QUESTION No. 449
Senator Ludlam asked the Minister representing the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, upon notice, on 16 March 2011:
-With reference to Operation Talisman Sabre 2011:
(1) In regard to the Talisman Sabre exercises, what will be the actual cost to the department of the exercises, for example, clean-up operations, monitoring, herding dugongs out of the live fire area etc.
(2) In regard to the AECOM public environment report (PER) concerning the exercises, for which the public comment period closed on 10 December 2010:
(a) how are the unlikely scenarios for which the exercises are intended to prepare the Australian Defence Force (ADF), such as nuclear warfare, weighed up with the actual damage done to the marine and terrestrial environment;
(b) to what extent has the projected or potential impact on the area in which the exercises are to be conducted and, in particular, Queensland's Shoalwater Bay region, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and the Coral Sea, been assessed;
(c) who conducted the assessment in paragraph (b);
(d) what were the outcomes of the assessment in paragraph (b);
(e) what assessment has been carried out of the impact of the floods in Rockhampton and the cyclone around Cowley Beach;
(f) if no assessment has been carried out in relation to paragraph (e), why not;
(g) to what extent have the impacts of the floods and cyclone in Queensland altered the planning for the exercises; and
(h) based on the understanding that the Great Barrier Reef and other marine environments have been damaged by the recent extreme weather conditions and given the intense naval activity associated with the exercises, will the department consider postponing the exercises in order to give the region an opportunity to recover; if not, why not.