Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that as an island nation, Australians have a deep affinity to our oceans and waterways and that the ocean shapes our climate and weather, provides us with natural resources, and is essential to our wellbeing;

(2) acknowledges that when our ocean is protected and sustainably managed, it has the potential to deliver significant economic and social benefits and that by 2025, ocean industries are projected to contribute around $100 billion each year to our economy;

(3) further notes that the 2020-21 Budget contained a new Oceans Package made up of:

(a) $14.8 million to tackle the marine impacts of ghost nets and plastic litter;

(b) $28.3 million to enhance management of Australian marine parks;

(c) $20 million through the Relief and Recovery Fund to re-establish native oyster reefs at 11 sites across the country; and

(d) $4.2 million for international blue carbon and rainforest partnerships; and

(4) commends the Government for reaffirming Australia's status as a global leader on ocean management.

Growing up on an island state, part of a great island nation, I understand how important it is to ensure our oceans are protected and sustainably managed. I'm proud of our government's track record in protecting our oceans and marine system. In fact, former Prime Minister John Howard created the world's first oceans policy, in 1998, and it was a coalition government that established one of the world's largest representative networks of protected marine parks. Just last year, our budget included an oceans package of $67.4 million being invested to protect our oceans and marine ecosystem is. This includes $14.8 million to tackle the marine impacts of ghost nets and plastic litter throughout the waters of northern Australia. Additionally with a marine park network of 3.3 million square kilometres, larger than the nation of Argentina, $28 million will be spent to enhance the management of our marine parks. And, building on Australia's international leadership in this space, $4.2 million will be invested for international blue carbon and rainforest partnerships that protect coastal and rainforest ecosystem.

We are also committed to not only preserving and protecting our marine ecosystem but also achieving a sustainable ocean economy. When our ocean is protected and sustainably managed it has the potential to deliver significant economic and social benefits. As we look to recover from COVID-19, a healthy and sustainably managed ocean can bring economic relief and make our regional communities stronger. There is no better example of this than the Blue Economy Cooperative Research Centre located in Northern Tasmania. The Blue Economy CRC is a 10-year research project with $329 million in funding, including $70 million in federal government funding. It is led by the University of Tasmania, bringing together expertise in seafood, renewable energy and offshore engineering to transform our country's blue economy.

The CRC builds on the strength of Tasmania and our world-class university, combined with collaboration between 45 national and international partners—including the University of Cork in Ireland, the National University of Singapore, Climate-KIC Australia, Tassal, ACS Australia and the CSIRO—to bring together blue-sky thinking and practical research to address the critical question of how can we sustainably feed and power ourselves from the world's oceans.

Over the project term, the CRC will support a research community of around 50 PhD students and 50 postdoctoral research fellows throughout the state. The first five years of the program, currently underway, is focusing on the development and testing of new offshore aquaculture and renewable energy technologies, which will then be brought together on a single platform to demonstrate the economic and environmental benefits of co-location. Over 17 projects have been completed so far, with a further nine currently underway.

It's important to note that the ocean supports almost 400,000 jobs in Australia and by 2025 we expect ocean industries to contribute $100 billion to our national life every single year. When we protect our ocean, we protect both our environment and our economic growth. That's why last night's budget included an additional $100 million for the Oceans Leadership Package, which will build on our strong position as leaders and custodians of a great marine nation. This significant investment includes $39.9 million to go towards reinforcing Australia's position as a world leader in marine park management, $11.6 million to be delivered over two years to incorporate sea country in Indigenous protected areas in nine locations to provide Indigenous communities with real economic and employment opportunities as well as contribute to the conservation of environmental and cultural values within these marine areas and $30.6 million of investment in practical action to restore and account for blue-carbon ecosystems. This will improve the health of coastal environments in Australia and around the region and export Australia's internationally recognised expertise in ocean accounting while boosting regional employment and enabling us to account for the value of these habitats as blue-carbon repositories. There is $18 million to protect marine species, improve fisheries' sustainability through reducing biocatch, and stimulate investment in our oceans.

