James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I find myself in the slightly unusual position of being in the centre or the middle of this debate. But perhaps that is something that we will all have to start to get used to in this wonderful new Senate that we have. I find myself disagreeing with the alarmist language used by Senator Waters. I was particularly caught by the phrase in her speech just then, 'in the time that we have got left before we cook this planet'. I am a bit more optimistic than Senator Waters on that; I do not think we are on the way to cooking our planet, and I think we have got quite a bit of time left—I certainly hope we do. On the other hand, the One Nation senators, including Senator Roberts, probably do not give due weight to the threat that the reef faces. The Turnbull government certainly acknowledges that there has been damage done in recent years to the reef. We also acknowledge that climate change and warming water is a factor in that damage. We are absolutely keen to address that damage, to limit it and to help restore the health of the reef, and we have significant programs which are designed to address that, which I will come to in a minute.

I should commend our One Nation colleagues for their direct action initiative of going to the healthy parts of the reef to demonstrate that the reef is still open for business, that it is still a great tourist destination, and that international visitors who might have seen negative headlines about the reef should not be discouraged from visiting. I took it to be an audition for the next Tourism Australia advertising campaign. I think the One Nation senators in their wetsuits would make quite a spectacular advertisement and attract international visitors.

As Senator Roberts said, there have been some exaggerations in this debate. There have been some instances where people have been a bit inflammatory with their language, where people have gone over the top and been fatalistic about the health of the reef when they should not be and when there is good reason to believe that it will recover and is on the way to recovering from the damage that has been done, and that the government is taking the necessary steps to achieve that. Senator Roberts referred to the work of Professor Ridd at James Cook University, and I think his work is certainly worth paying attention to, as is the work of his former colleague the late Professor Bob Carter, also at James Cook University—someone who I was very privileged to know in my professional life before coming here, someone who was very passionate about the health of the reef. Because he was so passionate about the health of the reef, he found it very frustrating when people would be unnecessarily pessimistic and overly dramatic about its future.

There is another perspective that I want to highlight in this debate before I get to the government's initiatives in this area, and that is comments made in a recent media article—and I apologise in advance if I am mispronouncing his surname; I am sure Senator Macdonald will correct me if I get it wrong—by the chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Russell—