SUBJECTS: UNESCO draft decision on the Great Barrier Reef; RBA meeting today; Matildas victory.

SARAH ABO, HOST: Welcome back. Well Australia has welcomed a draft decision from the United Nations not to declare the Great Barrier Reef in danger with a final conclusion due next month. 

KARL STEFANOVIC, HOST: Let's bring in Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek. Tanya, good morning to you, nice to see you this morning. Got the green and gold on. 

TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Morning. I do, yes. 

STEFANOVIC: The turquoise terrors last night.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Great game last night. 

STEFANOVIC: Yeah, it was terrific, we'll get on to that in a second. This seems like from the outside pretty good news for the reef. 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, this is a very important acknowledgement of the difference that our Government's policies have made to the Reef. 

Before the election the UN was set to declare the Great Barrier Reef in danger. Since the election we've invested more to protect the Reef. We've taken strong action on climate change, which was one of the real threats that they were identifying. 

We've taken action with the Queensland Government to better manage fisheries, to better manage water quality, to get Indigenous rangers involved in managing Crown of Thorn starfish and marine plastics. And taken all together the UN have decided that they're not going to recommend that in danger listing of the Great Barrier Reef. 

They said very clearly that between the previous Government and this Government it's a bit like night and day, and I think the biggest change of course is our commitment to act on climate change because that's the biggest threat that they identified to the reef. 

ABO: Yeah, it's incredible work and a great relief as well for the big tourism attraction. 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It is, for sure. 

ABO: Do we know, do you have an update on what condition the Reef is in right now? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, look, we've had a couple of good years. In fact the hard coral cover is the highest it's been in more than three decades, but that's come off the back of a lot of rain and slightly cooler temperatures, and we know that we're going into a warmer cycle and a dryer cycle now. That's why it's really important to act to protect the reef during the good times because the stress of that warmer water and warmer air temperature, we've got to get the reef healthy so that it can resist those pressures. 

ABO: Yeah. 

STEFANOVIC: All right. The RBA meets today, 150,000 households coming off cheap fixed rate loans. It's going to be a disaster for many. Are you worried about the fall out? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, we know that people are doing it really tough, and every interest rate increase puts extra pressure on families. Of course we never like to see those interest rate increases but the RBA's independent. What we can do as a government is keep downward pressure on inflation and we're doing that, we're managing the economy sensibly to keep that inflation pressure lower. 

But we're also helping families with the cost of living. So we've seen pay increases. You know, the previous Government said they deliberately kept pay lower. We've seen millions of people get a pay rise. We've of course introduced cheaper childcare, half price medicines, free visits to the doctor, free TAFE, energy bill relief. We're really doing our very best to help families a little bit with that day to day pressure of cost of living. 

ABO: Yeah, it's a really tough economic environment, isn't it? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It is. 

ABO: Now you are wearing the green and gold. I don't know that many of us expected the Matildas to absolutely smash Canada the way we did. 

STEFANOVIC: No. 

ABO: Four nil yesterday. How was it watching? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah. Oh look, I had a work thing on last night so I had to go home and watch it after the event and so it wasn't quite as thrilling for me as it was for people who were living through it in the moment. But look, it's a great game. 

I have to say the Matildas really are such great role models for so many Australians. Young girls, young boys. I went out to the first game at Homebush a couple of weeks ago and seeing the crowd stream into that stadium, seeing, the parents taking their kids, it was brilliant. It was really brilliant. 

STEFANOVIC: Lovely to see you, Tanya, thank you so much. Appreciate it.