PRIME MINISTER
CHECK AGAINuT DELIVERY EMBARGOED AGAINST DELIVERY
LAUNCH OF ENVIRONLENT BOOKLET
DAINTREE 17 JUNE 1987
Warwick Purser, regional director of the Far North
Queensland Promotion Bureau,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It gives eo immense pleasure to be speaking today in the
Daintree Forest one of Australia's, and the world's,
greatest natural assets.
This rainforest is a dramatic illustration of the heavy
responsibilities that are imposed on Governments, on
industry, cn individuals on the whole community by the
need to protect the environment.
For Australians, that need is a particularly important one
since we have the good fortune, and the privilege, of living
in a continent of unsurpassed environmental magnificence.
Indeed, the protection of our natural heritage is an
integral pa: t of our obligation to our children and to
future generations.
Today, Daintree symbolises the stark differencen between
those who seek to preserve and protect that heritage and
those who seek to squander and destroy it.
The environment can only be destroyed once. But when it is
safeguarded, the benefits are permanent and will be
appreciated by generations to come.
However, protecting the environment also requires us to find
a delicate balance with legitimate economic interests.
I believe X can point with pride to the progress my
Government has made in striking that balance and in securing
our environmental heritage.
Perhaps of greatest relevance to our presence in Daintree, I
am proud to reaffirm today my Government's commitment to
move towards nominating these wet tropics of north-east
Queensland to the World Heritage List.
Negotiations between the Commonwealth and the Queensland
Gover~ nment over the conservation of these forests have been
going on for ten months now.
The Queensland Government persisted in its demands that
logging of the rainforests should continue.
This was, and is, unacceptable to us.
The process of nominating these forests to the World
Heritage List will involve continued consultation with the
Queen~ sland Government and other interest groups.
This consultation process with Queensland will include
furthier consideration of the initiatives already offered by
the Commonwealth under the National Rainforest Conservation
Prograir. These initiatives will be intended to promote
alteznative industries such as tourism and plantations which
can rnaaimisa new job opportunities and ensure that no
partie3 or individuals are disadvantaged.
But wie are determined that the outstanding values of this
area be protected.
And that determination is clearly shared by many parts of
this community.
I aza grateful to Warwick Purser for his warm words of
welcc~ io and in particular for making the very important
point that World Heritage listing will not just protect the
environuLental values of the rainforest but will also protect
and enhnnce its economic values.
Despite some party political differences which may have
separated us on other issues, we are all united in the
knowledge that listing the Daintree will attract tourists
from around Australia and from around the world.
As proud as I am of our determination to protect the
Daintree, it has to be seen in the framework of our record,
established over more than four years, of environmental
protection around Australia.
We stcopped the Franklin Dam.
We nominated stage two of the Kakadu National Park for the
World Heritage List. We made mining the park illegal.
we have made logging the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests in
Tasmania unlawful pending an inquiry into viable
alternatives. We have taken this matter to the High Court
and Tasmania's legal representatives have agreed to a
moratorium on forestry operations in these areas.
We saved Shelburne Bay in North Queensland from mining.
We have continued the National Tree Program and have
established the National Rainforest Conservation Program.
We are cooperating with three State Governments to help stop
the deterioration of the Murray-Darling Basin.
Many of these achievements and the conservation strategy
which lies behind them are summarised in the booklet I am
launchinc today, prepared by my colleague the Minister for
Arts, Heritage and Environment, Barry Cohen.
The booklet is a quick reference guide to a government which
has taken its responsibilities seriously to preserve the
environncnt and which remains committed to those
responsibilities.
All this stands in the starkest possible contrast to the
Opposition parties.
Their prescription for the environment is, simply,
horrifying. Mr Howard has signalled his intention to gut the Australian
National Parks and Wildlife Service; remove the annual grant
to the Australian Conservation Foundation; terminate all
grants made under the National Estates Grants Program; and,
unbelievably, abolish the Department of Arts, Heritage and
Environrcnt. Words fail to describe the catastrophic social, economic and
environnental consequences of such reckless decisions.
Mr Howard describes these actions as cost savings, but they
only thinly disguise a philosophy towards conservation that
is aloen to a majority of Australians.
Indeed, ' t is alien and repugnant to the traditions of his
own party, which in the early 1970s, under McMahon, was able
to clair the credit for establishing the Department of the
Environment in the first place.
Right through McMahon's government, through Whitlam's
government, through Fraser's government, the Australian
environment has been safeguarded by the existence of a
Department of the Environment.
Now John Howard proposes to abolish it in a frantic search
for funds to pay for an irresponsible tax policy.
We have called that tax policy shortsighted but to stand
here in the Daintree rainforest and to realise it may be
sacrificed to pay for that reckless policy truly defines the
essence of shortsightedness.
There must be many Liberal supporters who know that under
their current leader, Australia would go backwards towards
the environmental Dark Ages.
Many Liberals must be appalled at the prospect of mining
Kakadu, vandalising our forests, selling off the
Barrier lIeef, and destroying the sand dunes of Shelburne Bay
and Moreton Island and Fraser Island.
4
Yet these nightmares could come to life under a conservative
government. Those same Liberals must be asking themselves further: How
could those acts of vandalism be prevented after a Howard
government had abolished the Department of the Environment?
To thosza Liberals and indeed to all Australians who have
the interests of the environment at heart I can only say:
look at our record, look at the Opposition's promises to let
the vandals rip and help us to prevont the Liberals'
environn. ental disaster from occurring.
Here in the Daintree, it is my duty to reaffirm our
determination to prevent that disaster and to continue
protecting Australia's unique heritage for the genorations
of Aust'alians to come. 1