Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was in Townsville announcing the $1 billion investment as the largest ever for the biggest coral reef in the world.
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation will be tasked with overseeing the billion-dollar fund out of its $10 billion special account over 10 years.
It comes after the Coalition twice failed to abolish that same Corporation under a policy Mr Turnbull's predecessor, Tony Abbott, took to the last election.
Mr Turnbull says the reef conservation funding is an important step that builds on previous initiatives.
"What we are announcing today is the largest, single investment in protecting the reef, in particular in addressing these landslide problems of run-off. This is to allocate a one-billion dollar fund from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation which will be available for projects that will both reduce emissions use clean energy and, of course, protect the reef."
The opposition was in Sydney vowing to scrap the Coalition's version of the National Broadband Network, and resume Labor's original fibre-to-the-premises plan.
Mr Shorten says his party wants to ensure Australia's broadband speeds are world-class and more widely available.
He says the cost has ballooned from $29 billion to $56 billion and only Labor can be trusted to clean up what he describes as a mess.
"We can and we will build a modern high speed network which ensures Australian business and Australian entrepreuners, Australians with ideas, Australians in the regions can keep up with the rest of the world. We will not give the Australian people a second-class technology which is obsolete even before it's actually implemented. Mr Turnbull made promises before the last election to roll-out the NBN to all Australians in this term of government. NBN Co has failed to meet the promises made by Mr Turnbull before the last election."
But the Coalition's Communications Minister, Mitch Fifield, says the proposal lacks credibility and he denies the Coalition has mismanaged the roll-out of the NBN by using obsolete technology.
"The story of the NBN under this government has been a good one, with a new board, a new management, a new attitude, and a new mandate NBN now has one million new paying customers. NBN now have its product available to 2.6 million Australians. By the end of this financial year 25 per cent of Australian premises will be able to access the NBN. At the end of the following financial year half of all premises in Australia will be able to, and by September 2018, three quarters of Australian premises will be able to access the NBN. And as I say we are on track for 2020."
Opposition Communications spokesman Jason Clare says the Coalition's policy is holding Australia back.
"What he is building is a network that's not going to set us up for the jobs of the future. When you go to Japan, to South Korea, to Singapore, you see that they are all rolling out fibre networks. Even New Zealand - New Zealand already has fibre to the node."
Meanwhile a Labor campaign spokesman has confirmed Labor has decided not to allocate preferences in South Australia.
The party intends to preference progressive parties, including the Greens, over Liberal and National candidates, everywhere else.
It will put One Nation last.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull yesterday confirmed he's directed the Liberal Party to preference Labor before the Greens, saying a Labor-Greens coalition would be a disaster for Australia.
The decision is likely to help Labor politicians in several seats under pressure from the Greens, including Anthony Albanese in Grayndler in New South Wales and David Feeney in Batman in Victoria.
Victoria's Liberal Party President, Michael Kroger, says the decision was a difficult one to make.
"It was a difficult decision to put David Feeney back in parliament, it's a cross we will have to bear. If we preference Feeney we will be responsible for putting him back into parliament which, given his disastrous campaign, is something we will have to live with."
The Greens say they will put Labor ahead of the Liberals in 139 of 150 lower house seats and all Senate seats up for grabs in the federal election.
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