Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

It's time for the Commonwealth and the state of South Australia to seriously and urgently pursue World Heritage listing for the Great Australian Bight. No substantive action has been taken by the government since 1998 when the great Liberal warrior for the environment Robert Hill declared the second largest marine park. We need to move faster. At the time, he said:

The Great Australian Bight is a sensitive breeding and calving ground for the Southern Right Whale and provides habitat for the Australian Sea Lion and bottom dwelling plants and animals such as sponges, marine algae, sea cucumbers and delicate lace corals.

It's also a place that defines beauty. He also said that, with a multiple use approach, there is no reason why sustainably managed fisheries, for example, cannot coexist in an area which also has conservation of biodiversity as its major objective. A World Heritage listing will not prevent a sustainable fishing industry. What will and is threatening the tuna industry is the continued seismic testing for drilling at scale. There's a forming scientific view that such testing is disrupting the migration of tuna and thus affecting their breeding cycle. Seismic testing at scale has to be curtailed.

I recently travelled to Streaky Bay and the surrounding districts. I met with families dedicated to protecting the bight. I was accompanied by Josh Kirkman, the CEO of Surfers for Climate. We share a passion for protecting our oceans and keeping them healthy. All those I met had been brought together by resisting the development of the petroleum industry in the bight. Even today, we still live with the possibility of drilling in the bight. I opposed it when I was in state parliament; I oppose drilling today. The risks are too great for such an important and critical part of our planet. We need the protection now for the bight.

We need to stop viewing our natural world as a resource to exploit. Exploitation really means the destruction of all our beautiful inheritance to feed our avarice, for our society at present seeks endless growth through unconstrained consumption. We need to conserve the planet to sustain us. World Heritage protection for the Great Australian Bight is an important step on that journey where we can reconcile with mother Earth. I encourage all the governments—South Australian, Western Australian and the Commonwealth—to move.