Mr. Justin Moran:

We fully support the objective of 30% of our marine space to be allocated to marine protected areas. We would like to see the Government initiatives, not placed in the legislation, to identify them to move forward as quickly as possible. Our industry will do anything it can to support that.

On the secondary point regarding maritime area consents, for the phase 1 projects that will be going in for maritime area consent applications quite soon they will have already done at least one and, in many cases, multiple rounds of community engagement and public consultation in advance of that. It is also important to highlight that the terms of the maritime area consent are themselves the subject of public consultation. I believe that public consultation ended in the last couple of weeks. I have vivid memories of reading the consultation submission. That is really the focus. Once we have that process in place, they will be able to apply for maritime area consent, but it is critical to highlight that it does not give them an advantage in the planning system. They will still need to go through the planning system and there will and must be opportunities for people to engage fully and thoroughly there and to be listened to as part of that process. That is really where people can help shape those projects.