Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that the President has received the following letter, dated 15 May 2024, from Senator McKim:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today the Australian Greens propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

A marine heatwave that triggered mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef has devastated significant World Heritage habitat and wildlife, impacted communities and the economy, and should be treated like other extreme weather events and declared a national emergency under the National Emergency Declaration Act 2020 and Labor should stop opening coal and gas mines, which will make the climate crisis worse."

Is the proposal supported?

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

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

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

At the request of Senator McKim, I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

A marine heatwave that triggered mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef has devastated significant World Heritage habitat and wildlife, impacted communities and the economy, and should be treated like other extreme weather events and declared a national emergency under the National Emergency Declaration Act 2020 and Labor should stop opening coal and gas mines, which will make the climate crisis worse.

On 16 April, nearly a month ago, the Prime Minister flew into Gladstone and stood next to the Minister for Resources, Madeleine King, celebrating the thousandth shipment of LNG cargo across the Great Barrier Reef. What was extraordinary about this was that it was exactly one day after NOAA, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, out of the US, had announced the fourth and biggest mass coral bleaching in our planet's history. It was also significant that the Prime Minister was at Gladstone because, on that very day, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority were about to release their aerial surveys of the bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, which was absolutely devastating.

I visited Gladstone not long after and went out to Heron Island with scientists to see and bear witness myself to what had happened on the Great Barrier Reef, and it struck me as I was leaving on the ferry—our little boat navigating its way through 40 coal ships on our way to a Barrier Reef fighting for its life—that the Prime Minister that day, when he stood in Gladstone, didn't mention coral bleaching and didn't mention what was happening just kilometres off the coast where he was standing with the resources minister, spruiking the exact cause of the decline of the Great Barrier Reef.

It got me thinking: how can we elevate this issue so that Australians understand the seriousness of what is happening not just on our reefs and not just on the Barrier Reef but on temperate reefs off my coastline and on coral reefs all around the world? I wondered why this marine heatwave, which is caused by warming oceans and caused by the burning of fossil fuels and rising emissions, hasn't been declared a national emergency. If this were a bushfire burning for thousands of kilometres along the Queensland coast, destroying half the World Heritage habitat on that coast—with the impacts on the creatures that rely on that habitat—and causing devastation to local communities and businesses, this would have been declared a national emergency.

I encourage senators to go to the National Emergency Declaration Act 2020, where it clearly talks about this being an important tool to outline key matters of national environment significance—where 'the emergency has caused, is causing or is likely to cause nationally significant harm in Australia'. If you go to the definitions of 'nationally significant harm', it clearly says 'harm to the life or health of animals or plants', and part (iv) is 'harm to the environment'.

I have no doubt, after what I saw and from the reports that have come in from scientists on the Great Barrier Reef, that this will be the biggest and most devastating mass coral bleaching and mortality event for corals that we have seen on the reef, and it will only get worse. How can this not be a national emergency? The Greens want this declared a national emergency; we have written to the Prime Minister asking him to instruct the Governor-General to do so. And the reason is simple. If Australians don't know what they're about to lose and are losing, they won't fight for it and they won't vote for it. From what I've seen in this place from the respective governments, including this government, they're doing pretty much everything they can to cover up the seriousness of this crisis, of this national emergency, including on the world stage at the World Heritage UNESCO in-danger-listing talks, which are coming up in the months ahead—and we'll get into that some other time.

I deeply ask senators to consider what is at stake here and to let the Australian people know so that we can act. You're going to hear from lots of people in the next half an hour who will say they're doing what they can to save the reef, or they'll completely deny that there's a problem. But there is, and only we in places like this can fix it. (Time expired)

Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am tired. I am tired of the Greens' hysterics. I'm tired of this crazy binary situation that they give, where it is coal and gas or save the planet. I'm tired of them presenting themselves as being soft, cuddly tree-huggers. For the people, particularly in Brisbane, who voted for the Greens at the last election, I think we need to be discussing what they're really all about, because their choice is binary. It is a choice between using the best resources in the world from Australia, having human ingenuity and practicality, jobs and food and human lives, and what the Greens offer, which is to shut everything down. It is their policies that are driving up the cost of living. It is their interventions in trying to stop ordinary coal and gas fired power. It is their interventions that threaten our geopolitical stability by trying to intervene in the gas market and stop supplies to our near allies. This is an incredibly serious discussion, and we have got to stop having some sort of binary conversation that does not protect the human condition.

