Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today in Doha, the World Heritage Committee is meeting to discuss the preservation of the world's greatest areas of natural beauty and civilisation, and its deliberations this week will include the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. But, rather than thinking of ways that this jewel of Australia's environment—and a core part of my home state of Tasmania's global brand as a tourist destination—can be protected, the committee will be forced to consider Tony Abbott's application to delist it.

Following the efforts of his environment minister, Australia will become only the third nation after Tanzania and Oman to seek the delisting of its own territory from the World Heritage register. In response, thousands of Australians rallied against the coalition's culturally and environmentally destructive plans for Tasmania's forests. Unlike the Prime Minister, who has never visited this World Heritage area in Tasmania, many present were people who know this wilderness area intimately through recreation, through scientific work, through their historical and cultural links with the area, or through their livelihoods

They included apiarists, tourist operators and loggers. Indeed, the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania has written to the UNESCO committee opposing the Abbott government's winding back of the World Heritage listing. Wrongly, the Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, claimed that this World Heritage area was significantly degraded and so should be delisted. That claim has subsequently been proven false and indeed is contrary to the advice provided in a report produced by the minister's own environment department. The report, which I note the minister received prior to making his submission to the committee, showed that more than 90 percent of the area proposed for delisting is undisturbed—clearly contradicting the Abbott government's claims that it is only seeking to delist degraded parts. That would be a very, very small percentage—I think around eight per cent of the World Heritage listed forests.

Questions must be asked as to why the Abbott government kept this report secret and failed to disclose it in its application to UNESCO. While the coalition does not understand the importance of this World Heritage area, Labor certainly does, and that is why shadow ministers Tony Burke and Mark Butler went to Tasmania to visit the area and to experience for themselves the grandeur of the forests and the diversity of the flora, fauna and landscapes within the area. I will quote some of Mark Butler's observations from his visit in May this year. He spent two days in the area that the government claims is 'logged, degraded and unworthy'. He notes:

I did not see widespread degradation. On the contrary, I saw habitat for iconic rare and endangered species such as the Tasmanian Devil, the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle, the spotted-tailed quoll, the grey goshawk, and the myrtle-elbow orchid.

I saw pristine tracts of old growth tall eucalypt forest, rainforests, cave systems and moorlands.

I saw sites and cultural landscapes of high significance to Aboriginal Tasmanians, including Nanwoon Cave.

And I saw extensive tracts of spectacular old growth forests and rainforest, including trees over 500 years old and 80 metres tall.

Fifty-one weeks ago today, on 24 June 2013, UNESCO recognised over 170,000 hectares of Tasmanian territory amongst the world's special places in an extension of the listing established in 1982. In supporting the Gillard Labor government's nomination of this area for World Heritage status, UNESCO declared the area to be important to the common heritage of humanity and deserving of the highest protection. Yet this week the Abbott government is going to Doha in Qatar to lobby the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization committee to revoke that very same heritage status.

Our international reputation is at stake. Fortunately, the UNESCO committee advisers were not fooled. Last month the committee released a draft decision rejecting the Abbott government's request. It states:

The new proposal would impact negatively on the outstanding universal value of the property …

The proposed excisions would reduce integrity of key natural attributes.

Despite this very clear rebuttal and Minister Hunt's own report, the Abbott government is still determined to push on and further humiliate Australia—indeed, embarrass Australia—on the international stage, yet again. If Mr Abbott and Mr Hunt do not understand this, then the international community and Australians do. That was demonstrated clearly last weekend in Hobart, in my home state of Tasmania, where so many people—mums and dads, families, individuals, scientists, people with knowledge, care, understanding and a sense of humanity—came out in the cool Hobart weather to show their discontent for the Abbott government's attempts to delist these forests which are currently protected under World Heritage listing.

If the Tasmanian forests are not safe then nor are the heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu, Uluru or, indeed, the Sydney Opera House. If it is alright for the Abbott government to choose to delist this particular World Heritage area, then where will they stop? Labor calls on the Prime Minister and the environment minister, Mr Hunt, to do the right thing for the world's future generations. The government has only three days left. The UNESCO meetings are already taking place in Doha, but there is still time. By withdrawing its application the government can not only save face for itself but also save our precious Tasmanian wilderness for all of Australia. I urge the Abbott government to do so.