ABC Brisbane interview with Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek

SUBJECTS: FEDERAL GOVERNMENT $1.2 BILLION PLAN GREAT BARRIER REEF, DECISION ON TOONDAH HARBOUR DEVELOPMENT, BUREAU OF METEORLOGY NAME CHANGE, MINISTER’S VISIT TO QUEENSLAND, LAUNCH OF NEW VESSELS FOR THE REEF

REBECCA LEVINGSTON: And it’s interesting timing, because it’s just one day after another thermal coalmine got the go ahead in Queensland to expand. Tanya Plibersek is the Federal Minister for the Environment and Water. Minister, good morning and welcome back to Brisbane.

TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Hi, Rebecca. It’s lovely to be with you.

LEVINGSTON: You won the election with a $1.2 billion plan for the Reef. What are you announcing today?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, this is a really important additional investment in protecting and restoring the Great Barrier Reef, and it gives us the opportunity to tackle some of the biggest challenges for the Reef. You mentioned climate change and, of course, we’ve introduced our more ambitious climate change targets. But specifically with the Reef, we want to do things like improve the water quality; reduce the pollution from plastic and fertiliser and dirt watch into the Reef; invest in blue carbon projects; restore mangroves and sea grass beds so it’ll be actually sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere; but we’re also providing an environment for animals to breed and feed.

I’m just off now to launch a new boat, one of three, that we’re investing in to better patrol the Reef, and we’re working with traditional owners on Crown of thorns starfish; we are working with fisheries to reduce bycatch, things like turtles and dugongs – we don’t want them ending up in fishing nets – and we’re establishing a new coastal research centre in Gladstone with Central Queensland University, so investing more in the science. We’ve had some great breakthroughs in science in recent times allowing us to re seed areas of coral that has been damaged. But there is a lot of wonderful work that we can super charge with this additional investment, so we’re talking about $1.2 billion going into the Reef in coming years.

LEVINGSTON: Yeah, clearly the commitment is there and the concern, I guess, that comes with that, and I wonder – and I know this is a state government decision to improve the expansion of the thermal coalmine just northwest of Toowoomba. But that came through yesterday; it’s been a long time in the making. But you can understand why some people are going “Well, hang on a second, we’ve got the Reef and the commitment there and the acknowledgement of climate change, the shift away from fossil fuels to renewables,” do you support the expansion of coalmines, Tanya Plibersek?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I support us getting as a country and as a planet to zero net carbon emissions, and that means if we are doing more polluting in one area, we have to compensate for that as a nation by planting trees, planting mangroves, investing in these blue carbon projects that don’t just suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, they actually provide habitats for the animals that we need to see protected and given an opportunity to grow, not just on the Great Barrier Reef but right around Australia.

And I think it’s really important to say one of the first things we did as a new Government is legislate those stronger targets on carbon reduce reduction, but that’s not where it ends. Recently, I introduced laws into the Parliament to strengthen our protection of the ozone layer by reducing greenhouse gases. We are area working particularly with the agricultural sector and others to reduce methane, which is in some cases worse than carbon dioxide as a pollutant to the atmosphere. We’re working across our economy to get to zero net carbon emissions. We’re talking about having 82 per cent of our energy come from renewable sources, and these are huge contributions that we can make, and this Government’s determined to do that.

LEVINGSTON: Tanya Plibersek, the Federal Minister for the Environment and Water. You will hear from the general manager of the New Acland Mine in just a moment as well. He’ll talk you through why this expansion has taken 16 years and where that thermal coal will be going. This is ABC Radio Brisbane, and my name is Rebecca Levingston.

Tanya Plibersek, you are familiar with the Toondah Harbour development as well and the concerns there about the Ramsar wetlands site. When will you make a decision on that development?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I have to be careful about what I say because as a decision maker I can’t prejudge an issue before it comes to me. At the moment that project is open for public consultation. I think the public consultation closes around the 6th of December, so if people want to have a say, they can make a submission as part of that public consultation process. Once I’ve got all the information before me, I’ll make a decision.

LEVINGSTON: Okay. So, 6th of December the public consultation closes and then you couldn’t gave timeframe on the final decision, though?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Ah, look, I’d have to be – I just have to be very careful. This’ll be probably thousands, if not tens of thousands of pages of scientific research and public comment that’ll come to me. I have to really consider it carefully. I’m not going to kind of pre empt that by just picking a time out of the –

LEVINGSTON: Okay.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Picking a date.

LEVINGSTON: Understood. It’s a big issue in the local community, so lots of people from a variety of perspectives are keen to keep up to date with you on that. Just finally, Tanya –

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Rebecca, can I just – one thing on this. One of the really important things we’re doing as a new Government is reforming our environmental protection laws, because we do go through these processes constantly. They can be slow; they can be confusing, and we know from the State of the Environment Report that our environmental laws aren’t protecting our environment. The environment’s getting in a bad state and getting worse, and business is facing some of these slow and complex decision making, so one of the big jobs for next year will be reforming our environmental laws so that we better protect the environment and we have faster, clearer decision making.

LEVINGSTON: Just finally, Tanya Plibersek, the Bureau of Meteorology, aka the “Bureau”, aka the “BOM”, aka the place that the ABC could consider their best friend during days or climates like this. They wanted us to not call them the BOM, then that blew up. Did have you a word with the weather bureau?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I did ask for a full brief on how this contract was awarded under the previous Government, the sort of rebranding contract, and so I’ll have a good close look at that. But right now, we’ve got significant parts of the country under water, and I don’t really want to distract the BOM from that. I know that I’m getting feedback from farmers, in particular their great call for the better, earlier warnings they’re getting about flooding events. I really want the BOM to concentrate on what they do best, which is helping communities through really tough times like this.

LEVINGSTON: Yes. Look, we love the BOM and I’m happy to call them whatever they want to be called, just for the record. Tanya Plibersek, you’re in Brisbane today. Where will you be? What are your priorities today?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I’m meeting with the Environment Ministers today and that’s really exciting. We are working on making sure that we work together on our target of protecting 30 per cent of our land and 30 per cent of our oceans by 2030. We’re focusing on threatened species as well. We are the mammal extinction capital of world. We’ve got to turn that around. And we are doing a lot today on recycling and waste, particularly phasing out problematic plastics.

But right now, before I get to the Environment Ministers meeting, I’m just about to launch a new reef vessel with the Queensland Minister Meaghan Scanlon. So, I’m just pulling up right now, in fact, to Norman R. Wright & Sons shipbuilders, where we’re going to launch a new reef vessel. It’s got two more reef vessels in the works, and built right here in Queensland, which I think is a great vote of confidence in the local shipbuilding industry and, of course, will provide a much better way of making sure that we are properly policing and protecting our marine environment out there on the Great Barrier Reef.

LEVINGSTON: Well, Minister, I hope someone’s got a bottle of bubbly for you to smash or whatever they do.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We’re not going to be breaking glass like that, okay.

LEVINGSTON: That just happens in the movies.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I’ll actually recycle it.

LEVINGSTON: Yes, which would be appropriate for the Federal Environment Minister. Tanya Plibersek, thanks for your time this morning.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Thank you, Rebecca.