Murder on the Reef

There's a place of unimaginable beauty of colors that literally seem

like they're out of this world.

A place of untold cultural

and spiritual significance,

a place treasured here and around the world.

And imagine that place was disappearing right in front of our eyes.

It'd be hard not to wonder: just how did we get here.

For too long we’ve thought it’s the Great Barrier Reef, the largest living structure on the planet.

It's indestructible. But we found over the years that it's not indestructible.

In fact, we’re bringing it to its knees.

In the last 30 years, we’ve lost some 50% of our coral cover.

The elephant in the room is climate change.

Fundamentally, Australia has a conflict of interest between stewardship of the the Great Barrier Reef

and of the income from exporting fossil fuels.

This is coal. Don’t be afraid, don’t be scared…

I hang my head in shame and embarrassment at the absolute lack of vision of the people in this place.

Sometimes, I wonder if the Greens think bloody energy comes from unicorn farts.

There are challenges on the Great Barrier Reef. They always have been.

There have been mistakes made,

but I'm sure there's going to be measures put in place that these won't happen again.

It is like a monster. It just slowly seeps in

and it takes over the community, then they're just worried

about the profits they are going to take out of the community.

As descendants of our ancestors,

we have to stand up and we have to fight,

to stop these practices of mining in our country.

Coal is good.

They're allowing ports to get away with murder.

It's like lending your sports car to the teenager next door.

For the past four years scientist Allen Dobrovolsky has been testing the waters of the Great Barrier Reef.

Concerned with the degradation in water quality,

his research has led him to believe that

the Reef is facing an environmental disaster of enormous proportions.

My first experience with an environmental disaster was at Chernobyl,

when I was studying the distribution of radionuclides in the environment.

The scientists at the reactor were trying to push the reactor to find its capabilities.

With the Great Barrier Reef,

I see a large-scale environmental disaster

and some parallel story in the way that we all trying to find the breaking point.

And, I guess, it is very close.

The Reef needs protection.

As Allen travels the coast of the Great Barrier Reef,

he talks with residents, scientists, community activists

and politicians about the hotly debated state of the Reef.

I'm hoping to find out whether there is a chance for us to cooperate,

because what I can see so far is a lack of cooperation from different groups of the society.

There are so many different communities dotted along the Queensland Coast from Cape York at the top

to Gladstone 2,000 kilometers away, at the southern end of the Reef.

These communities are as diverse

as the marine ecosystem beyond their shores with each having an impact of some kind on the Reef.

In economic terms, the Reef currently employs 64 thousand Australians

and adds over 6 billion dollars a year to Australia's GDP.

If we do not manage the Reef better

and find balance between the economy and the environment, we will reach a breaking point.

A further 2000 kilometers south lies Canberra,

the nation's capital and home to the Australian Government.

While the Reef dies, many politicians here choose to argue over what or who is to blame?

There are challenges on the Great Barrier Reef. There always have been. Always have been.

But that is well recognized by the Government.

The Greens political party seem to have undertaken a campaign to denigrate the Barrier Reef.

So, that one of the great sources of revenue, of expert learning dollars

and jobs in Queensland, which comes from the Reef, is decimated.

That seems to be the Greens political campaign,

because most of the rhetoric that they go on with about the health of the Reef is simply just not true.

Can I assure the Chamber that in the six years that I've been discussing the health of the Reef

with relevant coral reef scientists,

with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority

with the Institute for Marine Science.

They are speaking with one voice

in saying that the Reef is under serious threat

and that the biggest threat to the Reef is human-induced global warming

and begging for this government

and the opposition to change policies,

so that we can save what's left of the Reef

Just a few kilometers from Senator Ian McDonald's office in Townsville,

is James Cook University.

Some of the world's premier scientists work from this campus,

including the world's leading coal research scientist, Professor Terry Hughes

The Commonwealth Government itself produces five-yearly reports.

They are called Great Barrier Reef outlook reports,

that document a gradual decline in the health of the Great Barrier Reef.

So, we used to think that the Great Barrier Reef would continue its slow decline

in coming decades, if we didn't improve management,

but we were actually wrong,

because the Great Barrier Reef is now in the worst condition that we've ever recorded

in 30 years or more of monitoring.

And that's because half of the coral in shallow water has died in the last two years.

Mr. acting Deputy President, the Barrier Reef is going fine.

I encourage anyone to visit the Barrier Reef.

It is an experience worth having. It's an experience that will be there forever.

And I urge people to take advantage of it.

Tourism around the Reef began nearly 100 years ago

and the sustainable industry could go on forever,

if the Reef doesn't die.

Many of the once thriving tourist hotspots dotted along the Reef

have in recent years evolved into major industrial ports.

