They were aiming at Tasmania though ...

As long as they hit Greenie Bob and his side kick (I'm being polite),
no one would care.

Possibly had the co-ordinates for Austria set.

I have dived many of the world's coral reefs. Several points.
1) Man has been damaging reefs on an epic scale for centuries. In the Middle East the reefs were mined to produce building blocks that cities were built from. Thousands of ships have wrecked themselves on reefs. Lots of war has happened on reefs. Dynamite fishing of Philippine reefs has done immense amounts of damage. As bad as rainforest depletion.
2) Reefs are living things and thus are amazingly resilient. In fact they can be manufactured. Put some concrete shapes on a sandy bottom in the tropics and pretty soon it is colonised by coral.
3) These practice bombs in the enormity of the Great Barrier Reef are far less than insignificant. Like a grain of sand on a big beach.
4) Recovering the bombs would be relatively simple.
5) The bombs could become a tourist attraction.

As the guys before have said, this is a total non-issue. 2 x BDU and 2 x HE (unidentified, but I suspect MK83s).

They were jettisoned "safe." Hell will freeze over before the things explode.

As usual, with an election coming up, our greenies are trying to get mileage by panicking a dumb public on matters they know squat about - the greenies and the public.

As the old bumper sticker said:

"Fertilise the forest; doze in a greenie."

A slightly different take on the story...

US steps up war against nature

The Greenies worry about 4 bombs which might cover
a few feet of coral, if it hits coral and not sand yet no
mention of nutrients, fertilizer and silt that comes down
rivers and blankets the whole reef !!!

To be fair, I think that if this story was about nutrients and fertilizers spilling into the sea and contaminating the reef then I think the "greenies' probably would have something to say about it.

The only reason they're now banging on about bombs being dropped on the reef is because that's pretty much what happened in this particular case....

the iron leaching from the casings will stimulate algae therefore bringing wildlife to feed, the sand inside when they crumble, well it is sand

If a quid pro quo would ease tensions, start with San Fran, Debtroit, errr Detroit or DC. Or all of them.