Of the UN sustainability goals, the first three are about protecting people's rights to shelter, food and their way of life, and the last three are about climate change. But, if you listen to the Greens, there is no place for humans in this world. It is important that we are clear about this. The policies of the Greens will mean that your kid, no matter if they're working in a supermarket or as a tradie, getting an apprenticeship or going into a high-tech critical minerals processing facility—none of them will have a job, because of energy policy being driven by the Greens. There will be less affordable food and fewer real jobs. It isn't a fantasy world that we live in, and Australians know that. They're the ones that are struggling with the cost of living and with rising food costs, all being driven up because of this rushed renewable expansion. We have to be clear that our resources raise the standard of living around the world. They bring people out of poverty.

The three things that Australian resources do, whether they be coal or gas, are that they provide energy security to these countries, provide geopolitical stability—

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm sorry, Senator McDonald. Please resume your seat for one moment. Senator Whish-Wilson, do you have a point of order?

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

I have a point of order on relevance. Senator McDonald hasn't even mentioned the Great Barrier Reef or coral bleaching yet, and she's more than 3½ minutes into her time. That's what this motion is about.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Whish-Wilson and Senator McDonald, it's not a debate across the chamber. I don't think that was a relevant point of order, Senator Whish-Wilson. Senator McDonald, please continue.

Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much. One of the three things that the high-quality Australian resources provide is energy security to other nations. It is about geopolitical stability to our trading countries and our allies, and it is, interestingly, about lower emissions, because, when Australia doesn't fill this role, then the rest of the world is served with coal from Indonesia and gas from other parts of the world whose emissions are not as low as ours. So Australia has a responsibility to do these things, but most importantly we have a responsibility to Australians. The three biggest royalty streams of corporate taxpayers and contributors to PAYG tax in this country are the iron ore, coal and gas industries. The only thing that has changed about those in the last few years is the order.

There is not a replacement for that income stream. It certainly won't be bringing in solar panels and wind turbines from offshore. That will not replace the jobs in those industries.

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

Can you get onto the Barrier Reef soon?

Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is an incredibly serious issue—

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Whish-Wilson!

Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will not be drawn into the—

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Whish-Wilson! Senator Whish-Wilson, I've already called you to order twice. Please desist. Please continue, Senator McDonald.

Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For that reason, it is important that, for those Australians who care about ensuring that we continue to have the first-world lifestyle that we enjoy and for those Australians who believe in human ingenuity and innovation, we fend off the hysterics of the Greens and we be very clear about who is going to provide a future for Australians—a future for our young people.

Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm always very pleased to have the opportunity to talk about the Great Barrier Reef and what it means to the people of Queensland when I get a chance to speak in this chamber, although I do acknowledge that, every time I get the chance to do so, there are stunts like this from the Greens, which I don't think are the way to progress protection of our Great Barrier Reef.

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

It's the only way to get you to talk about the reef.

Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Whish-Wilson, I know that you want to sit there and intimidate me and speak over me, but I'm going to stand here and speak about the facts and speak about the work that I do in my community. You can shout over me all you like, but it is not going to help. What is going to help is standing here and talking about the facts.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can you resume your seat for a moment, Senator Green. Senator Whish-Wilson, you were heard in silence. Please give the same respect to other senators. I don't want to have to keep calling you. Thank you, Senator Green.

Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the special envoy for the Great Barrier Reef, I acknowledge the very deep privilege and responsibility that that role entails. One of the reasons that I am so eager to work in and around the Great Barrier Reef is that so many of the jobs in the communities that I represent rely on the reef. That's why I live it every day and talk to people to whom the reef really matters every day. I understand what this summer has meant to them.

