Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

As I said, it has been a very, very long time since the Labor Party took an interest in environmental issues. They certainly take an interest in building industrial facilities on the Gippsland coast—they are very keen to build industrial facilities around the coast—but it has been a long time since they took an interest in an environmental issue.

I am always very happy to receive questions about the Great Barrier Reef, because, when you compare the coalition government’s record on protecting the Great Barrier Reef with what that mob did in their time, and what they proposed under their existing Latham-Beazley policy on the Great Barrier Reef, you see a phenomenal contrast between the Labor Party and the record of the Howard government on protecting one of the great Australian icons of the environment, the Great Barrier Reef—a distinguished record of environmental protection for the Great Barrier Reef going back to the years of Malcolm Fraser, who established the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and nominated it for the World Heritage List.

There is a stark contrast between the Labor Party and the coalition, which only two years ago put in place a policy of increasing the protection for the reef from the four per cent of the reef area that was protected under the previous Labor regime. As a result of the coalition’s policies we have improved the protection of the reef, the no-take zones and the marine protected areas to 34 per cent of the reef, a massive achievement.