Brad Farmer was honoured for his lifetime of distinguished voluntary service to surfing, conservation and communities in the 2019 Queens Birthday Honours list. He began his first eco-campaign at age 12 (1972) at Paradise Point in South East Queensland.
Farmer said he wants to use his honour as a Member of the Order of Australia to call on the Morrison Government to create a new federal Ministry. “Coastal and marine resources are one of Australia’s greatest generators of income and pleasure for millions of us, and its sustainability hangs in the balance with impending commercial and foreign threats under a total lack of any national protective framework. Coastal tourism alone generates $103 billion every year. Why is it then that other lesser or comparable Australian natural resources like fisheries, mining, agriculture, forests and water resources have dedicated (state and federal) Ministries, but not coastal and marine, when it is proven to be a potentially infinite resource, long after others are may have been exhausted.”
Farmer has urged Scott Morrison, who, like his two Liberal Prime Ministerial predecessors, live and represent significant coastal electorates, to speak up for the coast.
Australia comprises 60,000 kilometres of coast and the world’s third largest marine Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) under United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The protection of our coastal and ocean zones may include strategic defence concerns. Mr Farmer is advocating for both major parties and cross benchers to support a Private Members Bill to introduce three key measures to coastal and ocean resources: a National Coastal and Marine Act, a Federal Ministry for Coastal and Marine Resources and a National Coastal and Marine Authority.
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