EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
STATUTORY RULES 1982 No. 389
Issued by the Authority of the Minister for Primary Industry
The purpose of the regulation is to declare the position of the line which will delimit the areas of continental shelf appertaining to Australia from the continental shelf appertaining to the French Republic, between the Territory of the Coral Sea Islands and New Caledonia. The Governments of Australia and France signed an agreement on 4 January 1982 for that purpose.
In addition, the regulation declares the position of part of the seabed jurisdiction line agreed by the Governments of Australia and Papua New Guinea in the Torres Strait Treaty signed on 18 December 1978. It declares an interim median line between the Territory of the Coral Sea Islands and the Solomon Islands as a unilateral action by Australia pending formal agreement with the Government of the Solomon Islands on the position of that line.
Paragraph 25(a) of the Continental Shelf (Living Natural Resources) Act 1968 authorises the Governor-General to make, for prescribed purposes, regulations prescribing short methods of description of areas of the continental shelf of Australia or of an external Territory.
The regulation amends the Continental Shelf (Living Natural Resources) Regulations by revoking the existing long description of the Coral Sea Islands Division and inserting in its stead a long description that will include the lines agreed with France and Papua New Guinea, and the interim median line between the Territory of the Coral Sea Islands and the Solomon Islands.
It is not proposed at this time to prescribe short descriptions of the areas of continental shelf adjacent to Norfolk Island or to the Territory of Heard and McDonald Islands, to which the Agreement with France also makes reference.
An associated proclamation under section 7A of the Fisheries Act 1952 has been signed by the Governor-General in Council, declaring waters, lying on the side nearest to French territory of the line agreed with France, to be excepted waters. The line delimiting Australian and French jurisdictions between the Territory of the Coral Sea Islands and New Caledonia for that purpose is the same as that described in the regulation. The explanation of the numerical differences between the geographical co-ordinates describing the same point in the two instruments is that the Agreement between Australia and France specifies geographical co-ordinates according to the World Geodetic System 1972;
but Divisions of the continental shelf for purposes of the Continental Shelf (Living Natural Resources) Act 1968 are expressed to coincide with the adjacent areas agreed with the States for purposes of the Petroleum (Submerged Lands) Act 1967, section 156 of which provides for geographical co-ordinates to be expressed by reference to the Australian Geodetic Datum.
The Governments of Australia and France have agreed that the Agreement on Maritime Delimitation shall come into force on notification that both countries have completed the legislative and executive steps necessary for its implementation. The inclusion of part of the seabed jurisdiction line agreed by the Torres Strait Treaty is part of a progressive programme of implementation of jurisdictional matters in preparation for entering of the Treaty into force.