MOTIONS – Great Barrier Reef

The one thing that surprises me about this motion, as someone who lives near the Great Barrier Reef—just a few kilometres away from the catchment area—is there’s been no real mention of what’s been happening on the reef in the last few years. Just under two years ago, back in August 2022, even the ABC could bring themselves to admit, somewhat reluctantly, that, in the headline of a news story, ‘Great Barrier Reef coral cover at record levels after mass-bleaching events’. This news article was referring to a study, released in mid-2022 by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, which showed that coral on the Great Barrier Reef had gone to a level not seen in records at any time before. The records only go back to the mid-1980s, although that’s now getting on for 40 years—we didn’t really measure it much before then—but going all the way back, coral had recovered to its record levels. I note that when Senator Whish-Wilson was bringing his evidence forward to support his motion, he really only went back to the 1980s in terms of coral-bleaching events and what’s happened since then. They are a natural part of any coral reef. It does get different temperatures at different times and, yes, a bleaching event does kill a lot of coral. But, as clearly shown in the last few years, coral then grows back, often stronger and healthier and better—
in the same sort of way that pastures do. Indeed, good pasture management will normally mean the intentional destruction of the pastures through fire management techniques that go back to our Aboriginal ancestors, that then help ensure the grass is even healthier and thicker and better and more resilient going forward. It’s not that much different to coral, although of course we don’t manage it in an intentional way; it’s a natural process that always occurs. So, the evidence is in. The science is in. There is record coral cover on the reef, and yet that’s not mentioned by the other side. It’s a clear problem for their argument. Their argument is that the world’s been warming—and I accept that; the global temperature has been warming, that’s clear—and that will lead to catastrophic results for reefs around the world. But then you’ve got this contrasting data point that, despite that warming, our coral cover has been at record levels. How do you explain that? There has been no coherent attempt from those on the other side that want to support this motion to explain the inconsistency in their own argument and the real-world evidence that is clearly out there that even the ABC admits to now. It looks like another bleaching event is emerging now, but, again, this is part of a natural process that occurs. It’s a bit strange. Senator Whish-Wilson’s motion mentions that if we get to two degrees Celsius then 99 per cent of the world’s coral reefs will die. I’ve had a look at these studies. It just doesn’t seem to compute. Can someone explain to me here in this debate how we could have a situation where the world’s warmed something like 1.1 or 1.2 degrees Celsius since the preindustrial times baseline that’s used—we’re getting close to the 1.5 figure and, yes, the Greens are worrying we’ll get to two degrees Celsius—so it’s warmed more than half to get to the two degrees threat level, and yet we have coral reefs set at record levels. And apparently, for the other half of it, we’ll tip over a point but 99 per cent will die. That doesn’t seem right. And when something doesn’t seem quite right, it’s right to question that. It’s right to question whether this is being used to pursue some other agenda and is not, in fact, a genuine attempt to protect the environment. People where I live and the people of Central and North Queensland are sick and tired of being used as a political football. It’s our livelihoods. It’s our communities that people are constantly using to kick around for their own political purposes, having almost zero knowledge of how the system works, where things even are and what the impact is going to be.
I was listening to the speaker before me, my colleague Senator Steele-John, and he’s now complaining that the Woodside gas project will apparently kill the Great Barrier Reef. The Woodside gas project is on the other side of the country from the Great Barrier Reef, but it will now apparently kill the reef. It reminded me—not that they’ll mention this debate—that a few years ago the Greens senators and Greens activists were saying exactly the same thing about the Adani Carmichael mine. That project just touches the Great Barrier Reef catchment area. It’s right on the edge of it. It’s 400 kilometres away from the coast, but some of the water from the Carmichael mine would, in theory, make its way across 400 kilometres into the ocean. We were all told back then that this mine was going to kill the reef. It was going to be the end of it. It was all over. Lots of the Greens propaganda almost suggested that the mine was kind of in the reef and it was almost going to be digging up coral. In fact, some did, because there was a related ports development to the project at one stage, so they almost suggested that coral was going to be dug up by this port development. That was never the case. Anyway, the mine has now started. The mine has been going now for more than two years, and you would have thought, given the Greens’ previous claims about the Adani mine, that two years on they would bring evidence to this chamber about how this 10 million tonnes per annum mine at Carmichael has damaged the reef. Where’s the evidence? Now you’re saying the Woodside project is going to damage the reef. It’s not even close to the reef, but your argument is that it creates carbon emissions that then cause the world to warm and damage the reef. Well, you were saying exactly the same thing about the Adani Carmichael mine. It’s now up and running. Where is your evidence that this mine has caused damage to the Great Barrier Reef?
