Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The President has received a letter from Senator Siewert:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

'The Abbott Government's sacrificing of the climate and our Great Barrier Reef with its approval of the world's largest coal port at Abbot Point and the Arrow LNG plant in the Reef.'

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

I rise with great sadness to talk about the fate of the Great Barrier Reef after the so-called Minister for the Environment last night approved the world's biggest coal port at Abbot Point in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage area.

Mr Deputy President, you might think that coal ports do not really belong in a World Heritage area, and you would be right. But that did not stop their approval last night which, sadly, also included the fourth coal seam gas liquefaction plant on Curtis Island in Gladstone Harbour, which is now infamous for the terrible environmental destruction that it has faced following the biggest-ever dredging program in Gladstone Harbour that the reef had ever seen—of course, all for coal seam gas export. We know that coal seam gas is terrible news for our farmland and for our water, as well as for our reef, pockmarking our best food-producing land and contaminating and potentially reducing the groundwater levels of our aquifers in Queensland and right across the country.

Certainly, Mr Hunt's approval last night of these mega-fossil-fuel projects within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage area came as a shock to many. I think the testament to that is information that Australians last night were calling the minister's office until about midnight, protesting against his decision. It is clear that people actually want the reef protected. They acknowledge that it is one of the seven natural wonders of the world, that it is the biggest living organism that can be seen from space and that it is a biodiversity icon that the world has charged us with protecting. We should be proud of that and do everything we can to protect it.

I was very pleased when Australians last night told the Minister for the Environment that they do not want the reef sacrificed for the private profits of overseas mining companies—because that is who will benefit from these approval decisions. There will be spurious job claims made, as they often are and, naturally, they will not stack up in the numbers promised. That is just how it goes, sadly. But what we will see in terms of jobs is a real threat to the 63,000 people who need a healthy Great Barrier Reef for their jobs and for their livelihoods—be they fisher folk, tourism operators or small business folk up and down the coast.

I think it is a crime to prioritise the private profits of offshore mining companies ahead of the beauty of the reef and ahead of those 63,000 Australians who need that reef for their livelihoods and for their families' livelihoods. For all of the talk we hear about the economy and jobs, we have seen the true colours of this government—the Abbott government—that actually they care more about big mining companies than they do about Australian jobs, let alone the environment. Sadly, the latter was no news to anyone; but perhaps the former does come as news to people who might have thought about supporting the Abbott government.

Minister Hunt has been on the airwaves today trying to justify his decision. In fact, I thought it was quite amusing to hear Senator Cormann say that this world's biggest coal port is going to be good news for the reef, because it is going to fix water quality! I all but laughed. One of the conditions that Minister Hunt has imposed would require the dredging company to save 4½ million tonnes of sediment from entering the reef catchment. That is a noble aim, in fact an aim that has occupied the Commonwealth, the Queensland government and many hard-working Queensland farmers for the last five years, whereupon with all of that resourcing—200 million bucks—they have been able to save 200,000 cubic metres of sediment.

So now, miraculously and magically, Minister Hunt thinks that the dredging company can do better than the Commonwealth, better than the Queensland government and better than those farmers are already doing and save 20 times that amount of sediment just so it can have permission to dump that sludge offshore. It is not going to work; we all know it is not going to work. Sadly, we also know that nobody is going to be watching to make sure those conditions are complied with. I wish they were, but they have been sacked! The Campbell Newman government in Queensland has already sacked 220 workers from the environment department and we know that there have been unfortunate retrenchments already from the federal environment department, and we are expecting more under this government's pre-election promises and the Commission of Audit—headed of course by none other than the Business Council of Australia head, Tony Shepherd.

So where are those people who will actually enforce those conditions? They have lost their jobs, much like the tourism operators and the fishers on the reef who will lose their jobs when the reef gets put on the World Heritage endangered list because this government would rather see profits flow offshore to big mining companies than to actually act in the interests of the reef. It is a criminal shame. I have no confidence that the conditions can even be complied with, nor will anyone be paying any attention as to whether they are in terms of the regulators, because they have been sacked.

