Well before the Royal Commission had ever been considered, pressure for Reef protection had continued to grow strongly following the ACF symposium in May 1969, when a few of the more determined advocates came together to press for political action on the final resolution. In the following years, two complementary, interacting processes were in operation: on the one hand continued conservationist efforts were being exerted to mobilise public support for Reef protection; on the other, was the drawn-out contest between the Commonwealth and Queensland governments to reach an acceptable resolution of difficulties to enable political and legislative change.

FROM RESOLUTION TO IMPLEMENTATION: FIRST DRAFTS OF AN ACT

A leading protagonist throughout was Patricia Mather, acting officially in her capacity as honorary secretary of the GBRC, but in large part driven by sheer personal determination to see that the Reef would be saved from mining and any other form of blight. In preparation for the symposium, on 21 February 1969 she sent Chief Justice Barwick a résumé of the deliberations of the GBRC over the previous two years in examining the legal issues relating to protection. Having described them in careful detail she then presented the crux of the GBRC case: ‘The most pressing requirements at the present [are] … to extend the protection afforded all marine flora and fauna to territorial waters surrounding all national parks … to prohibit mining of minerals below high water … [and] to investigate setting up of further national parks’.