This has been a particularly tough summer for the reef and for coral reefs all around the world. When I make a contribution on this, whether it's in the community or in the chamber, I will always talk about the facts. There has not been—and it is inappropriate to say that there has been—any deviation from talking about what is happening on the reef. Nobody's covering this up, as you insinuate. You should be ashamed for saying that. We are talking very factually about what is happening on the reef, and we will continue to do that.

In March this year, Australian government agencies did confirm that a widespread bleaching event was occurring on the Great Barrier Reef. In April, NOAA, the US scientific agency, declared the world had experienced a global bleaching event and that this was the fourth global event on record and the second in the last 10 years. Of course this is not news that we want to hear. No-one who lives and works on the reef wants to hear this.

It's important to note that preparation and planning for the Australian summer started well before it arrived. Everyone who is working to take action on this, including the government, understands what's at stake. That's why we're taking action on climate change and building the reef's resilience. We understand that it's urgent work. Our government acknowledges that, and it's why we're acting. We're not wasting a day. We've seen the disastrous impact of the precious days, months and years that were wasted by the climate wars, the negativity and the delays in this chamber.

One of our first acts of government was to action addressing climate change, and we're working hard to transition to a clean energy future. That's what our budget was all about: delivering a net zero economy. We've legislated our targets. We're on a credible path to net zero, we have set a target of 82 per cent renewable energy and we want to see renewable energy projects go ahead. We're doing that right now. We are making sure that we're investing in low-emissions vehicles and green hydrogen and that we're helping families and businesses transition from gas to electricity. The truth is that this is economy-wide work. It's an economy-wide transition. It is going to take time, and it is going to take a government to direct businesses to do it.

We're responding to the biggest threat on the Great Barrier Reef, but we're also making sure that there are effective management actions in place. We have boots on the ground. We're partnering with the Queensland government. We're investing $4.4 billion. We've increased our water quality measures because we know that water quality really does have an impact on the resilience of the reef to regrow after these events. We are responding to the threat of crown-of-thorns starfish, which, again, has a real impact on whether the reef can respond. We're engaging more Indigenous rangers and understanding what their knowledge is of the reef, and we're supporting the Queensland government to phase out gillnets by 2027.

As I said, this is urgent work. It's why our agencies here and abroad have made declarations about the bleaching of our reefs. It's why the reef authority, AIMS and CSIRO have been working together not just through the summer but for a considerable period to ensure that we're doing everything we can to protect the reef for generations to come. It's why our government continues to invest.

I want to end by acknowledging those people who work on the reef. I too have been to and visited the reef many times—but particularly recently. I was at Great Keppel recently with world-leading expert scientists to examine what was happening on the reef. We were there with environment groups. We talked to people about what this meant to them. We know that this is urgent work. (Time expired)

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Future Gas Strategy is nothing more than reheated Morrison government policy. It is so embarrassing that the Labor government would put this forward in 2024. It is a betrayal of Australians—a betrayal of young people and their futures—and it builds on the myths that we hear about gas. The first myth is that we're running out of gas. We're not. We export around 75 per cent of our gas. To liquify that gas takes twice as much gas as every household in the country consumes. If the major parties are serious about avoiding a gas shortage, let's legislate a domestic reservation policy. Let's do that tomorrow. This is the political will that's been missing. This is what happens when you have state capture by the gas industry of the Labor Party and the Liberal and National parties.

The second myth is that gas is important because gas companies make a large contribution to revenue. This is wrong again. In 2022, export revenue for LNG was close to A$93 billion. That's more than double the federal government education budget for the same period, and yet not a single cent of petroleum resource rent tax was paid. 'Company tax,' you hear them say. Australian nurses paid three times as much tax as the gas industry in that year, and the government knows that. They know this. That is why the Treasurer, despite the Future Gas Strategy, didn't mention gas once in the budget. They know this is a betrayal. They know this is betrayal of Australians and of the Great Barrier Reef. At two degrees, the Great Barrier Reef dies—99 per cent of it according to the government. More fossil fuels leads to two degrees. We need to stop this.