We had the World Heritage Committee come out and visit the reef the year before last and express extreme concern at the future of the reef. It warned the Australian government and the Queensland government about the effects of mass industrialisation of the reef. It gave the Australian government a very clear warning: if you do not stop this trajectory of destruction we will put the reef on that international list of shame—the list of World Heritage in danger—and downgrade its World Heritage status. Not many other developed countries—in fact, only one other—has a site on that list. That would be a huge blow to our tourism industry. We already know the employment figure, 63,000 people, and much of that is from tourism. People do not come to see World Heritage in danger. They do not come to see coal ports and they do not come to see coal ships. They do not come to see coral that has been smothered with sludge that has been dug up from World Heritage waters and dumped further out into World Heritage waters because it is cheaper for the big mining companies to do that than it is to treat that spoil and dispose of it safely on land. We know what a blow a World Heritage in danger listing would be to our tourism sector and we know it would recognise the peril that the reef is in. Why is this government courting that outcome? Why is it daring the UN to downgrade the reef's status to World Heritage in danger? That is what last night's approval really did. It was like a red carpet invitation to downgrade the reef's status—reckless in the extreme.

Sadly, it has come off the back of a pretty tough week for Australia's environment. On Monday in the House of Representatives this government sought to weaken threatened species protection under those same environmental laws by saying that it was all right for the Minister for the Environment to ignore expert advice on threatened species and the effects a particular project might have on those species—it was okay to ignore expert advice because it is science and they don't really like science that much. They don't need a minister for science and it is kind of inconvenient when science tells you that you shouldn't do the things you want to do, so let's just ignore it! They sought to change the law to allow the environment minister to ignore expert conservation advice. It passed the House of Representatives. I hope it does not pass the Senate.

They did not stop there. I have already spoken of last night's coal port and CSG liquefaction plant approvals, but also yesterday this government sought to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, that wonderfully successful renewable energy bank that is not only reducing greenhouse gas emissions but making money for the taxpayer. This is a profitable investment. They are making a profit. Why on earth, when we are in such a confected budget crisis, would you want to slash a body that is actually making money as well as saving the climate? I do not understand the rationale, but I suspect logic simply does not come into it with this government.

That was yesterday. Today they are moving to abolish protection for the Murray-Darling. The listing of those endangered ecological communities earlier this year has now been disallowed by the House. They do not actually want to protect the wetlands and the Macquarie Marshes that feed and sustain the Murray-Darling Basin. And this Friday, at the Council of Australian Governments meeting, the COAG meeting, the Prime Minister is seeking to sign up yet more states to take over Greg Hunt's job. Minister Greg Hunt does not want his job anymore. He has decided he cannot be bothered giving approvals to big mines anymore. He is happy to let Campbell Newman do that and Barry O'Farrell do that. This plan unwinds the 30 years of history where the Commonwealth has been able to step in and protect icons and species places that are nationally significant. The Prime Minister wants to get rid of that on Friday.

This has been an atrocious week for the environment. It has been a terribly sad week for the Great Barrier Reef and for all of those who love it. We know that it is not just Australians who love our reef. It is hugely popular with international tourists and, in fact, it is sacred in the hearts of many people across the world. We can and should be doing so much better. I will be reintroducing a bill in this place shortly to adopt those World Heritage Committee recommendations to save our reef. It is not that hard. We just have to start putting the reef and the people who rely on it ahead of the interests of the big mining companies. We can do that. It is not that hard. Will this government do it? They have not yet and I remain hopeful, for the sake of those 63,000 Queenslanders and for everyone who loves the reef, that they will soon change their tune.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Waters raises her concerns about the Great Barrier Reef. I share her concerns about the Barrier Reef, but under no circumstances do I believe the reef is under threat. Last night the Minister for the Environment put forward plans so that some mining and natural gas facilities could go ahead. They were put forward under the most stringent conditions, where there is going to have to be a net benefit for water quality, $89 million will be contributed to support the health of the Barrier Reef through programs such as Reef Trust and there are 95 environmental conditions at Abbot Point and 53 at Curtis Island.

The problem with Senator Waters is that she lives with rose-tinted glasses. She does not recognise that jobs are created. We have just faced one of the most difficult situations in Australia, with the biggest icon in Australia announcing its closure today, affecting many thousands of jobs and the jobs hanging off it. I do not want to debate the rights and wrongs, who said what and who did this. The main point of my argument is that those jobs have to be replaced somewhere or people will not have the standard of living that they have been able to afford over the last 20 years.

