E&OE….
Topics: Great Barrier Reef
ALAN JONES:
He's on the line, the Minister, from Canberra. Greg Hunt. good morning.
GREG HUNT:
Good morning Alan.
ALAN JONES:
I just want to ask you why you ever allowed this sludge to be dumped in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park to start with? I know it's not now but…
GREG HUNT:
Sure. So we inherited, and I inherited, five massive dredge proposals that would have amounted to more than 60 million cubic metres. Under the law we made sure that it was reduced, but I set out to do three things: change the project to get it moved onshore; change the practice so all five of those proposals would be stopped; and then change the law. And we've done all three of those things, so we have now brought into being a permanent ban on all capital dredge disposal in the Marine Park.
It's been going on for a hundred years, it's stopped on our watch, it was something we inherited, and I remember calling for and getting a briefing not long after I came in – because I had to deal with this Abbot Point issue – and I was astonished to find that it started under the Bligh Government, it was left to me by the Rudd and Gillard Governments, 60 million cubic metres of planned dredged disposal. We finished all of it, none of it will happen within the Marine Park.
ALAN JONES:
Well now what about the Great Marine Park Marine Authority, who said their advice was ignored? They were, in 2013, against dumping the sludge in the Barrier Reef, saying it had the potential to cause long-term irreversible harm, then a whole stack of very eminent people left the board of the Authority, replaced by some bloke who knew nothing about it, and suddenly approved the dumping of the sludge.
GREG HUNT:
Look let me maybe disagree with you here and defend the Marine Park, because they have worked with me to get this outcome where all five projects have been dealt with. So none of them, none of them, will ever dump in the Marine Park. Now, it's important to remember this park is enormous – 345,000 square kilometres.
Bigger than Italy, bigger than Japan, almost the size of Germany. And so what we have done is change a hundred years of practice, this has been going on, and when we came to office nobody would have believed that it would have been possible in a year and a half to…
ALAN JONES:
No, you've done a great job. But…
GREG HUNT:
… stop each of them, and to change this practice.
ALAN JONES:
No, you've got to be given credit for that, and one of the reasons you've done that is you've done your homework. But look, 2450 cargo ships – because in Queensland they mine everything that moves – can 2450 cargo ships traverse the Reef each year and not damage the Reef?
GREG HUNT:
So look, that is an important question, a very important question. And one of the things that has happened is we have tightened the shipping rules. Warren Truss, the Deputy Prime Minister, and a fellow who also really does his homework, has just recently put out new shipping rules. The Queensland Government, to their credit, is also about to lift restrictions- to increase restrictions and to tighten management of the ports, which is where the concentrated activity is. And so it is an area the size of Italy.
When you look at the intensity of use it pales into comparison with what European ports and others face. But we have put in place the dredge ban, we have an over $2 billion marine park management plan over the next 10 years with the Queensland Government, put in place water quality, and most significantly, the thing that has gone around the world, is the ending of the inherited plans from the Bligh Government and the previous Gillard and Rudd Governments for this dredge disposal and this ban.
I've got to say, when we announced the ban at the World Parks Congress in Sydney last year in November, there was a cheer from 5000 people. And I think from that moment forward UNESCO was set on saying Australia hasn't just done the right thing, they've done a really good job. We'll find out within the next 48 hours.
ALAN JONES:
Okay, well that's what I was going to ask you.
GREG HUNT:
But I am increasingly confident.
ALAN JONES:
Good on you. Because you've done the world, you've been around the world doing all this. So 28 May today, the draft decision by the World Heritage Committee will be made public in the early hours of Saturday.
GREG HUNT:
Correct.
ALAN JONES:
And then will be considered in Bonn, Germany, on 2 July. Just a question I suppose, a very subjective answer you'll have to give because that's all you can give, but do you think we're okay?
GREG HUNT:
Look, I think the case is not just good but that we now have, now have the best-managed major marine park in the world. I think the world has now seen it. The sort of dross and tripe that Greenpeace has put about has been discredited.
Greenpeace, by the way, has people that are facing prosecution in Peru for damaging one of the great Inca World Heritage Sites to make a protest, and they did a protest during this Climate Change Conference in Lima, and they damaged one of the, what's called the Nazca Lines, something inherited through generation after generation and cherished in Peru. They don't care about facts, it's deeply troubling. They want to damage the Reef's reputation to make a political point.
ALAN JONES:
They tell lies.
GREG HUNT:
And they've been caught out.
ALAN JONES:
Yep.
GREG HUNT:
And the world is looking to Australia now and saying wow, this dredge ban, this $2 billion for managing the Reef and the extra $140 million from us and the extra $100 million from the Queensland Government for water quality, these things matter. I think this should be seen as a world example, and I'm increasingly confident …
ALAN JONES:
Good on you.
GREG HUNT:
… that UNESCO will support us.
ALAN JONES:
Good on you. Well I'm delighted to be able to say to my listeners I think you've done a terrific job on all this, and as a result I suspect that on Saturday morning they will not declare the Reef to be in danger, but they may well recommend that the issue be kept under review for another couple of years, and that won't bother you either. So thank you for talking to us.
GREG HUNT:
And keep a review out there for 2020, because it helps us do more for the Reef.
ALAN JONES:
Good on you. Thank you for your trouble.
GREG HUNT:
Thanks mate.
ALAN JONES:
Thank you for what you're doing. He's done an excellent job that fellow, Greg Hunt, the Environment Minister. I suspect, as I said, that when this draft decision is handed down on Saturday morning that they will not recommend that it be declared endangered, but it will be kept under review.
(ENDS)