Determined to get to the bottom of why the Reef is dying,

Allen heads to Gladstone

a once bustling fishing and holiday town, now the fourth largest coal port in the world.

More recently, Gladstone developed its sport even more.

So, the town could begin to export large quantities of LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas).

In order for LNG vessels to travel into the Gladstone Port,

dredging exercises were conducted.

These disturbed the seafloor, stirring up mud and heavy metals.

These dredge plumes can be detected on satellite images

up to 30 kilometers away from the original site.

Gladstone is an export town.

We export a lot of grain, aluminium and of course a lot of coal.

You know, we've had big developments in our Harbor

because three gas plants have been on Curtis Island,

which is about 4 kilometers offshore.

And to get the gas on the ships we've had to do a certain amount of dredging in our harbor

and that has caused a few concerns to our port.

Yes, in Gladstone the conditions of what they did - the monitoring and that - looked OK.

But, in fact, they were done very poorly. As you know, they missed six months of the bund wall leaking

contaminated sediment into the harbor.

Dr. John Brodie is a former director

for water quality and coastal development

for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

Over his 30-year career

he's worked for both government

and as a consultant to industry

and is one of the world's leading voices in water quality management.

Of course, it has the problem of being

for all the ports the same that the Queensland Government is the owner of the ports

and the Queensland Government is the regulator.

And unless you have some independent body out there overseeing that, this is never going to work.

Now, there were issues with the construction of the bund wall.

The side netting was put in the wrong place,

by error of judgment by a few departments

and has since been corrected

and the wall of that reclaim land has stopped leaching into the harbor.

But it took a lot of work and that could have been avoided with better planning in the first stage.

It wasn't planned correctly. It wasn't built correctly.

It wasn't. The wall wasn't constructed properly.

Environmental disaster that's Gladstone is as short a phrases as you can get.

And, unfortunately, according to the Government,

and the Port Authority, prior to the dredging they dotted their I's they crossed their t's.

They did all the environmental impact statements.

They put in all the conditions necessary

to protect Gladstone harbor and it turned into an absolute fiasco.

I rise today to speak on a matter of vital importance not only to Central Queensland,

but to the whole of Australia.

A major public health scare has emerged in Gladstone.

To date, two fishermen have been hospitalized,

numerous deaths of turtles have been recorded, and also barramundi and other marine life.

Whilst not confirmed, our marine deaths could be a case of red spot disease caused by acid water.

If this is correct, I new approach to disturbing the harbor floor must be found.

Acid sulphite sediment must not be disturbed.

Whatever the problem, it needs a complete, independent, thorough and honest investigation.

Big port developments have environmental impact assessment processes.

The problem at the moment is that they're done by consultants.

If those Consultants don't get the right answer, they don't get any more work.

And in the end, it leads to the outcome that the developer wants.

Not the best outcome for the Great Barrier Reef

or the environment or anything.

Just the best outcome for the developer.

The cause of the deaths is still in some dispute.

Some of the toxic metals in the sediment were above guidelines,

Australian guidelines. Quite a few, actually.

The other thing to remember in Gladstone is that there was an awful lot of work done.

Just never been released properly.

Never been written up properly.

Never been peer-reviewed properly.

So, it's a very messy situation in the sense of actually finding out where all the data is

and what it really means.

I am the first to admit that there has been mistakes made,

but they have been corrected.

And let's hope… I don't say let's hope,

I'm sure there's going to be measures put in place

by our environmental people, that these won't happen again.

The companies came into downtown

and made a lot of promises about their financial requirements to the town,

what they believe their social responsibilities to the town were.

And it's true, they did help with arts.

And they did help with some of the Council funding with sports

and other things like that.

But the reality is that now that they've gone to this stage, where they no longer need no more approvals.

They don't require the consent of the Government

or the community to do what they're going to do,

because now they are unstoppable they are now at this stage, where there will be no ceasing.

They've now withdrawn all this funding and they've withdrawn all this money that was in the community.

So, it was a fraud. It was a fraud.

Bob McCosker is a local development contractor.

He has been providing services to the mining industry for over 20 years.

More recently, he's been operating a turtle rehabilitation facility,

set up with the assistance of Australia Pacific LNG.

People like to try and pick an easy target, which in Gladstone was a dredge.

I have no issues blaming the dredges for what they've done,

if they've done something wrong,

but we should not target them purely,

because there's a financial base backing them.

The single biggest issue that I can see was the massive rain event

that was in Christmas 2010, early 2011.

That's what prompted us to start the rehab center.

As far as the dredging, I mean, we've had our rehab center operable,

when the bulk of the dredging actually occurred

and like, anecdotally, we have seen no issue in any of the turtles that we have rehabilitated here.

Whilst Bob hasn't seen any negative impacts from dredging on the turtles,

John Brodie tells a different story.