It’s totally absurd that this project alone would cause that kind of damage, but it is used to try and stop the jobs and economic opportunities that have been generated by that mine. That mine now employs 2,000 northern Queenslanders in good, permanent, secure, local jobs. They’ve only got people from Townsville and Rockhampton working on that mine. There’s a mining services contract in Mackay. It’s of enormous benefit to our regions, having that mine there. But now it’s forgotten, because its use for the Greens has expired so they’ve forgotten about the people of North and Central Queensland. They’ve moved on to the next project that they’re trying to stop—I hope
unsuccessfully, as well. I think it’s important to pick up one part of the motion that is very misleading, which is the point about the Great Barrier Reef itself generating 64,000 jobs for our country. I’m a huge supporter of our tourism industry. It does great things for our country and it’s a small business dominated industry. They, too, are sick and tired of the Greens using the Great Barrier Reef as a political football, because one thing that keeps people from coming to the Great Barrier Reef is the perception around the world that it’s somehow dead, buried and gone, with nothing to see anymore, despite it having record coral cover and being beautiful—and you should come and see it. Constantly, local businesses complain about the rhetoric from the Greens and how it damages their industry, but the Greens don’t seem to care. Regarding that figure of 64,000 jobs, which gets used a lot by the Greens, it’s quite important to look at where it comes from. They’re trying to use that as a figure to say, ‘Tourism is 64,000 jobs and coalmining in Queensland is about 50,000. Therefore, we can lose the coalmining industry and it won’t matter’—even though 50,000 jobs is still a lot. Let’s look at where that figure comes from. It comes from a Deloitte report that was commissioned nearly 10 years ago. If you dig into the details of that Deloitte report and how they estimate those jobs—in fairness to Deloitte, it’s actually very hard to estimate the economic contribution of the tourism industry because it’s not really separately reported in our data and it’s tied up with hotels and restaurants and other venues that are not only used by tourists—they used travel data regarding people travelling to anywhere in the Great Barrier Reef catchment area. If you travel to Proserpine you’re counted as potentially contributing to the Great Barrier Reef economy. Yes, a lot of people travelling to Proserpine would be doing that. It’s a gateway to the Whitsundays and to Airlie Beach. You’ve got a good chance of going to the reef if you’re flying to Proserpine. However, if you fly to Moranbah, for example—which is smack bang in the middle of the country’s biggest coal basin—you’re also counted as a tourist going to see the Great Barrier Reef, even though Moranbah is nearly 300 kilometres from the Great Barrier Reef. I’m not sure if Senator Whish-Wilson has gone to Moranbah Airport, but you’re probably not going to find too many people dressed in scuba gear there. There’ll be a lot of people in very brightly coloured uniforms, in hi-vis, through Moranbah Airport. It’s not exactly salubrious. There’s not really an airport lounge at Moranbah Airport. You’re out in the open on steel benches, often in the heat, waiting to get your flight back home. That’s Moranbah Airport. It’s a working town. It’s a massive economic contributor to this community. But Deloitte—good luck to them; I don’t know where these economists or other people were based, and I don’t know if they ever went to Moranbah—counted a proportion or what I think was a quarter of the travel to Moranbah as contributing to the tourism economy of the Great Barrier Reef. It’s the most absurd thing you’ve ever heard. They even counted half the travellers to Mackay and Townsville as contributing to the Great Barrier Reef. Anybody who knows knows that’s just absolutely absurd. There’ll be some people who fly to Mackay and Townsville that are going to see the reef. But guess what? There are other people that just fly to see their family in Mackay and Townsville. There are other people that just fly in to work, to do business or to go to and from the hospital in Brisbane, which they have to do because the hospital health services are woeful in these regions. That’s what we’d like to see; we’d like to see that fixed. Do that for us in north and Central Queensland instead of just using us as a political football. But that was just absurd, that report, and it should never be used as a basis for any kind of argument, especially an argument to try and say that we should shut down one industry, in coal or gas, to try and help another one, in tourism. That’s not how you grow business. We don’t have to shut down some industries to help others. In fact
