Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I concur with the remarks of Senator Bartlett in relation to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. It is a very professional organisation and has that capacity, I suggest, because of the great work that the CEO and chairman of the board, Virginia Chadwick, puts into the management and direction of the marine park. John Tanzer, the executive director, is the head of the authority beneath Virginia Chadwick, and both of them do a fabulous job of looking after one of the eight wonders of the world, a reef area and marine park that brings billions of dollars to Australia in tourism and in other ways each year.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is a multiuse park. It is not just locked away and preserved; it is used by fishermen, it is used by the tourism industry and it is used by the fishing industry. With all of those uses I think the authority has demonstrated that you can have multiple users in a marine park and still protect the very sensitive ecosystem and the very sensitive conservation and environmental outcomes for the Barrier Reef and the marine park surrounding it.

The authority was involved in some controversy at the time of rezoning, when the protected areas went up from less than about five per cent to what was going to be around 22 per cent but ended up at 33 per cent. It was a great environmental outcome, but in doing that it did cause a deal of financial hurt to the fishing industry and the fishermen were naturally very upset with it. There was, I have to say, even from my own point of view, some inflexibility in some of the officers of the authority. Had they drawn the boundaries in a slightly different way, they could have got as good an environmental outcome without causing the damage that they did to the fishing industry at the time. But by and large the marine park—based in my hometown, or the place where I have my electorate office, of Townsville—is a great asset to Australia and certainly to the community.

Senator Bartlett is right: some people were saying we should shut it down and bring it under the direct control of the Minister for the Environment and Heritage. They think that is a good idea when we have a good minister there, but I always warn those people that one day—it will be a long way away, but one day—we will have a Labor minister back, and I would hate to be in a situation where a Labor minister was directing the marine park.

Debate (on motion by Senator McLucas) adjourned.