Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Wet Tropics Management Authority report for 2008-09. I just want to alert senators to a problem that is happening in the areas of the wet tropics and the Great Barrier Reef. Funding for MTSRF—the Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility based in Cairns—was put in place to ensure that there was good science and good investigation of issues surrounding tropical science. That principally comes down to the wet tropics, which is the purview of the Wet Tropics Management Authority; and the Great Barrier Reef, which is looked at by any number of science institutions including the Australian Institute of Marine Science, James Cook University, CSIRO, and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. MTSRF—I will use the acronym—was set up by the Howard government with approximately $40 million out of the approximately $80 million in the SRF program.

The program finishes some time later this year. We have raised at estimates the question of why it was taking the government so long to indicate that the program would continue to be funded—because it is all about funding these scientific research organisations that Senator Carr loves to joke about, as he did in the last question at question time. But it is a very serious matter. A lot of scientists working on tropical science in the rainforests, on the reef and in Indigenous affairs, are funded by MTSRF. They have a very capable and good organisation based in Cairns but they work with scientists investigating the barrier reef and the wet tropics rainforests.

Unfortunately, Mr Garret, because he seems to be distracted by other things—I cannot imagine what they are!—seems to have completely dropped the ball on the environment aspects of his department. I am getting complaints from group after group that have been promised money by the environment department, that their cheques are not arriving in the mail. I have been told that there are groups which for years—usually starting off during the Howard government—have had contracts with the environment department but which are not having the contracts processed because the department is poorly led at a ministerial level.

The department seems to be struggling at an administrative level and, as I understand it, staff in the department are not replaced when they leave. There seems to be a diminution in the environment department under the Rudd Labor government. This is a very serious issue for all of us who are concerned about Australia’s environment—and I know that that includes all of us on this side of the chamber. What is happening to MTSRF is a classic example. Money that was previously made available for scientific research in northern Australia is not there in the same quantity any more. That means that scientists who have moved to the north to do this great scientific work now have to leave because they are not certain of their future. Of course, they have to put bread and butter on the table; they have to consider their families’ welfare.

A lot of the good scientific work that was done during the 11 years of the Howard government is starting to dissipate. It is a major concern—one that I would hope that Senator Carr, for all his bluff and bluster and Marxist-Leninist views, could get stuck into. He could use some of that bluff and bluster on Mr Garrett and get some things done, because the environment is genuinely suffering since Mr Garrett has been in charge of the portfolio. It is a disgrace and it is becoming more and more obvious as each hour of every day passes.

Question agreed to.