The Arrow liquefied natural gas plant proposal is owned by Shell and PetroChina, it is going to cost $17.46 billion and there will be 3,715 construction jobs and 600 operational jobs. That is vast. That is so many jobs created. When we turn to the Adani project, we are looking at thousands more jobs that are going to open up in Bowen. Senator Waters says there are many people who have been opposing it and ringing up the minister's office complaining about the decision. Well, I can tell Senator Waters that the town of Bowen is absolutely rejoicing. They have had many failures in Bowen. When the abattoirs went, 1,500 jobs went.

Interestingly, I understand that the town's resident Green is complaining, while her husband and son work at Abbot Point.

Senator Waters interjecting—

That is the information I have, that one of the greenies in Bowen is out there spruiking—

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Boswell, please resume your seat.

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

Thanks, Mr Acting Deputy President, I have a point of order. Senator Boswell has reflected incorrectly and has made an assertion that I know is not correct. I ask him to withdraw that false allegation.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Waters, I regret I did not hear what Senator Boswell said, but I will ask Senator Boswell to consider his remarks and explain them, or reflect on his remarks and perhaps advise the Senate accordingly.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What I said is factually true, as I understand it and as it has been related to me. There is a person in Bowen spruiking the Green agenda who, as explained to me, is a resident Green in Bowen, while her husband and son work at Abbot Point. I am not saying that there is anything wrong. I am not casting any aspersions against anyone. I am merely making a statement that has been related to me by residents of Bowen.

The $10 billion that GVK and Adani are going to proceed with is a railway line. Already they have said that they will put their facilities in Bowen and the people in Bowen are rejoicing about this. So not everyone, Senator Waters, is ringing the minister complaining.

In the last 12 months the town of Bowen has taken major hits with local businesses closing. The Bank of Queensland has shut its doors, two legal offices and three restaurants have closed, and newsagents have also shut their doors. In July, Bowen residents turned up in the town square to support the Abbot project.

What has happened of course is that the Labor Party dodged this. They would not make the decision. Tony Burke delayed the decision before the last election. Mark Butler also delayed the decision, and this has held up all these jobs that were going to be created. They were afraid of offending the Greens and the latte set in Melbourne and Sydney. But they do not stand up for the blue-collar workers that would get these jobs in Bowen and Collinsville and Abbot Point, and they are the people that the Labor Party are going to need to get them back into government. As long as they dodge the decisions and side with the Greens, then the blue-collar workers who have already made a decision are not going to support a government that cannot take a decision.

Of course these decisions are hard, and I congratulate Mr Hunt for making them. They are hard decisions and he is an environmentalist at heart, but he has made a decision that looks after both sections—the environment, putting on the most stringent conditions, and then recognising that Australia has to have jobs. There has never been a time in Australia's history that I can report, certainly in my time, when the need for creating jobs has been so predominant. As for these changed new conditions, they are not saying that the companies will put these growth-promoting jobs into the community, but that it is possible to do it. They have got to go through a lot further process. But the decision by Adani and by GVK is going to open up thousands of jobs—and I do not want to be accused of going over the top by saying hundreds of thousands of jobs, but certainly thousands of jobs. The Galilee Basin will be open and jobs will flow into the little towns of Jericho and places out there.

You cannot have wealth in this nation without earnings. Senator Waters believes in the Magic Pudding—you can have everything. I am sorry, Senator Waters, the world is not like that. Your party has, at every opportunity, attacked the coal-mining industry and this, I believe, is another attack. In March 2012 a document called Stopping the coal export boom: funding proposal for the Australian anti-coal mining movement became public. It was a prospectus for large-scale funding to shut down the Australian coal industry. The preparation of the document was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation in the USA and endorsed by Greenpeace and a number of national environmental activists.

One of their prime strategies is to:

… ‘disrupt and delay’ key projects and infrastructure the while gradually eroding public and political support for the industry and continually building the power of the movement to win more.

That is exactly what you are doing today, and then you are claiming that this has great support.

