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

They're resorting to props now, Mr Deputy President! Exactly three years ago this week I stood in this Senate and gave an emotional and angry speech about the sad and devastating decline of the Great Barrier Reef. Senators laughed at me when I reflected on my concerns about the grave danger facing the future of the world's greatest natural wonder. Three years later, we get another report from the UNESCO International Scientific Committee recommending that the World Heritage Committee list the Great Barrier Reef as endangered because its outstanding universal values are threatened by climate change—warming oceans caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

This morning the environment minister gave a press conference and said, 'We need to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees.' Mr Bowen, at COP two weeks ago, said, 'What are we doing here, if it's not to keep global warming at 1.5 degrees.' Yet this government has legislated a two-degree global warming emissions reduction target—two degrees. The science tells us that that is the death of the Great Barrier Reef as we know it. So what is it going to be, Mr Anthony Albanese? On one hand, you can have 1.5 degrees and do everything you can to keep warming at that level and give the reef a fighting chance. On the other hand, we have the death of the Great Barrier Reef as we know it.

I think Australians can see the duplicity. They can see the cognitive dissonance coming from the Labor Party, and they expect more. So this is an opportunity for the Labor government to now explain what they're going to do to act on climate change, to act on the UNESCO recommendations and to save the barrier reef. (Time expired)