If you’ve ever visited the Great Barrier Reef, or are one of the 70,000 people whose job relies upon it, you know why it’s considered one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

Yet it faces more pressure than ever before, from global warming, water quality, industrialisation of the coastline, and ever more extreme weather.

Earlier this decade, the coal bonanza coming out of Queensland saw proposals for six new or expanded ports and thousands more coal ships, fed by multiple proposed mega mines. It was this industrialisation of the reef with mass dredging and offshore dumping of sludge that first saw the world heritage committee warn Australia that the reef could be placed on the “in-danger” list.

The community and scientists were outraged, and in parliament the Australian Greens moved Senate inquiries and private members’ bills to stop the onslaught the reef was facing. Faced with an international shame listing of “in danger” that would jeopardise this $6bn tourism icon, port proposals were marginally scaled back and both state and federal governments finally backflipped and ended offshore dumping of sludge into the reef’s waters from capital dredging.



The reef was placed on the watch list for in-danger listing and governments said pretty words about doing more to save it.

Then 2016 happened.

A combination of fossil-fuel-driven global warming and El Niño saw the reef’s water temperatures skyrocket, which caused the worst mass coral bleaching the reef had ever faced. There was no temperature respite for that coral to bounce back after the bleaching, and almost one quarter of the reef’s corals died, including two-thirds of the corals in the 700km northern section of the reef.

On Friday, the Queensland and Australian governments had to hand in their homework to the world heritage committee on what they were doing about those earlier concerns and this mass bleaching event.

It was a dog-ate-my-homework moment.

What we saw was re-announcement of old plans and no new funding. The government is risking a fail on their reef homework by underfunding their Reef Plan, delaying water quality targets, spruiking new coal and ignoring global warming after the worst coral bleaching the reef has ever seen.

The federal government’s response plan to the worst-ever bleaching event on the reef says global warming was the cause but doesn’t include any action or new funding to address it.

Worse still, the Australian and Queensland governments are still desperately pushing to open up the Adani mega coalmine which would put the Great Barrier Reef in grave peril.

The Greens are worried that our governments’ inaction and their capitulation to big coal companies will tempt Unesco to put the reef back on the world heritage in-danger list.

Global warming is the biggest long-term threat to the reef, but we must also urgently fix water pollution from land clearing and agriculture. We have ambitious water quality targets, including an 80% cut to nitrogen pollution by 2025, but report after report shows we’re nowhere near on track to meet them.

The experts in the Queensland government’s own Great Barrier Reef water science taskforce called for a massive funding boost up to $8.2bn, but our governments have simply dismissed them.

Just this week, the Queensland government decided to keep using the reef’s waters as a rubbish tip for dumping one million cubic metres of sludge from maintenance dredging, in their long overdue but nearly toothless Maintenance Dredging Strategy.

Elsewhere in Queensland, more than 300,000 hectares of native woodland is being cleared every year, sending rivers of sediment flowing into the reef. Despite promising to stop this clearing frenzy, the Queensland Labor government waited too long to act, and tree-clearing protections were recently voted down in the parliament.

Earlier this year, I visited the worst-hit area of the reef at Lizard Island along with some of Australia’s leading reef scientists and saw the destruction first-hand. The devastation was horrifying. Our leading scientists have told us of weeping into their dive masks as they witnessed the destruction.

The have told us that if the current trajectory of global warming continues, even if we do fix water pollution, the reef will suffer terrible bleaching every two years by the 2030s.

To save the reef and avoid an in-danger listing, both levels of government need a response to global warming that includes scrapping the Adani coalmine and banning all new coalmines, moving to 100% clean energy, finally banning all dredge sludge dumping including maintenance dredging, and strong land clearing laws.

It’s not too late, but time is running out to save our reef’s future and secure a bright future for all Queenslanders. It’s time for our leaders to step up.