It is our government that has led the way in protecting the ocean and our ocean based industries, and we can be proud of our established record as a global leader on ocean management.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Phillip Thompson (Herbert, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bass for bringing this motion. It's true that we desperately need to do a much better job of protecting our oceans; like our ecosystems on land, our marine environment has suffered significant harm and is under enormous pressure. In fact, it may be that the direct effect of climate change has already been more profound for our oceans, which have absorbed more than 90 per cent of the additional heat caused by human activity. As a shock absorber, however, the oceans have reached their limit, and a great deal of damage has already been done. The devastating forest or bushfires we've seen in Australia and California and in the Amazon have their scorching corollary below the surface in the coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef and the heatwaves that have wiped out great submarine fields of seagrass and kelp in Western Australia and Tasmania. For all these reasons, it's utterly wrong for us to think that oceans worldwide are in good shape, and we shouldn't kid ourselves that Australia's oceans are a particular exception. The truth is our ocean can't absorb much more human produced carbon dioxide. It's getting hotter and more acidic. It's been shot through with billions of particles of microplastic. Marine ecosystems have been disrupted, and marine species are getting pushed closer to the edge of extinction. Just last week it was reported that Australia's only endemic species of sea lion has decreased 60 per cent in the last few decades.

All those pressures—climate change, ocean plastic, harmful fishing practices—have been neglected by this Liberal government, and it's utterly wrong and quite ridiculous for anyone to claim that this third-term Liberal government has looked after our oceans or done much to show leadership on the global stage. This is a Liberal government that began eight years ago by ripping holes in Labor's national network of marine protected areas, a government that introduced a threatened species strategy which is badly off-track, which is late and which in any case never included a single marine species. It is a government that only woke up to the waste crisis when plastic stockpiles caught on fire and other countries refused to accept our low-grade, contaminated mixed plastic. It is a Liberal government that's cut funds to the CSIRO yet wasted funds on the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. It tells you everything you need to know about this government that its signature manoeuvre in the marine protection space was to give $450 million to friends in the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. That was money that was never asked for, funding that had no clear structural purpose to guide it, at a time when the reef has been hammered by bleaching events in five years.

Now, in this budget, there is belatedly some funding for oceans. Any support is welcome, especially with respect to strengthening the marine parks network that this government began savagely cutting eight years ago. But, whenever we see a flashy announcement from this government, we need to remember its record on delivery. In 2019, they announced $15 million for the Pacific Ocean Litter Project to tackle plastic pollution in our region, yet we discover through Senate estimates that less than $1 million has been applied since that time, and none of that has been delivered in practical waste reduction measures.

In any consideration of the government's environmental record, the biggest glitch has to be its awful failure to reform the EPBC Act in line with the recommendations of the independent reviewer, whose foundation assessment is that Australia's environment is in poor shape, with a trajectory of further decline. The reviewer has provided a sensible recipe for reform: introduce clear and in some cases uncompromising national standards, and put in place an independent watchdog with real clout. Mr Samuel even provided a draft set of standards, including a set specifically for marine protection. But the government has so far totally ignored that work. It's thrown all that work, consultation and expertise on the floor. It's said there will be no independent compliance watchdog and has since backtracked only as far as creating a commissioner with no scope to examine individual environmental protection matters and no real independence, even though the ANAO found that 79 per cent of EPBC decisions involved failures of compliance. The government's proposed standards have completely ignored those put forward by Mr Samuel. They are the same ineffective standards that currently exist under the same failed EPBC protection framework that we have presently.

Australians understand the literally vital importance of healthy oceans for us and for our fellow human beings around the planet. Our oceans produce the oxygen we breathe, they regulate our climate, they provide seafood that can be sustainably fished, and they sustain an incredible range of biodiversity that we have a duty to maintain and to protect. This government has weakened ocean protection, failed to improve the position of endangered marine species, squibbed the opportunity to reform the EPBC Act, refused to take climate change seriously, and been complacent about the waste crisis that sees tonnes of plastic going into our waterways and, ultimately, the sea. (Time expired)

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker Wallace, it's lovely to see you in the chair this afternoon, and it's a great pleasure to be able to speak on this important motion. When we think about the principles of liberalism that motivate me and our party, there are many things. We believe in people's freedom to be able to pursue their own lives and opportunities and in empowering individual citizens to be able to live out the fullness of their success; we believe in responsibility to each other and our sense of mutualism to make sure that we can live out our lives understanding our obligation to each other; and, critically, we also believe in stewardship of our natural environment to make sure that we pass on to future generations as good an environment as we inherited, if not better.

One of the great legacies of economic development and environmental conservation in this country is that, because we are a prosperous nation, we're able not just to afford environmental conservation protection but actually to go back and undo the damage of generations past. I would have thought that's something that we should be enormously proud of, and it's a core part of the focus of the Morrison government and its environmental policies in all sorts of areas.