I do acknowledge that it has some problems attached to it in professional fishing and amateur fishing. I do believe that there will need to be some offsets for those people. Maybe boat ramps and fishing tables and cleaning tables will have to be offered, and, if significant fishing grounds are going to be lost, then I think there will have to be offsets. Fishermen want to continue to fish. But if they cannot, they are realists. They recognise that they cannot stand in the way of $17 billion or hundreds of billions of dollars of projects that will provide many thousands of jobs. They understand that. But if they are to be removed or if their fishing grounds are to be removed or taken away from them or put out of limits, then there have to be more fishing grounds given to them to compensate for the loss. If that cannot be done, then they have to be compensated to get out of the industry. (Time expired)

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the matter of public importance. I wanted to take up some of the points Senator Boswell has made, in that we all support the creation of jobs and opportunity in Queensland. I think everyone supports the opportunities that will be presented by the expansion of the terminal at Abbot Point, the Adani project at Abbot Point, the Arrow LNG facility on Curtis Island and the Arrow gas pipeline to Curtis Island. I think even the Greens support the opportunities that jobs will bring.

Let me put forward a note of caution which Senator Boswell did not instil into the debate: it is not only the caveats that Minister Hunt would put on the project to ensure that it meets environmental conditions, it is also the implementation of that to ensure that those conditions are met. It will create opportunity, but it will also create concerns in respect of the environment.

We have a world-class environment. We have the Great Barrier Reef, which is world recognised. GBRMPA itself—that is the body that looks after the Great Barrier Reef—also has a policy which deals with how to manage the dredging and dredging disposal. This is an issue that has continued for some time and has been dealt with through the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, where they provide for how dredging and dredging material disposal will be dealt with, but what is really important here is not only how you manage the issues of dredging through the GBRMPA. With ports within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, you also have to deal with how you are going to manage the terminals, the storage and waste facilities, the cargo, the loading and unloading facilities—all of these things which are part and parcel of the development of operations such as the expansion at Abbot Point.

Let us come back to what the coalition are doing. Before the election, the Abbott government announced in their environmental policy:

We will streamline the environmental approval process for all users—resulting in less duplication across federal and state jurisdictions and delivering a real boost to the nation’s productivity. We will establish a one-stop shop environmental approvals process covering both Commonwealth and state legislation, that maintains high environmental standards, delivers certainty for all users and importantly makes swift decisions.

If you take out the broad motherhood statement that it is seeking to achieve, streamlining—as they call it—is a positive sounding proposition. However, offloading powers to the states without proper oversight and without proper conditions put in place may have a detrimental effect on the environment.

What we are talking about is the devolution of the powers from the federal government not to another state—let us look at the specifics. Let us look at what the Newman government has been doing, because they will be part and parcel of the management of the expansion at Abbot Point to make sure not only that jobs and the economy get a boost but also that the environment is not detrimentally impacted as a consequence. In other words, there is a balance to be struck. I think Senator Boswell was going with the balance towards jobs and opportunity, forsaking the environment. If that was not what he was saying then it certainly sounded very much like it.

The Newman government cut funding to the environmental defenders office, which provides legal advice to individuals and community groups where they are resisting inappropriate developments—where you want an alternative voice to be heard, where you want a different argument to be put; they shut that down. In their second week in office the Newman government axed the entire Office of Climate Change. They then abolished the waste levy, making Queensland the only mainland state without one. Subsequently, waste from New South Wales is being transported to Queensland to be dumped. That is their response.

Then there are the dirty mine water releases. The Newman government passed legislation, the Economic Development Bill, to allow for the release of excess mine water into the river systems. Subsequently, they announced a pilot mine water release program. They might call it, euphemistically, 'streamlining' the environmental process, but what it ultimately meant was that there would be a reduction in the environmental regulations and controls that are put in place in Queensland. They want to open up national parks to development with the nature conservation amendment bill—another euphemistic sounding name with a completely different result. Currently before the house in Queensland, this bill allows development in national parks. The Newman government initially stopped enforcing vegetation management penalties and has subsequently announced a review into the penalties.

