The Australian Government has rubber-stamped a dodgy approval process for dumping and dreding in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

GetUp’s campaign director Paul Oosting said:

“When they couldn’t get away with dumping 2 million cubic metres of dredge spoil in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef, they looked around for anywhere else to dump it.”

“No matter they’d previously claimed it wasn’t feasible to dump the dredge spoil on land.”

“People are strongly opposed to dredging within the Great Barrier Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, and instead of listening the government’s gagged public input and done a dodgy deal to fast-track the approval for Indian mining giant Adani.”

“The so called Environment Minister plans to approve it with the lowest possible level of assessment, which means no environmental impact assessment and no opportunity for scientists or the community to provide proper input or scrutinise the impacts thoroughly.”

“The Queensland and Australian governments are happy to spend up big lobbying UNESCO but not doing the hard work of protecting the reef from rapacious developers.”

What Minister Hunt will say:

He already has enough information from the previous approvals process: The work to assess the previous proposal to dump the spoil offshore is irrelevant because this is a totally different proposal with the potential to damage a significant and separate environment.

He flagged the plan in advance: No one would expect a responsible government to abdicate its responsibilities to due process on major projects with the likelihood of significant environmental impacts.

What you should know:

If approved, instead of dumping the dredge spoil in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, it will be dumped in the Caley Valley Wetlands at Abbot Point.

These wetlands are the trigger area for the Great Barrier Reef Wetlands, which serve as a filter for the Reef, and as habitat for vulnerable, threatened and migratory birds and as a nursery for marine life and other fauna.

This comes a day after the Australian Academy of Science slammed the government’s plans for the Reef, and after yet another of the world’s biggest banks, Citibank, joined a growing chorus of banks refusing to fund this destructive project.
Matt Levinson. Mick Gibb