In particular, today we're talking about conservation of our marine ecosystems. This is incredibly important to me. Deputy Speaker Wallace, I know you used to live in the Goldstein electorate. You've got that wry smile on your face. You know it to be true, even though you try and hide it in your bunker on the Sunshine Coast. When you lived in Goldstein, you knew—living in a suburb near the one where I live—that the beauty of the Goldstein electorate is that it is hugged by Port Phillip. Port Phillip is our greatest local natural asset. It includes, of course, a huge amount of ecosystems and biodiversity and, of course, it is also part of the recreational retreat that makes us the most livable community in the country—even if some people abandon us from time to time, Deputy Speaker!

Part of that is having the Ricketts Point Marine Sanctuary. The Ricketts Point Marine Sanctuary is a local ecosystem which provides for lots of different aquaculture and diversity within our community, which enables people to go and see the full benefits of our local waterways. One of the things that we've done, as a local community, is focus on what it is we need to do to address the issues of pollution and run-off into Port Phillip, which has an impact on our local beaches. Late last year, we held a water forum—in fact, working cooperatively with the member for Macnamara, to his credit. He and I share responsibility for Elsternwick Park and Elster Creek, which flows into the Elwood canal, which becomes the pathway for the run-off that leads to environmental pollution in Port Phillip. We held a water forum to bring together the interest groups to look at what we need to do to fix the issues in environmental pollution and run-off into Port Phillip so that we have a healthier local environment. That's what we're doing at the local level, with a sense of stewardship and responsibility to the community that I love.

As part of the broader agenda, we're also focusing on protecting the Great Barrier Reef. I heard the earlier derisive comments by the Labor members who spoke about the fact that we've committed $450 million to the conservation of the Great Barrier Reef. I'm immensely proud that we've done that. In comparison, the previous Labor government did not prioritise the conservation of the Great Barrier Reef and were not mindful of the impact on future generations being able to enjoy our beautiful marine parks. We've made it a pillar and a focus of what we're doing. We've done so because we understand the contribution it makes to our tourist industry, though that isn't the sole reason. We understand what it does to our marine ecosystems and to the health and wellbeing of the surrounding territories, and we understand our obligation and responsibility, not just to the Australian continent and the Australian people but to the global community, to take care of our natural environment. But we also understand that it is critically important to take care of the Great Barrier Reef because it is a marine park that has so much going for it, and we want to celebrate its success. So, yes, we absolutely have committed $450 million towards its conservation, because we have had bleaching events and we want to address that and repair the damage that's been done in the past.

Of course, that's part of a long legacy of initiatives by the Liberal and National parties focusing on environmental stewardship. We have reduced pollution, and in fact John Howard's government was the first government to create an oceans policy, in 1998. It's consistent— (Time expired)

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Our environment and our livelihoods depend upon a clean ocean. Indeed, this government predicts Australia's ocean industry will contribute approximately $100 billion to the economy each year by 2025, supporting close to 400,000 jobs. My electorate of Mayo fronts some of the most prime marine real estate in Australia. Ecotourism and fishing contribute significantly to our regional economy, from dolphin tours on Kangaroo Island to fishing charters. Our seaside towns are also popular tourism destinations, and, with COVID restrictions driving domestic travel, our coastal communities are certainly bouncing back. So it was pleasing to see support for our marine environment in this week's budget, with a $100 million package for ocean protection. The funding will go towards ocean management methods and to draw carbon out of the atmosphere using seagrass, salt marshes and mangroves.

Blue carbon is a natural phenomenon of carbon capture and storage. As an island nation, blue carbon offers enormous scope for addressing our emissions. Our seagrass meadows and mangroves retain carbon at rates of up to four times greater than land based forests. Australia has millions of hectares of these ecosystems. As one of the co-chairs of the Parliamentary Friends of Climate Action, I'm keen to raise awareness with respect to blue carbon, and I'm hosting a friends event in August, inviting a bright young woman from my electorate, Michaela Schwartz, to come along and speak. Michaela is an expert in blue carbon and seagrasses.

I note the marine protection package also includes $20 million to re-establish native oyster reefs at 11 sites across the nation. A few of these reefs are in South Australia, and one of them is in my electorate, on Kangaroo Island. The environmental and economic benefits of restoring these reefs are well documented. Nature Conservancy Australia estimates that, for every $1 million invested, oyster reef restoration creates 8.5 full-time-equivalent positions. Besides direct construction job opportunities, these reefs provide significant benefits to local commercial and recreational fishers and they enhance our regional tourism. They also provide substantial environmental benefits, providing hotspot hatcheries for fish and other marine animals, as well as water-cleaning services.