You can start to feel, from the Queensland perspective, that you can start off with a very good program and position. But, in the case of the Newman government, it has chipped away at every environmental control and measure to reduce the burden in these areas to meet appropriate environmental standards. The concern is that in Queensland, in some of these regions—one of them could be Abbot Point—the Newman government might take the same approach

So you might have a federal government effectively washing its hands of the environmental issue by passing it to the states and the states doing what the Newman government in this instance is doing, backsliding on environmental measures. That would certainly be a concern to this side. It clearly was not a concern to Senator Boswell. Of course, the Newman government reduced the solar feed-in tariff from 44c to 8c—another area where they do not want to assist the environment and what they do want to do is slide away from many of the environmental issues that have been fought and won over the last 10 to 15 years. That leads us to this: on the face of it, when you turn to the developments that are being proposed, the community has a right to be concerned about the potential environmental impacts of the project at Abbot Point.

We expect the government to manage the project's progress and ensure the proponents meet their obligations under the agreement. The government has the responsibility to manage the Great Barrier Reef for everyone, for Australians from the tip of Cape York all the way down to Tasmania, and the onus then is clearly on this government to ensure that the project is managed properly and its decisions do not have a long-term detrimental effect in that region, particularly as to the environment.

On this issue the world is watching. It is the Great Barrier Reef and the world will hold us to account if we do not ensure proper environmental management is put in place. The world will not accept the excuse that we passed it to Queensland and Queensland dropped the ball on the issue. The world will not accept that. It will only look to us, from a Commonwealth perspective, to ensure that we get it right. In this instance, given all of the conditions, we say we will continue to hold this government to account. (Time expired)

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to speak to this matter of the future of the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef is dying and this decision by the Abbott government to allow this massive port expansion development at Abbot Point, as a way of facilitating expansion of coalmining out of the Galilee Basin, will hasten the death of the reef. There is such a thing as being too late. For a very long time scientists have warned about the impacts of global warming on the Great Barrier Reef from coral bleaching, ocean acidification and extreme weather events bashing against the corals, which are already weakened by acidification.

The Great Barrier Reef was listed as World Heritage in 1981. It is the largest coral reef ecosystem on Earth. It was regarded and listed as World Heritage because its values are of outstanding universal value to humankind. All Australians are proud of the Great Barrier Reef. But not all Australians are prepared to accept that it is dying. It is dying and we have to do everything we can to save what we can and build resilience, and you cannot pretend that allowing this massive coal port expansion, with the dumping of three million cubic metres of seafloor dredgings into the reef's waters, is going to do anything other than help to destroy it.

If you think about the reef, there are something like 1,500 species of fish, 360 species of hard corals and 1,500 species of sponges. There is the seagrass, which supports dugong populations and loggerhead, green, hawksbill and flatback turtles. There are 215 bird species. All these are sustained by the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem and what we now know, about that three million cubic metres to be dumped into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park waters, is that that sludge and those silts can travel for 80 kilometres. Please, do not expect anybody here to take seriously the notion of offsets—so we will dump all of this sludge into the Great Barrier Reef and then, however, we will say to the farmers, 'Don't you dump 4½ million cubic metres of sediment onto the reef,' and therefore we will have the farmers stop dumping theirs so we will dump from the coal port and that will be all right. Well, on the basic facts it is not all right. One basic fact is this. In its first five-year phase the reef rescue program, which was well resourced and had huge efforts from farmers backing it, only reduced the sediments entering the reef's waters by one-twentieth of the amount of sludge planned to be dumped offshore from Abbot Point, so 20 times more than has been able to be stopped in the last five years is being planned. So let us abandon this notion of enforcement and compliance—it will not happen.

This is a death sentence for the reef. Not only that, it will accelerate global warming because it is going to facilitate the Galilee Basin coalmines. That coal should stay in the ground. There is no way we should be opening up the Bowen Basin or the Galilee Basin to coalmining, because those two basins alone, if they were a separate country, would be the seventh largest emitter on Earth. So when we hear the coalition go on about what a small emitter Australia is in the global context of climate change, let us note that the seventh largest emitter on Earth would be the two basins in Queensland if you let this go ahead. So not only is this being done for the sake of the coalminers but it is going to kill the reef and accelerate global warming and a feedback loop also goes on towards killing the reef. This is a crime against humanity. That is what it is, and it has got the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott's, and the Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt's, names all over it.

