Senator HILL (Minister for the Environment)(3.18 p.m.) —Senator Faulkner has to leave; I wanted to tell him that GBRMPA approved the turbidity control plan, including the acid sulfate plan, in accordance with the terms of the deed. So much for what you believe would be the attitude of GBRMPA to this plan!

I suppose the only useful thing that has come out of this debate today is that some further publicity has been given to a serious national issue—that is, the management of acid sulfate soils. As I said in question time, they cover a very large part of coastal Australia. A lesson we have learnt over the years is that they need to be managed carefully and they were not always so managed in the past. A lot of current research has taken place on ways of more effectively managing such soils to avoid damage. It is something that we applaud and support, as was demonstrated by my launch of the booklet which Senator Faulkner referred to.

Madam Deputy President, it should be remembered that this was a project that the Queensland Labor government supported and approved. As far as the on-site development was concerned, apparently, Senator Faulkner supported it as well. Senator Faulkner, as you might recall, took certain actions to protect some of the vegetation types, but he did not take actions that stopped disturbance of the soils, the criticism of which he is now making here today.

When we inherited this matter, it was a partly developed site. It had been cleared and partly excavated a number of times over a long period. But it also occurred under the Labor government. The acid sulfate soils had been disturbed and they had sat there for 10 years, being weathered and so forth. In complaining about us, he says they were left to withstand one summer. Under him, Labor left them to withstand 10 summers. Of course, that is different, because Labor is in opposition; it is no longer in government.

Labor basically supported this project. It is true that there were modifications in relation to foreshore management, but basically Labor supported it. I presume that if Labor had stayed in government, they would have done something similar to us, which was to put in place a management plan to ensure that the further excavation and development of the site was done in a way that would safeguard the site from a number of potential dangers. One of those potential dangers is unwise management of the acid sulfate soils. I presume Labor would have done that, but we did not have the opportunity to find out.

The important point is that when we came into government we did that. We had the developer sign on to a deed which we believe applied the most onerous, demanding obligations—he would not like to hear `onerous'; I should say most rigorous obligations—to ensure that the World Heritage values that are not on the site but are adjacent to the site are protected. In other words, in relation to acid sulfate, to ensure that the acid sulfate soils are not washed into the adjoining ocean where they may or may not cause some damage in the future.

We therefore required a plan for acid sulfate management to be approved. We were not satisfied just to leave it at that. We then required that that plan be peer reviewed by two separate scientists. It was peer reviewed. We took into account the advice that was given in those reviews and then applied a more demanding final plan. As I said, that plan went through the approval process, ultimately being approved by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which has the principal responsibility for oversight of this development for us, in a way that protects the World Heritage values.

In question time I set out the safeguards that have been built into that plan to ensure that acid sulfate soils cannot be washed out to sea, even in the wet season, and therefore ensure the world heritage values against any inadvertent flow of water off those soils. The key point in this whole debate is that the best advice that I can get is that the plan is working well, there has been no damage to world heritage values and there is no case to suggest there has been any damage. That really undermines Labor's case. (Time expired)