Kangaroo Island has been doing it tough with the bushfires and COVID-19, and I look forward to following up the reef restoration project during my trips to the island. The budget's ocean package includes nearly $40 million for new marine park partnerships. Marine parks are a critical national resource, not just for conservation purposes but also for the sustainability of fishing stocks and the sustainability of all economic activity that relies on the ocean.

As such, one marine park that my community want to see protected permanently is the Great Australian Bight. I share that desire and, from the moment I first put up my hand to be a candidate—nearly six years ago—I've joined my community to fight for the Bight and advocate for National Heritage listing for this pristine area. The Bight is an area of high conservation value. It is also an area of deep water. It is very remote and prone to big storms. It is a place where it is clearly unsafe to conduct deep-sea drilling, because of the risks of catastrophe. Independent modelling has indicated that a major oil spill could spread across our coast as far as the north coast of Tasmania out to New Zealand in the east and to Esperance in the west. There is too much to lose, whether you're a professional fisher or whether you sell fish and chips at the local store on our coastline.

Three companies have now abandoned plans to conduct deep-sea drilling in the Bight, but, unless there is protection, we always know that there's the threat of another one coming along. I just want to note that this Saturday a small group of community members have decided to organise a Hands Across the Sand event at Port Noarlunga beach for the international day of action on 15 May. They're calling for permanent protection for the Great Australian Bight. This is something our whole community really does want. Sadly, I've got a prior commitment this Saturday, but I wish them well. I wish Freya, Maddie, Janet, Sophie and Cristel all the best for this event. I want to give them my assurance that Centre Alliance will do all we can to make sure that we can have protection of the Great Australian Bight—a truly pristine wonderland. It deserves World Heritage protection.

Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I really want to thank my good friend the member for Bass, who's a wonderful representative in this place for her electorate, for providing the opportunity to speak on what is a terribly important motion to highlight the Morrison government's commitment to our oceans and marine ecosystems and, of course, to the wonderful Great Barrier Reef.

Mr Deputy Speaker Wallace, Australia is home to some of the world's most unique and beautiful oceans, as you know in your wonderful electorate. And, of course, there are some really unique marine ecosystems. In my home state of Queensland, and yours, there exists the unique Great Barrier Reef, one of the world's seven natural wonders. It attracts tourists from all over the globe to witness that incredible marine environment.

The Morrison government is committed, of course, to protecting and preserving our unique oceans and marine ecosystems, which is why the Prime Minister has committed to sustainably manage 100 per cent of the ocean within our national jurisdiction by 2025—a significant milestone. Unlike those opposite, the coalition government ensured the viability of Australia's oceans and reefs by implementing the world's first ocean policy in 1998. That's an achievement of a coalition government. It is often coalition governments that lead the way in practical environmental protection, as opposed to the virtue-signalling of the Labor members opposite. We continue to provide increased funding to conserve these unique marine ecosystems. Not surprisingly, it was also the coalition government who delivered the vital landmark scheme to enhance the management of our marine parks and guarantee their economic viability.

We've taken the initiative in this critical space, and remain a world leader in rainforest partnerships that protect our coastal and rainforest ecosystems. Last night's budget builds on our $67.4 million investment in our ocean and marine ecosystems. This year's budget includes an additional $100 million to protect marine ecosystems and reinforce Australia's position as a world leader in marine park management. Importantly, this funding also invests in practical environmental action to restore and account for our blue carbon ecosystems. This will improve the health of coastal environments while creating jobs and boosting regional employment.

As our economy recovers from COVID-19 it is critical that we ensure that our unique oceans remain healthy and sustainable, and our government recognises the economic benefits that sustainably managed oceans and ocean environments can bring particularly to regional communities. These measures add to our commitment to the Great Barrier Reef and constitute a $1.9 billion investment to implement our Reef 2050 plan. This vital marine plan will ensure adequate federal funding to continue to improve water quality, manage crown-of-thorns starfish and reduce marine debris and pollution and will be an ambitious, world-leading reef restoration and adaption program. It's an unprecedented investment in our reef and goes above and beyond the meagre commitments made by Labor when they were last in government.

Our planet's oceans and climate are intrinsically linked. We know this. The government is committed to investing record funding in renewable energy to reduce our emissions and build healthier oceans. Our investments will guarantee the longevity of our nation's unique oceans and marine ecosystems. Protecting our oceans means protecting our environment and our nation's economic growth by supporting existing ocean industry jobs. The Morrison government's investments will also create new jobs in unique and innovative marine and environmental sectors.

