## Insert your name, return address, email and phone number##
January 2013
The Hon. Greg Hunt MP
Minister for the Environment
PO Box 6022
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
By email only
greg.hunt.mp@environment.gov.au
feedback@reefhaveyoursay.com.au
edoqld@edo.org.au
Public Consultation Manager
Great Barrier Reef Strategic Assessment
GPO Box 668
Brisbane QLD 4001
By email only
Dear Minister Hunt and Public Consultation Manager,
DRAFT STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT WON’T PROTECT OUR GREAT BARRIER REEF
## Insert short sentence why YOU love the Reef##
I write to express concern with the Draft Strategic Assessment for the Great Barrier Reef.
The draft coastal zone program report component prepared by the Queensland Government does not
give an accurate picture of key Queensland laws. Its deficiencies include:
1. Failure to correctly describe the extent of major roll backs of Queensland laws protecting
vegetation from clearing, laws protecting national parks and the impact those roll backs will
have on the Reef;
2. Failure to highlight that major port developments currently undergoing assessment are
exempted from restrictions on capital dredging in the Draft Queensland Port Strategy and that
the State Government is ‘fast tracking’ many existing major projects for example the
Gladstone LNG Project;
3. No adequate acknowledgement that ‘major projects laws’ in Queensland governing most
coastal developments and laws governing land use at ports do not include principles of
ecologically sustainable development and lack transparency and accountability;
4. Failure to note that the Queensland Government has reduced the number of public servants
administering environmental laws and that the Queensland Government’s ‘Forward
Commitments’ are very weak and include vague plans to simply ‘work with’ the Australian
Government.
Overall, Queensland’s laws are specifically designed to facilitate development and are not in any
way adequate to maintain the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the Reef, or to protect matters
of national environmental significance.
Without transformation of Queensland’s laws, the strategic assessment must be rejected. It is
inadequate to form the basis for a long term sustainability plan for the Reef.
The proposed program should not be endorsed under the Commonwealth EPBC Act. Actions that
affect the Reef must require a case-by-case rigorous individual assessment process as required by
UNESCO.
Yours sincerely,
##Insert your name
and signature ##