Last year, at the World Heritage Committee meeting in Cambodia, the World Heritage Committee was asked to consider the Great Barrier Reef for inscription on the list of World Heritage in danger, for it to be recommended and to be thought about for the 38th session in 2014. I would suggest that the result of the Abbott government's decision to go ahead with this massive industrialisation of the reef is going to lead to the Great Barrier Reef being listed as World Heritage in danger. That is a major blow to jobs and tourism in Queensland. I can tell you that tourists, divers, people interested in the marine environment are not going to come to Australia, to the Great Barrier Reef, if it is listed as in danger. That is a signal that Australia does not care about it, is letting it go, that it is in bad condition, and they will go to other coral reefs around the world. New Caledonia, for example, has the world's second largest barrier reef. That will become a preferred destination, as will other coral reefs elsewhere in the world.

Up to 63,000 jobs depend on the Great Barrier Reef, and that has a major flow-on for Queensland. I was up there during the federal election campaign and, make no mistake, businesses along the reef are very worried about it. They are also worried that the tourism bodies along the Great Barrier Reef should be shouting from the rooftops about this but are not doing so. The reason they are not doing so is that they have been taken over and they are being financially supported by the mining industry. So when Premier Newman said Queensland is open for the coal business, he meant it! He meant that Queensland was prepared to sell out, and now the Abbott government is going to be complicit with him in destroying the Great Barrier Reef in order to massively expand Queensland's appalling coalmining when, in fact, it should be left in the ground.

The same goes for coal-seam gas, which is facilitating loss of water and loss of farmland; it is climate destroying. In fact, the latest greenhouse gas inventory shows the greatest increase in emissions is in fugitive emissions from coalmines and coal-seam gas. So we are not only going to see a shocking contribution to global warming, we are also going to see a loss of jobs, a loss of tourism and the listing of the reef as in danger. But the overwhelming issue here is the loss of the reef itself. I do not think Australians can actually take in the fact that there will come a day when the Great Barrier Reef is dead. That is something that people refuse to accept. You hear people say—quietly—when they go to Queensland and have a look at it that it is in a worse state than the last time they saw it. We are also seeing the impacts: when you have deteriorating water quality, you have also the expansion of the crown-of-thorns starfish. What we are seeing is a disaster for the reef and a disaster for the planet, and the world is not going to stand by and watch Australia do this. We are going to have a major issue to contend with in terms of where this goes.

What will happen to the Queensland economy? We know the Great Barrier Reef is a major economy from the tourism and from the small businesses that will be impacted. The dredging will also impact on fisheries, not to mention what it will do to us, as a nation, to be a rich nation that is prepared to destroy outstanding universal values for humankind. This contempt that the Abbott government is showing for the environment is something that you would not even have been believed a few years ago—that you could see in one week a government taking away the powers to look after threatened species, taking away the critical listing for the Murray-Darling Basin, attacking the Tasmanian wilderness World Heritage area and threatening to pull down and change the boundaries to open up the old-growth forests for logging. And now today we have this decision by the government to proactively turn the Great Barrier Reef into a coal ship highway, and to allow the dumping of three million cubic metres of sludge into the reef to smother corals and to smother seagrasses on which dugongs and turtles are reliant.

This is a disgrace and people will be held accountable for this, not just now but by future generations. They will look back and say, 'This was environmental vandalism, and never let it be said that they did not know what they were doing'. You know exactly what you are doing. Scientists around the world have condemned you for what you are doing to the Great Barrier Reef. They have pleaded with you not to proceed with this industrialisation of the Great Barrier Reef, and yet you are going on to do it in the interests of the supporters of the coalition. The big coalminers of Australia have now pulled the strings of the Abbott government to the detriment of the Great Barrier Reef. (Time expired)

Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not sure if I am speaking on the right motion here. I thought we were celebrating a decision finally being made, after more than five years, to drag Queensland's economy out of the dumps. Apparently we are not.

I was a little surprised earlier to hear Senator Boswell correct himself. He pointed out that there would be thousands of jobs come out of these projects that were approved yesterday by Minister Hunt. Senator Boswell went on to talk about hundreds of thousands of jobs and then corrected himself for being a little overblown in the language he had used. I think he can hold his head up high; I do not think he needs to worry about exaggeration when he is followed by a speaker who wants to talk about developing a coalmining port in Queensland as a crime against humanity. What has been a crime—an economic crime—in Queensland for more than five years is the way the state Labor Bligh government and the federal Labor government conspired to stop development, conspired to simply build up the debts of Queensland and not to go ahead with perfectly reasonable, perfectly adequate provisions.

