Huge marine parks off Christmas and Cocos islands target illegal foreign fishing

Coalition will spend $5.4m creating havens in area more than twice size of Great Barrier Reef marine park

Australia is adding an area of the Indian Ocean bigger than France to its network of marine parks in an attempt to keep out international fishing boats and promote scientific discovery in two biodiversity hotspots.

The Morrison government announced $5.4m would be spent to create two marine parks around Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands covering 740,000 sq km - a huge expanse of ocean almost as large as the state of New South Wales.