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

I rise to take note of the answer given by Senator Birmingham to my question. I asked about the really powerful position statement that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the government's own authority, had issued last week, begging for urgent acceleration of reducing green house gas emissions, not just this focus on resilience, which the government likes to trumpet frequently. Of course we need to do resilience work, but here is the reef authority calling and begging the government for action on climate change to reduce emissions to give the reef any chance of survival. I put that to the minister and asked him, 'Would the government genuinely listen to this advice from their own body—from its own expert scientific body?' and I'm afraid I didn't really get an answer. I had included a quip about whether they would just cut funding for GBRMPA instead of listening. I'm afraid the government has form in this regard. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has been subject to those efficiency dividends that every other department has also been subject to. They have had cuts to their funding. And it is not only that; we saw that a rival private charitable organisation got almost half a billion dollars of funding, allegedly to protect the reef, rather than that money going where it naturally belongs: to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. I didn't think my assertions were unfair, but of course it gave the minister a lovely premise to ignore the bulk of my question entirely.

He then tried to assert that, actually, Australia can't do much to protect the reef anyway; we're just one nation amongst many. Do we run that argument when we are talking about our chances of Olympic gold? No, of course not. We talk ourselves up when it suits us, and this government talks down our ability to show leadership when it matters when it's inconvenient for them and when it shows up their absolute obsession with new coal thanks to the many millions of dollars that they receive in donations from the coal and gas companies every year to fund their own re-election campaigns.

The minister then ran that old trope that the government likes to trot out: that we'll meet our emissions reduction target, so therefore everything is fine. Well, the scientists have been saying for many years now that those targets are inadequate. They will not save us from extreme weather events; nor will they save the reef from losing the coral cover that it's already lost 50 per cent of in those two successive bleaching episodes in 2016 and 2017. That is exactly what the marine park authority was drawing your attention to by saying we need this urgent action to accelerate greenhouse gas reductions. It is saying that your existing climate policy is not good enough to save the reef. I don't know what about that advice is unclear. I know you've got a tin ear to science and I know it's blocked by the dollars that flow in from the coalmining companies, but what more can the scientists do to try to beg for action? They are doing their utmost. They are your own people—independent scientists.

There is not a lack of scientific consensus here. We all know what needs to be done to save reefs globally, including our beautiful Great Barrier Reef, which supports 67,000 people in work. You love to crow about how the best form of welfare is a job. Well, what are you going to say to those people whose very product is being damaged thanks to the policies and the lack of action by your government? The minister didn't really have a very good answer to that at all. Instead, he then blamed the Australian Greens and said we're the threat to the reef, as if reflecting the scientific concern and begging for action is someone the problem and somehow what's wrecking the reef. No, it is greenhouse emissions that are wrecking the reef, and it is your government's continued useless policies to tackle climate change that are wrecking the reef. I thought it was just a little bit rich to turn the finger on our party and blame us for the death of the reef. We have been here, working for many years in concert with scientists to try to get some action out of you and your government, and we will not stop doing that, because we care for the 67,000 people relying on the reef, we care for that $6 billion that's propping up our economy and we care for the amazing biodiversity that is in that reef. It is not for us to destroy the seventh wonder of the world. We do not have that right. Just because you get a few million bucks from coal companies, you then write your own climate policies. What a cheap date you really are. You are selling out the reef.

I'm afraid I got no decent answers to my reef question even when I cited Sir David Attenborough's call and his description of Australia's climate policy and our failure to act as 'extraordinary'. If you won't even listen to your own agency, if you won't listen to the likes of Sir David Attenborough, if you've got a tin ear to the marine park operators who have finally spoken out—and they've been very worried for a long time, but they're worried for their product and haven't spoken out. They've had the guts to do so now and you're still ignoring them. I don't know what is going to get through to you, but we're not going to stop trying.

Question agreed to.