Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I again point out to Senator Waters that when it comes to decisive climate action, this government plays its role in making commitments on behalf of the nation as one nation amongst many in the world. Our commitments and our actions are those of just one country. In relation to climate action, Australia cannot address this issue in isolation; we do it in partnership, through the Paris agreement. We will meet the targets that we've made in the Paris agreement, which are significant targets in terms of reduction by between 26 per cent and 28 per cent in relation to Australia emissions targets.

In relation to protecting the reef, what we do is we invest record sums to build up the reef's resilience. We address issues in addition to those climate change issues that we work on globally, through the Paris agreement, and we work instead on the resilience issues around matters such as soil run-off and emissions that you get in other ways in terms of the nutrients that flow into the reef that can be of harm. Addressing those helps increase its resilience to a range of threats, including those related to climate change. (Time expired)