Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (Senator Conroy) to a question without notice asked by Senator Waters today relating to the Great Barrier Reef.

The minister attempted to answer me, although the pre-written response on his computer screen did not actually address the question that I had. He made some comments about the strategic assessment, and I am really pleased he raised those because there seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding in the government ranks about the real effect of this so-called comprehensive strategic assessment of the reef. It actually is not comprehensive at all and will ultimately result in accrediting state laws, meaning Premier Newman will be in charge. This is the guy who has described World Heritage as a problem for the Queensland coast rather than acknowledging the fact that it brings in $5.1 billion in tourist revenue and employs 54,000 people.

So I was a bit bemused that Senator Conroy rejected the premise of my question when I asked him whether or not the government were finally going to strengthen this so-called comprehensive strategic assessment to make sure that it can apply to development applications that are currently on foot. Of course, it will not, making it a completely toothless tiger and making a mockery of the term 'comprehensive'. So I would be pleased if Senator Conroy could take that up with Minister Burke, because it really goes to the heart of whether, in response to UNESCO's extreme concerns and the very strong decision that the World Heritage Committee are voting on tomorrow night, the government is properly responding. This is potentially an international embarrassment in the making. This is perhaps one of the strongest draft decisions that we have seen from the World Heritage Committee. It says that we are on track for World Heritage in danger with our reef in eight months if we do not turn around current activities. That would put us in the ranks of Afghanistan, Yemen and the Congo. We are a rich country and I think we can do a little bit better with our World Heritage than those war-torn nations. So I am hoping that Minister Burke and Senator Conroy can confer and strengthen this strategic assessment, make sure that it is genuinely comprehensive and, for a start, make sure that it can actually apply to the current port expansions that are on the books—all seven of them—in our precious Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, with all of the dredging, dumping and shipping that they will entail, not to mention all the climate impacts from the coal and coal seam gas that those ships will ship out to the world. I am really pleased that the chamber was given some mirth about this issue. I just hope it does indeed focus our attention on how important the reef is to our economy and to the beautiful biodiversity that gives Queenslanders and Australians such joy.

I also asked the minister about Clive Palmer's proposal to dump millions of litres of contaminated water into the Great Barrier Reef. It seems remarkable that, just because the man has a few dollars, he thinks he can treat the reef like his own personal rubbish dump. I would hope that the law is a little bit stronger than that, and I would certainly hope that, despite Clive Palmer being the LNP's biggest donor, Premier Newman can see the ridiculousness of Clive Palmer allowing his tailings dams to fill up and then attempting to exploit a loophole that would allow him to dump that contaminated water when there is danger to human safety because the tailings dams are going to overtop. I think it is a real abuse of process that Clive Palmer has been able to mismanage his nickel refinery in the seven years since he built a waste water treatment plant that was supposedly meant to avoid this situation—and clearly has failed—and now he is going to try and abuse that loophole because the tailings dam might collapse.

I was a bit alarmed to hear Minister Tony Burke say that he thought somehow a slower release of these millions of litres of contaminated water might be all right. I do not think it will be. I am very pleased that GBRMPA has so far refused Clive Palmer's urgings, despite the fact that Mr Palmer has sat down with them several times this week. You just cannot put nitrogen and heavy metals into pristine World Heritage Area Great Barrier Reef waters. I am afraid the two just do not mix. Mr Palmer is not short of a buck. I am certain that, with a little nous and some of the copious dollars that he has at his disposal, he can find somewhere else to put his contaminated waste water. Gee, he might even plan ahead so that we do not get into this situation again. Certainly that is the message for both Premier Newman and Minister Burke: let us make sure, with the conditions that we place on these sorts of developments, that this will not happen again and that tailings dams and storage facilities are big enough to cope with a little bit of rainfall in North Queensland, because, hey, it is going to keep on happening, particularly with climate change. I am pleased that the chamber has turned its mind to the Great Barrier Reef and I really hope that the government strengthens the strategic assessment and we can protect the reef's World Heritage values.

Question agreed to.