I am passionate about protecting our local unique environment in my electorate of Ryan as well, and we have many, many volunteers who do a tremendous job in doing just that. Although we don't have many ocean environments, we do of course have some wonderful creek ecosystems that contribute to our unique environment. Our creek catchment groups do wonderful work as volunteers, with the support of the federal government, to help with revegetation and to support our local flora and fauna. Since the end of 2019 I've secured over $80,000 worth of environmental grants to assist these local community groups and volunteers to continue the vital work that they do to preserve our natural area. A lot of work is done in conjunction with the Brisbane City Council, and I really want to acknowledge them and their contribution—Australia's first carbon-neutral council—and to thank local organisations in my electorate, such as the Moggill Creek catchment management group, who have benefited from the federal funding and understand firsthand the fragility of local ecosystems and how to care for our unique environment.

It is the coalition government who understands the importance of protecting Australia's oceans and ecosystems. It is our plan that continues to invest in our oceans and reefs to improve our marine ecosystems, reduce our emissions and support regional and remote communities, and we continued to do that in the budget last night. (Time expired)

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Republic) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This motion on ocean management is a joke, isn't it? I mean, Member for Macarthur, this motion can't be serious. This motion is congratulating the Morrison government for its management of our oceans and waterways! Well, they've done the exact opposite. Their record speaks for itself. Australia, under the previous Labor government, had the largest network of marine reserves in the world. Then, what did the Turnbull government do? They cut it in half. This government took the world's largest network of marine reserves—which are specifically dedicated to protecting the marine environment, to nurturing it to ensure that it grows—and what did they do? They cut it in half. How can you say you're protecting the marine network and our oceans when you cut marine reserves and conservation areas in half?

Not only did they do that; they then gave supertrawlers access to the Coral Sea to fish as much as they want—in one of the most fragile and delicate marine environments on our coastline. They cut back the marine reserve and then they said to the supertrawlers, 'Off you go!' And you know what those supertrawlers do: they suck up everything. They don't discriminate. They just chuck their nets out and haul everything in. And you guys think you're protecting our marine network! It's an absolute joke.

Then of course we've got the much-vaunted 2019 election promise to tackle plastic pollution in our oceans. Well, didn't that go well! We've seen an explosion in the amount of plastic off the coastline in our rivers in Australia, and nothing came of the 2019 election promise. Then, of course, we had the famous—the infamous—Great Barrier Reef $400 million funding given to an organisation that didn't even ask for it and, when they got the money, didn't know what to do with it. And you guys say that you're better at protecting our marine reserves! Oh my God!

But it gets better, because now we have this thing called PEP 11, petroleum export permit 11, an idea which this government is actually entertaining. PEP 11 will grant, believe it or not, oil and gas rigs off the coast of New South Wales, from Sydney all the way up to Nelson Bay. In some of our most precious marine environments, which literally tens of thousands of jobs in New South Wales rely on for tourism, for fishing and for hospitality, this government is entertaining allowing a company, a multinational company, to drill for oil and gas—five kilometres off the coast. And the government say that they are better at marine and ocean conservation! Even the New South Wales deputy premier, John Barilaro, has said this is a crazy idea. But do you think that the minister for resources has rejected it? Of course not. He's actually entertaining the idea. All the coastal communities up and down that area are opposed to it, and Labor has joined those coastal communities in calling on the minister to reject this ridiculous proposal, but this minister is still entertaining it.

In the electorate that I represent, Botany Bay is one of the most precious marine environments on the coast of New South Wales, and we all know how historically important Botany Bay is to Australia. But the New South Wales Liberal government is actively proposing to build a massive cruise ship terminal on the last remaining plot of beach on the northern side of Botany Bay. On the north side of Botany Bay, you've got Sydney Airport, you've got the port, you've got the oil refinery processors, you've got the breakwall and then there's a little bit of beach that's left, called Yarra Bay, and guess what the New South Wales government want to do? They want to build a cruise ship terminal there. 'Bugger that! We'll get rid of the rest of the sand and ocean there and we'll build a cruise ship terminal.'

It's actually a protected area for seagrass. The seagrass along Botany Bay was destroyed in the last dredging event, to build the third runway and expand the port. It has just started to come back. The University of New South Wales has had this seagrass sanctuary built; it has just started to come back. What do you reckon building a cruise ship terminal and dredging the bay would do to that? The weedy sea dragon and the pygmy pipehorse, which are protected species—and their sanctuaries—will be gone, not to mention the whales, the turtles, the fairy penguins and the seal colonies that exist around that area.

And they say that they are better on ocean conservation! It is an absolute joke when you look at their record—cutting back marine reserves, Great Barrier Reef management, PEP 11 and a cruise ship terminal at Yarra Bay. This motion is nothing more than a joke.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.