Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. How have the outcomes of the Rio+20 Summit advanced the world's commitment to economically, socially and environmentally sustainable development?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Parramatta for her question. The member for Parramatta refers to the outcomes of the recent Rio+20 conference which I attended in Brazil. This conference brought the world together to consider sustainable development and our environment 20 years on from the Rio Earth Summit, a very remarked-upon event in the history of the world's consideration of sustainability and environmental concerns.

In the 20 years that have passed since the first Earth Summit we have become increasingly aware of environmental problems, including loss of biodiversity, loss of habitat, challenges for the world's oceans and the challenge of climate change. At the Rio+20 meeting, some progress was made. I would point particularly to two areas where Australia argued for progress, and progress was made. Firstly, there was agreement to set sustainable development goals. This is a comparable process to the setting of the Millennium Development Goals, which did have quite a slow generation but, once agreed, served to catalyse global efforts to address questions of global poverty. There has now been agreement to having sustainable development goals which will, we would hope and trust, play a comparable role in catalysing world activity to better address questions of sustainability and our environment. Secondly, there was progress made on the question of the world's oceans. The environmental challenge facing our oceans has become increasingly clear since the days of the original Earth Summit. There was consideration of work for our oceans and some modest measures were agreed. Australia, particularly being an island continent with such a long coastline, can see very clearly the effects of things like ghost nets and abandoned marine equipment that is drifting and killing fish and protected species, and that there does need to be progress on these areas.

Australia would have liked to have seen more progress made at Rio+20 than was made but global collective action is not easy to harness and organise. Some progress was made, which is important not only to our nation but to the world in general. We will continue to look to build on the Rio+20 outcomes. We have a beautiful environment we want to protect and we understand the global challenges our world faces as well.