The four projects that were approved yesterday by Minister Hunt will generate 3½ thousand jobs in their doing. And, as Senator Boswell pointed out earlier, the people of Mackay, of Gladstone and of Bowen are pleased to see these jobs happening. As the Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning in Queensland, Jeff Seeney, has pointed out, these jobs will give a desperately needed boost to Queensland's coal and coal-seam gas industries. Mr Seeney has described the decision by Mr Hunt yesterday as a common-sense decision by the Commonwealth government that will encourage growth in Queensland's resource sector and underpin future jobs in the coal and coal-seam gas sector.

He goes on to point out that this is after Australia's longest and most comprehensive assessment process that has produced the strictest environmental conditions ever seen in Australia's history. If you look at the actual conditions that have been put on the projects, you will find 95 environmental conditions for the Abbot Point development and 53 for the Curtis Island LNG project. These are the environmental conditions that have been put in place. There are measures to protect marine species, the habitat, the ecological communities, and the flora and fauna.

I am often a little bemused by the way the Greens pull the reef out of their pocket every time they want to convince people that they are right, that they are not overblown and that they are not criticising simply for the sake of criticising. It is a bit like the people who find a cute puppy to have their photo taken with. 'Let's criticise the work on the Great Barrier Reef. Let's not worry about development in Queensland'—I am sorry, but I am more interested in development in Queensland than I am in listening to ridiculous claims made by the Greens about what is going to happen to the Great Barrier Reef.

I am hoping that Senator Milne's 63,000 figure for the number of jobs involved in tourism on the Great Barrier Reef is accurate. How dare the Greens tell the Queensland government in particular that the tourism associated with the Great Barrier Reef and the environmental health of the Great Barrier Reef are something they should try to notice. Tourism is a major industry in Queensland. The Queensland state government is very aware that tourism is a major industry. It is also aware that the Great Barrier Reef is a critical part of this. I can assure you that there will be nothing done by the Queensland government that would damage the Great Barrier Reef.

This point has been noted by Deputy Premier Seeney. He made the point that the conditions that have been put in place by the federal government under Minister Hunt will protect the reef but allow development to happen. They will allow development to happen in a more environmentally responsible way than had been intended under the Labor government and they will put in place a very well accepted and developed policy of expanding existing ports rather than building more ports so that one concentrates the economic activity in areas where it can be well monitored, surveyed and researched.

There is no suggestion whatsoever that the reef is threatened in any of the material put out following the decisions announced yesterday by Minister Hunt. That is not true. It is an untruth that is as overblown as the suggestion that the decisions made yesterday by Minister Hunt are a 'crime against humanity'.

The government has imposed some of the strictest conditions in Australia's history. Among the things that will happen is that the water quality will be 1½ times better than it currently is. That is one of the requirements of the work. That will mean a long-term net reduction in fine sediments entering the marine park from land based sources. That will go on for years and years, well after the life of the project. Up to $89 million will be put into a reef trust to ensure the health of the Great Barrier Reef. As I mentioned earlier, there are 95 environmental conditions for Abbot Point and 53 for Curtis Island. Let us not forget that these projects that will not harm the reef but will grow jobs and the coal industry, which is the real bete noir that the Greens are out to stop—

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Greenhouse gases.

Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Greenhouse gases' is the interjection. These projects will generate between $1.4 billion and $2.8 billion per year in gross regional product for Queensland. They will boost employment, with 3,500 jobs during the construction phase and an operational force of about 600 in the end. These are projects that Queensland needs. These are projects that can be managed both economically and environmentally.

We do not need the Greens patronising the Queensland state government by suggesting that the government that relies, firstly, on mining and, secondly, on tourism for its income is not interested in what will happen to the Great Barrier Reef. I find the Greens comments in this area immoral. If they are going to talk about actions by Minister Hunt as 'crimes against humanity' then their exaggerated and overblown comments in this area constitute immorality. I congratulate the federal government, the Minister for the Environment and the state government for the work they have done to finally bring these projects to fruition for the benefit of all Queenslanders, particularly those in the regions and those who live along the coast that is bordered by the Great Barrier Reef.

Debate interrupted.