Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The problem here is that the Senate is being asked to tick off on a process of which it has no further control. We as legislators have to be very clear about this. If you are going to have ecologically sustainable processes, then you should direct that. But it is not in the legislation. Senator Milne proposed amendments that say, ‘We will put it into the object of the legislation so it is stated,’ and the government says no, and the opposition backs that. It is just a farce—and we all know it. You know it; we know it.

Sonar is meant to send soundwaves deep into the crust of the earth, both horizontally and vertically, to see whether there is oil, gas or other minerals. We are not talking about banging paper bags; we are talking about massive sound that penetrates the earth’s surface and spreads rapidly through water as well. The chances of some multinational oil company forgoing sonar testing until the scientific evidence is in about the damage we know it occasions is zero. I know that because I appealed a number of times in this chamber to a past Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Hill, to stop this process where it impacts on marine national parks in Australia. I appealed to the minister to stop it until there was a study of the seabed which comes to an understanding of the impact of such massive explosions on the ecosystem. That never happened.

Here we are being asked to tick off on this happening in marine protected areas. Well, they are not marine protected areas, because they are not protected. You are asking us, the Greens, to say: ‘Oh, that’s okay. We’ll go along with this semantic deceit and have marine protected areas in Australia invaded by the corporate need for oil and gas from wherever they might be, and for other minerals coming down the line, not for ecological purposes but in the search of profitability.’ You are asking us to believe that some unknown processes with some unknown people under some guidelines which are not written into this legislation are going to protect us from corporations breaching your definition of ecologically sustainable processes. It has not happened in the past; it is not happening now; it is not going to happen in the future. The very fact that you know that—I am speaking through you, Chair—and that the Labor Party knows it as well comes from the fact that the Labor Party is going to join the Liberal and National parties in voting down this very sensible set of amendments from Senator Milne. The amendments say, ‘Let’s get the objects straight; let’s be clear about what this legislation should do, and let’s include implementing ecological sustainability in that.’

‘Oh no,’ says the government, ‘we won’t do that.’ ‘Oh no,’ says the opposition, ‘we won’t support it either.’ And the minister says, ‘We won’t do it because there are several objects to this bill.’ Well, let us have them. Let us put the several objects in; it is not the first time in history that has happened. In fact, that is usual. It is very rare to get a bill in this place that deals with only one object. But the government says, ‘No, we don’t want to say upfront that there is any environmental consideration here.’ And do you know why? Because the oil companies do not want it. This is their legislation. This is 600 pages of open go for the oil companies, and this process is riddled with deceit.

You will not find any coverage of this in tomorrow’s press, because this is the state of environmental deceit under the Howard government. Ten years on, it is at its acme. As the world gets into greater and greater environmental trouble, we get greater and greater ignorance from the government. It is studied ignorance, and it is exemplified here by the government and the opposition, for goodness sake, arguing—as best they can; there is very little argument from the opposition, which just wants to vote against it and get it over and done with—against a commonsense attempt through these Greens amendments to get some ecological probity into what the oil companies will be doing. If you are going to have a marine protected area, then protect it. But this is an absolute farce from the big parties here this morning.