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

I rise to speak in strong support of this matter of urgency, which is that a marine heatwave that triggered mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef has devastated significant World Heritage habitat and wildlife, impacted communities and the economy and should be treated like other extreme weather events and declared a national emergency under the National Emergency Declaration Act, and that Labor should stop opening coal and gas mines which will make the climate crisis worse.

I've been talking about the reef since I was first elected to this chamber 13 years ago. I ran a strong campaign to stop the reef being treated like a coal and gas highway. I've still got the poster in my office. It's 10 years old now, and, 10 years on, the reef is still being treated like a highway for coal and gas exports. It is absolutely shameful that this government, who promised to be better and different from the last government, have not stopped the flow of coal and gas being exported. They are not doing enough to protect the reef.

I hear Senator Green's protestations that they've put a little bit of money into crown of thorns, that they've put a tiny amount of money into water quality—when the water quality scientists asked for $8 billion to tackle water quality issues, I might add. They have been doing orders of magnitude less than what they should be doing on water quality. The fact remains that this government keeps approving new coal and gas mines. It is an absolute joke. What more evidence do you need? This is the fifth mass coral bleaching in eight years, and we've just had the fourth global coral bleaching confirmed by international scientists.

I want to read from the actual authority of the reef itself, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, GBRMPA, who, with AIMS, the Institute of Marine Science, released a report last month warning that the reef was experiencing 'the highest levels of thermal stress on record.' The authority's chief scientist, Dr Roger Beeden, spoke of extensive and uniform bleaching across the southern reefs, which have dodged most of the worst of the previous four mass bleaching events to blight the reef since 2016. I want to mention Professor Terry Hughes, who is the foremost coral bleaching expert globally, particularly on the Great Barrier Reef, and who's at JCU. He says that in the institute's aerial surveys it is the most widespread event and severe bleaching event to date, not just in the south but across much of the entire system—the whole 2,300 kilometres of the Great Barrier Reef. This is the fifth mass coral bleaching event. The coral reef scientists are tearing their hair out.

I went and saw the reef after one of those earlier bleachings, and it was truly heartbreaking. It was like a sea of rubble. As my colleague Senator Whish-Wilson said, it looked as if it had been carpet-bombed. He got to see that with his own eyes as well. I want to speak out for the 60,000 people whose livelihoods depend on the reef. I want to speak out for one of the world's seven natural wonders, which I don't think we have the right to be destroying for the private profits of coal and gas companies so that they can make political donations to both of these two flaccid parties in this chamber.

What an absolute disgrace that we are still making the same arguments, that the scientists are still saying the same thing and that the new government, who claimed that they would be different, are just as woeful and just as wedded to the fossil fuel industry as the last mob. What an indictment on your priorities.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When discussing coral bleaching recently, the assumption defaults to blaming claimed human climate change instead of asking what actually caused it. Coral bleaching in simple terms is a loss of colour in coral, most often due to symbiosis dysfunction, a severing of the join between the coral polyp and the host tissue—the calcium carbonate that gives coral its white colour.

Bleaching is a response to environmental stress. It has many causes, including changes in salinity, ultraviolet radiation, increased sedimentation and high nutrient levels after flooding or pollution. Kamenos from the University of Glasgow found evidence of Great Barrier Reef bleaching in the 1600s. His paper has been contested, yet the many citations used to support his paper have not been. Hendy documented two hiatuses in coral skeleton growth, associated tissue death and subsequent regrowth in eight multicentury coral cores collected from the central Great Barrier Reef accurately dated to 1782 to 1817. This period was before humans are claimed to have influenced the weather. Dunne recorded bleaching on the reef in 1928. Woolridge documented the bleaching caused by floodwaters carrying nutrients impacting on the reef. Kenkel found coral has plasticity to adapt to different environmental conditions and is more resilient than previously thought. Maynard found that coral adapts to bleaching by becoming more resilient. During the past 2.5 million years, there have been 40 glacial maximums and 40 interglacial periods. Eighty times, coral has had to rise or fall by up to 140 metres, and our coral reefs are still there. How resilient they are.

