Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make my contribution to my private senator's bill: the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Bioregional Plans) Bill 2011. This is a very simple piece of legislation. It does one thing. It gives the parliament the opportunity to have oversight over the declaration of marine protected areas. It is a very simple piece of legislation.

We have just heard from the Greens what we continuously hear from the Greens—a whole heap of mind-reading. I love it that the Greens think that they know what we are thinking. They attribute thoughts to us. They attribute motives to us. They misrepresent what we say and what we think, even though I do not think they really do know what we think. We have just seen that again today. The representation from the Greens is that the coalition does not believe in marine protected areas. That is patently not true. If you look at our record with respect to marine protected areas, you will see that the areas we implemented in 2006 in the south-east around Tasmania, which is our home state, Senator Whish-Wilson—