supporting the original ideals. As a result of our being a signatory to and supporting this treaty the Antarctic Treaty (Environment Protection) Act 1980 was enacted to strengthen scientific cooperation, to ensure environmental protection, to support the conservation of plants and animals and to preserve historic sites, to participate in information exchange and to assist in the conduct of appropriate tourism activities.

Australia has been a world leader in science and research in Antarctica for nearly 100 years since Sir Douglas Mawson, one of Australia’s greatest explorers, led expeditions south. Australia will be gearing up to celebrate the centenary of his exploration of Antarctica between 1911 and 1914 and our resulting claims of territorial ownership. This bill further demonstrates our commitment to be at the forefront of international efforts to ensure the protection of this critical natural environment. As we see the effects of climate change it will be even more important that we legislate to ensure the greatest possible protection of this significant territory. The continent is significant to discovering climate change knowledge through the icesheets which can provide information critical to contemporary research.

This bill under consideration is another step in ensuring the continued health of Antarctica’s flora and fauna. Through this bill Australia continues to support the stability and security of this significant area of our global environment. I commend this bill to the House.

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

I thank the member for Moore for his comments and also acknowledge the remarks of my colleague, the member for Fremantle, identifying the long and proud history that Australia has had in relation to the Antarctic. It is this government’s profound conviction that it is important to hold the comprehensive protection of the Antarctic environment as one of our highest priorities. The Antarctic Treaty (Environment Protection) Amendment Bill 2010 before us now implements in law Australia’s obligations which have resulted from the review of annex II of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, the Madrid protocol, which this government and previous Labor governments in particular have provided significant support and input to.

The fact is that Australia was the principal architect of the Madrid protocol, which established Antarctica as a region which would be subject to comprehensive environmental protection—a natural reserve devoted to peace and science. It is a considerable and significant achievement in our international political history. Successive Australian governments have recognised the importance for the protection of the environment to have that comprehensive component. I am particularly pleased that the opposition has commended this legislation. It is a reflection of our strong view that it is appropriate for us to continue with the existing regulatory framework in relation to both our domestic and our international obligations in respect of the Antarctic generally.

I just make some final observations as I conclude. It is my very strong conviction that as more countries take an active interest in the Antarctic it is important for Australia to continue to play a leading role in efforts to realise both the global benefits of Antarctic science and also the urgency of continued environmental protection. We have a number of countries increasing research activities in the Antarctic in recent years. Additionally, the number of tourist visitors landing in Antarctica has expanded from some 12,000 in 2000-01 to around 33,000 in the 2007-08 Antarctic summer season. So clearly there is increasing interest and increasing pressure on the Antarctic continent and as a consequence our desire to see its adequate protection is strong and great.

Whilst the purpose of this bill is to extend protection of Antarctic native flora and fauna, it remains the case that we are committed to advancing Australia’s strong interest there through continued funding of the intercontinental air link; developing our logistics capability to work more closely with those who are active in the Antarctic territory, including undertaking things like medivacs during this season on behalf of other countries; an inspection program under way whereby under the treaty itself Australia has and will continue to inspect the stations and activities of other countries in East Antarctica; and finally the development of a 10-year science strategic plan which seeks to encourage, guide and focus Antarctic and Southern Ocean research, delivering the maximum benefits to Australia and the international community as we seek to meet the global challenge of climate change, ocean acidification, population growth in the area and population pressures on the Antarctic generally, and the demands that the world has for food and energy security—the increasing human footprint on the Antarctic continent itself.

This bill represents a necessary and important step in our ongoing protection of the Antarctic, and I commended to the House.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.