Our reefs have been subjected to bleaching for millennia, and they always recover, as they did in 2022, when the Greens were telling us the reef was dead, and tourists believed them. Tourist numbers are below the long-term average, COVID excluded. It's time climate carpetbaggers were called out for selective pseudoscience designed to protect their taxpayer funding. Bleaching is a part of nature. It recovers. It's cyclical.

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I come before the Senate today to speak to every member of this parliament on the destruction of our marine landscapes and the widespread climate disasters we are seeing and to ask the question, 'When?' When will it be enough for you to act not in alignment with corporate greed but on behalf of our planet and Australians, who actually deserve your help?

Our national treasure, the Great Barrier Reef, is being described as a graveyard. This summer, 75 per cent of reefs surveyed across the entire Great Barrier Reef system experienced extreme heat stress. It was the fifth mass bleaching event since 2016. In Western Australia, in our south-west, our forests are dying. We have gone months and months without rainfall, with residents of the south-west forced to travel outside of their region just to have a shower or borrow water. Their lands are dry and barren, and the risk of fire is truly terrifying. People do not feel safe in these conditions.

And yet, just one day after scathing reports from the world's climate experts established that we are on track for 2.7 degrees of warming, this Labor government reaffirmed their commitment to expanding fossil fuel operations. Labor's new gas strategy has been condemned downright and rejected across Australia. Not only does it double down on gas as an energy source; it increases our reliance on gas through its expansion of gas projects. The Labor government's decisions, which they have actively made in the face of this evidence, condemn our people and our planet to a future that is unliveable.

This goes beyond being neglectful. We are reaching the point of planned suffering. The Labor government is not acting in the interests of the collective safety and wellbeing of the community but in the interests of corporations and fossil fuel moguls, giving them, in this budget, $50 billion in public funds over the next four years alone. The experts surveyed as part of UN and Australian processes—internationally renowned people who have spent their entire lives learning about our climate system and working on the impacts of climate change—warn us again and again that we are on track for disaster. It is in this reality that so many in our community are fed up and are asking this government one last time if it really has no better hope for the future of our country than to bring upon the world the climate disaster and to speed it up by ensuring that, as the world burns, it does so based on fuels found here in Australia. Shame upon them all. (Time expired)

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Great Barrier Reef is being killed. The reef is in the grip of its fifth mass bleaching event in eight years because of climate change and heat stress caused by the burning of fossil fuels, yet the Labor government has just ensured gas expansion beyond 2050. The science is clear. Burning coal and gas is destroying the planet. What is also abundantly clear is that the Labor Party is owned by fossil fuel corporations. They're rolling over to Santos without as much as a whimper. It's no wonder then that, after promising to act on the climate crisis, the Labor Party have shown themselves to be champions of coal and gas, locking us into coal and gas production beyond 2050, and that too using public money. Net zero by 2050 was already going to be extremely challenging, and now we know it's nothing more than hollow words from Labor.

How can Labor look people in the eye and say they sincerely care about the reef and the climate crisis with their future gas strategy, which will lead to nothing but the bleakest of futures? People are already living the reality of the climate crisis with catastrophic consequences, including heatwaves, fires and floods. In my home state of New South Wales people are still reeling from the floods in the Northern Rivers. This is only going to get worse if we don't act now. The sad reality is that Labor is beholden to vested interests like in coal and gas corporations. We've all seen the crocodile tears, the hand-wringing and the empty words from Labor MPs on their party's expansion of gas, but we've still seen no actual action. You are not fooling anyone. People can see right through this, and the community has had enough of this.

Since they came to power, the Labor government have approved five new coalmines and eight new gas mines, knowing full well that, at the current rate of global heating, it is going to blast past the internationally agreed target of 1.5 degrees Celsius. What an upside down world. What an absolute shame. At the last election, if it is anything to go by, there was a clear message that voters want to see more action, and strong action, on climate. The only thing standing in the way of action on climate is Labor, whose pockets are being lined by their coal and gas donors. Shame!

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion moved by Senator McKim be agreed to.