Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor supports these bills. The Underwater Cultural Heritage Bill 2018 replaces the framework established by the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976. This bill provides for the identification, protection and conservation of Australia's important underwater cultural heritage, including historic shipwrecks, submerged aircraft and human remains, along with their fragile natural environments. The bill implements our national and international maritime heritage responsibilities and also promotes public awareness and appropriate use of the Australia's underwater cultural heritage. The bill will update the original aims as laid out in the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 to maintain compliance with modern standards of regulatory compliance and enforcement.

The Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 currently protects around 7,500 historic shipwrecks and 500,000 associated relics, which makes it the most extensive protection of cultural heritage under Australian legislation. The Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 was last amended in 1985. It's a solid legislative framework, but it does not account for the changes in Australian and international law after the ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1994. New international laws and agreements include the rights and obligations extended to states in that convention that were not outlined in the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976.

The bill triggers parts of the Regulatory Powers (Standard Provisions) Act 2014, providing for monitoring and investigative powers and enforcement provisions, including civil penalties and infringement notices. Contraventions of the act will be regulated more strictly to reflect the extensive national cultural legacy of Australia's underwater cultural heritage.

There is an expansion of the protective scope of the bill. This includes replacement of terms referring to 'shipwrecks' and 'wrecks' with terms referring to 'underwater cultural heritage'. This also includes articles that appear to have been constructed or used by a person associated with a vessel, providing for the protection of secondary heritage sites such as shipwreck, survivor or salvage camps. Certain articles of underwater cultural heritage are automatically protected, in contrast to the previous ministerial approach under the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976. The minister may still declare articles to be protected, but they will now be assessed against prescribed significance criteria. Automatic protection means that important artefacts and wrecks won't be easily missed or left unprotected for long periods of time.

Whilst the bill does not seek to assert sovereignty over waters that are not considered Australian under international law, it will also include a clause to protect Australian underwater crucial heritage articles located outside of Australian waters, such as one of Australia's first submarines, the AE2, which lies in the ocean off the Turkish coast. The bill also includes provisions to limit and regulate the possession and movement of underwater cultural heritage material that has been removed from Australian waters.

Labor knows the importance of our heritage, our environment and our Australian stories. Conservation of heritage is critical for maintaining Australian stories, culture and history. In 2012 the wrecks of the USS Lexington, known affectionately to her crew as Lady Lex, the USS Sims and the USS Neosho, which all sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea, were announced as protected historic shipwrecks under the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 by the then heritage minister, Tony Burke. This announcement acknowledged the exceptional heritage significance of the wrecks in the Coral Sea, and ensured that the Battle of the Coral Sea will continue to be recognised. These wrecks are of important historical significance and serve as a physical reminder of the events that took place in the Pacific in World War II. The bill guarantees that any action that could result in damage, interference, removal or destruction of these historically significant wrecks or their associated relics is against the law.

Lady Lex was bombed down in May of 1942 during the Battle of the Coral Sea, and 2,735 crew were evacuated and 216 of her crew were killed. The Battle of the Coral Sea winded the Imperial Japanese Navy's attacks on Australia after they had previously killed 236 Australians in the bombings of Darwin earlier that year. The Battle of the Coral Sea claimed the lives of more than 500 Allied forces from the US and Australia, 66 US aircraft and three warships. These historical moments are integral to Australia's story and allow us to reflect on the wartime experiences of the Australians involved, while commemorating the first joint military action between Australia and the United States. Preserving these underwater wrecks is a thankyou to an incredibly brave and resilient generation of Australians, whether they contributed via air, on our seas or by helping out on home soil. Once these wrecks and relics are lost, they can never be recovered.

The cultural history of the Coral Sea is unique, as is the environmental value of the Coral Sea. It is worth putting on the record that, whilst Labor supports this bill, we oppose the marine parks plan that the government is proposing in the Coral Sea and other marine areas—a plan that will remove massive amounts of ocean protection. Just like Labor is committed to conserving our culture and history, we are committed to conserving our natural environment. Removing protections in the Coral Sea is the biggest step backwards in conservation anywhere in the world. The Coral Sea is a world-famous site for diving, has unique reefs and is known to be a turtle highway. Removing around 50 per cent of the marine national parks in the Coral Sea, which is what the conservative government is proposing, will see areas open to longlining and midwater trawling.

My electorate of Parramatta is landlocked, yet every time the Coral Sea or marine parks are mentioned we receive hundreds of contacts from people—landlocked Aussies who are incredibly concerned about the health of our oceans. I suspect that all of my colleagues on both sides in landlocked electorates receive the same kinds of responses. Labor won't stand by and see the ocean protection legacy created in 2012 destroyed.

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank those opposite for their support, and I thank the member for Parramatta for her contribution. I would also like to thank those at the department for their service and their dedication and hard work, and also other stakeholders, to bring this important legislation to the House.

This bill is a continuation of the policy framework of the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976. It gives clarity to the present and ongoing jurisdictional arrangements for protecting and managing Australia's underwater cultural heritage. For the first time, this bill recognises human remains in addition to other articles found within shipwrecks or sunken aircraft. It enables protection of Australia's underwater cultural heritage located outside jurisdictional waters and broadens protection to sunken aircraft and other sites. The bill elevates the role of the public by recognising the need to promote awareness, understanding, appreciation and appropriate use of Australia's underwater cultural heritage. This bill, in conjunction with the associated Underwater Cultural Heritage (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2018, ensures that the discovery, protection and management of underwater culture heritage in Australia will be effective and proportionate. The bill modernises and strengthens the range of investigation and enforcement powers with a graduated approach to compliance, and it continues the highly successful delegated framework for day-to-day management.

The government is committed to protecting Australia's unique underwater cultural heritage. The approximately 7,500 historic shipwrecks, sunken aircraft and other underwater cultural heritage sites in Australian and Commonwealth waters are physical evidence of our past. The bill will support the continuing protection of the culture inheritance for future generations, and will position us to participate in the global community's response to threats to underwater cultural heritage. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.