OPINION – RE: UNESCO’s Great Barrier Reef Report

7 July 2024

The worst Federal Labor Government in Australia’s history continues to be led blindly like a lap dog by WWF and UNESCO towards economically unreachable water quality targets within the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) catchment areas, to the point where only a shutdown of every single primary industry in Queensland will be considered satisfactory to their demands.

Don’t be fooled until the last sugar cane crop has been harvested, or the last banana picked in North Queensland. These globalist elites will stop at nothing until they reach their goals. We are being held to ransom by this global body, UNESCO. Their latest weapon is their Great Barrier Reef Report which they use as the ultimate trump card. Weak governments are crumbling to their demands as scientific bodies and conservation groups line up for a spot at the “reef rescue trough”, all at the expense of Queensland’s economic future.

Our commercial fishing industry has been decimated. Cane, cattle, banana and other growers have all being held under the blow torch of reef regulations aimed at achieving ‘acceptable’ water quality targets and landowners are restricted from clearing their land for crops or grazing, even if doing so would provide benefits that far outweigh any negatives. As if these industry crippling measures aren’t enough, we’re now hearing from UNESCO that ‘there’s more to do’.

If you’re unconvinced that UNESCO is simply fear mongering, look at the evidence in complete contradiction of that perspective. Professor Peter Ridd recently shared his views stating that the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) has found that the GBR in 2024 has maintained the record amounts of coral on the seabed that occurred in 2022/23. AIMS claim that the last three years have seen more coral than the last 35. We were told by the likes of UNESCO that the GBR suffered multiple “devastating” bleaching events since 2016. According to Professor Ridd, the AIMS research shows that even the bleaching that did take place, could not have killed much coral. In his view, when we are confronted in the media about the huge amounts of coral said to be dying due to bleaching, this is massively exaggerated, and I couldn’t agree more.

The question is – ‘Where will it end?’ Bluntly, it won’t. My prediction is they won’t be happy until North Queensland is completely locked up under National Parks and totally barren of any industry whatsoever. The GBR will be a no-go zone and communities north of Rockhampton will be expected to become solely reliant on tourism. This may not happen overnight, but if we leave those currently in charge to follow this ideology it will be our future.

That’s not a North Queensland I want to leave our children and grandchildren, and that’s not the state our forefathers busted their gut to build. Give Queenslanders the power back to manage our own resources and assets so that we can return to being the economic powerhouse we once were.

Deputy Leader of the Katter’s Australian Party and State Member for Hinchinbrook,

Nick Dametto.