Off Australia’s south-eastern coastlines, three great oceans merge to create a super-abundant and unique marine environment. 

A huge upwelling of deep nutrient-rich water is created when the warm currents of the Pacific and Indian Oceans combine with the cold Southern Ocean. 

Phytoplankton bloom and there is an explosion of krill. This generates a feast for seabirds, seals, dolphins and whales. 

Yet, this stunning region, bursting with life, is threatened by seismic blasting, oil and gas development, marine heatwaves and industrial fishing.  

It has some of the poorest marine park protection in the country – something we can change! 

Also, as part of this consultation, the Government is finalising the Macquarie Island Marine Park management plans.  

This is our chance to finalise the world-class marine protection we secured for Australia’s Macquarie Island last year. 

From ocean surveillance to scientific research funding, it’s so important we get the plans right.  

The plan also contains one devastating step back. 

It proposes downgrading 11,000 square kilometres of marine sanctuary from Flinders Marine Park. The area, currently a safe haven for marine life, will instead be opened up to commercial fishing if this plan goes ahead.  

With south-east Australia’s offshore oceans under pressure, proposing to cut a marine sanctuary is unacceptable. We should be expanding marine sanctuaries, not removing them. 

We urgently need your help to show the Australian government that there is opposition to its plan to cut the Flinders Marine Park sanctuary, and strong community support for its plan to increase protections for marine life. 

I welcome the government’s Draft South-east Marine Parks Network Management Plan. This is a positive step forward for the protection of the regions’ super-abundant and unique marine environment. We must embrace this unique opportunity and greatly increase marine sanctuaries providing the area with the protections it deserves.   

However, I oppose downgrading protected areas, like the 11,000 square kilometres marine sanctuary (IUCN II) in Flinders Marine Park that will be opened to commercial fishing. At a time when our oceans are under more pressure than ever before, we need to expand protection, not remove it. Cutting any fully protected area within a marine park could undermine the park’s ecological benefits and would set a bad precedent for future planning for the other areas in Australia’s marine parks network.  

This is our opportunity to provide protections for sections of the critically important Great Southern Reef and to support the resilience of this region which faces mounting pressures from climate change, pollution, commercial fishing, and the oil and gas industry.  

To this end, I welcome the draft plan’s creation of 11 new marine sanctuary areas which will more than double fully protected areas in the South-East Marine Parks Network. Particularly important are the new marine sanctuary zones protecting high conservation value areas on the shelf and upper slope.  

In a welcome move, the draft plan increases the number of bioregions with sanctuaries from six to ten, and will increase the number of protected underwater mountains, or seamounts, from what was only four to 24.  

These new marine sanctuary areas will provide a safe haven for important habitats and species including deep sea reefs, golden kelp forest, whales, deep-sea sharks, and a core foraging area for the endangered shy albatross.  

I strongly support the Draft Management Plan’s exclusion of new oil and gas titles from all marine park zones in the South-east marine parks network. These industrial activities are incompatible with marine biodiversity conservation, and it is positive to see the government listening to community concerns on this issue. Further, I support the banning of carbon pollution dumping (through carbon capture and storage (CCS)) in marine parks. Protection of the marine park network from seabed mining, offshore aquaculture and CCS is very welcome.  

It’s fantastic to see the Management Plan finalising the Macquarie Island marine sanctuary, providing crucial protections for Sub-Antarctic marine life like king penguins and albatrosses. 

The Draft South-east Marine Parks Network Management Plan has some key shortfalls. Seven bioregions, as well as key ecological features and biologically important areas, remain without adequate marine sanctuary protection within the South-east marine region. The following key improvements should be explored: 

• Explore the possibility of establishing a new marine sanctuary in western Beagle Marine Park. This will provide the benefits of close proximity to Victoria’s largest marine park at Wilsons Promontory and will protect one of the two key locations for southern right whales to rest on their migration.  

• Explore establishing the first ever marine sanctuary for the diverse shelf habitats of the Franklin bioregion through a new marine sanctuary at the southern end of the Franklin Marine Park. 

• Expand the proposed marine sanctuary protection in the Tasman Fracture Marine Park to maximise protection for the west Tasmanian canyons and Tasmanian seamounts key ecological features to improve protection of this biodiversity hotspot. 

• Provide marine sanctuary protection for the East Gippsland Marine Park to provide protection for the upwelling east of Eden key ecological feature, a unique location with high productivity and aggregations of marine life. 

• Explore extending the proposed new Flinders Marine Park marine sanctuary westwards across the upper slope and shelf to create a continuous depth transect and protect canyon habitats. 

If any of these increases are not possible in these areas, I urge you to provide high levels of protection of similar values in other locations in the marine parks network. 

South-east Australians are right behind marine parks and their marine sanctuaries. 76% of the south-east residents are supportive of the marine sanctuaries in marine parks and 81% believe they benefit the marine environment. Boat ramp surveys adjacent to Freycinet Marine Park showed that 96% of recreational fishers were supportive of the marine sanctuaries (and 0% of recreational fishers thought they negatively impacted their fishing)¹.  

We know that marine sanctuaries are one of the best tools we have to build resilience into ocean ecosystems. Expanding marine sanctuaries is essential to safeguard our oceans and marine life, including stocks of commercially and recreationally important fish species, through a period of great change.  

We must act now if we are to make sure future generations can enjoy the benefits of healthy oceans in our South-east. 

Please count this as my submission to the South-east Marine Parks Network Draft Management Plan. 

1. Navarro, M., Langlois, T.J., Burton, M., Hegarty, A., Aston, C., Kragt, M.E., Rogers, A. (2021). Social and economic benchmarks of the Australian Marine Parks. Report to the National Environmental Science Program, Marine Biodiversity Hub. The University of Western Australia.