there’s a great symbiotic relationship between the mining industry and the tourism industry in north and Central Queensland because the mining industry does bring people to north and Central Queensland. It brings people there to work and to live, and, unfortunately now, a lot of the tourism that occurs in the Great Barrier Reef is local. It’s becoming increasingly local because we’re pricing ourselves out of the international market. It’s a very expensive destination, to come to the Great Barrier Reef now, with our regulation and red tape and a lack of investment, partly, because of that. We are really struggling to compete against the likes of Thailand and other areas with coral reefs
where scuba diving is a lot cheaper. But the one marker that we do have that will come to the reef is those locals, because it’s easy to get to, you don’t have to fly and people can just own a boat and get out there. That’s a big part of the tourism market now. The more people we can bring to north and Central Queensland either through a mining job, agricultural developments or whatever it might be, the more that will help the tourism industry because there are more people living there that will just go to the beach for their weekends rather than on a long international holiday. For the final point I want to make on all of this, as I say, I accept the world has been warming, but the question is: what do we do about it? What exactly do the Greens seem to think will happen if we shut down our coal and gas industry? That’s what they’re saying in this motion. They want us to walk away from our own production of coal and gas, and their implicit assumption in that is it will save the Great Barrier Reef; everything will be right and fine with the Great Barrier Reef. Nowhere do they mention in this motion or otherwise what the Australian contribution to the world’s coal and gas production is.
It is insinuated and implied, as I think a lot of Australians think, that Australia is this very large coal producer and we dominate world coal markets or gas markets. Nothing could be further from the truth. We produce around five per cent of the world’s coal. That’s it. China produces about half of the world’s coal. We’re five per cent. For gas, it’s even a little bit less. For gas, we’re just four per cent of the world’s gas production. You could shut down all of our coalmines and gas facilities, stop the LNG projects in Western Australia and basically kill our manufacturing industry if you do that as well, and we wouldn’t make a single difference. The effect on the reef will be no different at all. That production will almost certainly be displaced to other countries. The Greens and others will still want to consume the goods that are made from coal and gas products, including scuba gear. That’s made from petrochemicals. Most scuba gear would be made from petroleum products. So what’s the point of it? Your flippers, your wetsuits will all be made overseas then, from somewhere else, using gas from somewhere else. It won’t protect the reef at all. So I think, if we’re serious about protecting the reef, we have to start from the position of getting our facts right. The fundamental reason why I oppose this motion is that the Greens simply have not got their facts right. They haven’t got their facts right on the economic contribution of tourism in north and Central Queensland, they haven’t got the facts right on the state of the Great Barrier Reef at the moment and they don’t have the facts right on Australia’s contribution to this issue and therefore what we should do about it. But, most of all, I think what’s important is we actually get some more voices in this debate of people who are interested in the Great Barrier Reef and want to protect it. Please try to listen to the people who live and work there. They do care about it. We do love it. It’s a fantastic place to be. We’d love for you to come up and visit us or maybe move up to us. We’re very open-minded and hospitable people. We have actually had a lot of Victorians move up in the last couple of years. Every second person I meet in Yeppoon these days is from Melbourne, and it’s great. It’s
great to have those Victorians come and share the wonder of our region, the Great Barrier Reef, with us. But we do get a little bit frustrated by people wanting to make broad conclusions and make political decisions that impact people’s real lives without having any real local knowledge of the issue themselves.