2018-06-12
Georgina Downer has responded to polling that shows 73.9 per cent of Mayo wants World Heritage protection for the Great Australian Bight by showing she has no understanding of the risks associated with oil and gas drilling in this pristine marine environment.
“In a train wreck interview this morning Georgina Downer exposed how little she knows or cares about the Great Australian Bight and Mayo’s coastal community. Telling ABC listeners and the people of Mayo that whales would not be affected by drilling in the Great Australian Bight because it would take place hundreds of kilometres offshore goes to show her friends in the oil and gas lobby obviously haven’t briefed her on whale migratory patterns. The ocean is not an abyss,” Greens Senator for South Australia Sarah Hanson-Young said.
“Southern right whales travel through the Bight to nurse their young in the safe, calm waters at the Head of the Bight. Blue Whales feed just off Kangaroo Island, where Norwegian company PGS is proposing to undertake seismic testing. And it’s not just the whales that would be affected – 85 per cent of the wildlife found in the Great Australian Bight is found nowhere else on earth.
“It’s unfortunate for someone who grew up in the Mayo electorate didn’t learn anything about the natural history of the Great Australian Bight. We have so much to be proud of in this natural marine wonderland, that it is disappointing that Georgina Downer would risk that based on dodgy advice.
“A vote for Georgina Downer in Mayo is a vote for oil and gas drilling in the Great Australian Bight. The people of Mayo who want the Bight protected have a clear choice – and that is to vote Greens.”