E&OE….
Topics: Marriage equality, Great Barrier Reef
MARK PARTON:
Greg Hunt’s the Federal Environment Minister and he joins us on the phone right now. Now you did walk to Federal Parliament this morning, Greg?
GREG HUNT:
I did. I am wondering whether I’ve got two less fingers than when I started the day. It was, I think, minus six whilst I was walking in this morning.
MARK PARTON:
And didn’t it look spectacular?
GREG HUNT:
It was. There was this coat of, or coating of frost just across all of the grass and I could feel the crunch under my feet (inaudible).
MARK PARTON:
Magic. Now we had what many viewed as a historic moment yesterday with Bill Shorten’s same-sex marriage bill. I want to know why there were so few conservatives present when that was put forward.
GREG HUNT:
Look, I would say two things – I know for myself I was at the National War Memorial announcing $1 million for updating and renovating the memorial courtyard. For others, I can’t say. But I will put it this way – I think that it’s well known my views, I’m a supporter of equal rights. I would be exceptionally comfortable with a free vote, as I’ve said on your programme, but the way to do this is through a genuinely bipartisan approach…
MARK PARTON:
So what I’m hearing reading between the lines, is that even those who genuinely support what Bill Shorten’s trying to do, are very clear on the fact that this has got to be above politics and didn’t want to give him a free kick, even by just attending.
GREG HUNT:
Oh look, I think that what he did yesterday was disappointing because if you are a parliamentarian, as opposed to a politician, you seek the consensus of the Parliament and this was all a precursor to the ALP conference where his deputy has a motion to ensure that there is no free vote. Yet back here, they’re now arguing that there should be a free vote. Now the Party Room will deal with this, I believe, in short order in the coming weeks or months and then we’ll be in a position to make a historic change.
But you’ll never get this historic change unless you have the votes from both sides of the chamber. And so the only way the only way through is to do it not as a partisan action, not as an attempt to sure yourself up before the Labor conference, but to say we need both sides to have good faith discussions between the parties and also in the Party Room.
And at the end of the day, do I think that there is change coming? Yes I do. But do I think that it has to be done on a totally respectful basis where each side respects the other in terms of across the chamber, but also each side in terms of the debate, whether you’re pro a change to the marriage laws, or anti a change to the marriage laws, there’s great respect. And the Parliament is at its absolute best. So I would say to Mr Shorten – now’s the moment to rise to be a parliamentarian, not to be a politician.
MARK PARTON:
Greg Hunt’s with me, he’s the Minister for the Environment. Let’s talk Great Barrier Reef. Is the Great Barrier Reef in danger? I know it sounds like a basic question, but there is conjecture here.
GREG HUNT:
So no it’s not in danger. There are always challenges. Every reef in the world, when you look over the next half century with climate change, will have challenges. The Great Barrier Reef is rightly called the ‘Great’ Barrier Reef and my view is if you are starting a World Heritage List from scratch today, the first property you would inscribe is the Great Barrier Reef. Now having said that, on our watch, what we’ve done is put in place a plan out to 2050 which the world has praised.
We have put in place, with the Queensland Government, an additional near quarter of a billion dollars of funding for water quality and I think most significantly, the permanent ban on dredge disposal in the Marine Park for capital dredge, which is historic. For a hundred years, people had been using the Marine Park as a site for dumping dredge disposal. Well that ends and that ends – where we are right now that law actually comes into full and final force today. I signed it off a few weeks ago and it’s now been through Executive Council and it comes into force today.
MARK PARTON:
Greg, how is it that there are so many differing views on this because you know well and truly that there’s still environmental groups and certainly those over on the Greens side of politics that believe that what you’ve just said is baloney – that the Great Barrier Reef is in great danger and they’re trying to get all sorts of actions to try and stop anything from going on anywhere near it.
GREG HUNT:
Well look, a lot of this debate is actually about ending all resource development in Queensland 400, 500 kilometres inland and so many of the groups have now sort of conceded that it’s not actually about the Reef, that they were using that as a proxy. I saw a letter from Greenpeace on Sunday saying well our real goal here, effectively is to stop mining – and that mine happens to be 500 kilometres inland – and so we need your money to stop this mine.
And suddenly it wasn’t about the Reef and so people have differing views about whether or not we should be a resource economy, but if we weren’t, our ability to pay for hospitals and schools, our ability to provide for those most in need, our ability to have electricity at a reasonable rate for those on lowest incomes would be in deep distress.
We’re making massive changes on the Reef front, things that have never occurred in the last century. We’re making huge strides in reducing our emissions, but for some it’s an ideological battle which strangely they didn’t wage when the previous government was in place and the Reef was at risk of being listed in danger. It only just suddenly emerged. It came onto the watch list in…
MARK PARTON:
When the evil conservatives took over…
GREG HUNT:
Yeah, well it came onto the watch list under Labor, it came off the watch list under us. The threat of an ‘in-danger’ listing has been removed and that’s a great outcome for Australia.
MARK PARTON:
Greg thanks for your time this morning.
GREG HUNT:
Pleasure.
MARK PARTON:
Greg Hunt’s the Federal Environment Minister.
(ENDS)