Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Eden-Monaro was the person to put in. I have worked on committees with him and he has a bit of integrity on some of these matters. He is a person who knows the industry. Having said that, I wish Senator Abetz well. As I said, it is not a big bar to jump when you look at the performance of previous ministers in the portfolio. I am hopeful—as is the industry—that this minister will get away from the glib one-liners and headliners like ‘We’re on top of illegal fishing’, ‘We’ve got it all under control’ when, in fact, it is actually in crisis.

The $21 million to offset the cost of AFMA management levies and for improved science compliance and data collection is a sensible measure. The honourable member for Eden-Monaro, as a scientist, would appreciate the fact that, more than anything else, this industry needs good statistics on what is happening in fisheries so that we can tailor and target these structural adjustment packages more effectively to the people who need the assistance.

I mentioned before that there are several pressures on our fisheries. One is consumer demand and the ramping up of demand for the product in the marketplace. That has put pressure on the sustainability of the fisheries. The declaration of marine protected areas has meant that fisheries have been closed off and some sources of supply have been cut off. There has been displaced effort and that has put structural adjustment pressures on fisheries. But there is another issue that has put pressure on many fisheries—and some of those fisheries are the particular object of the moneys we are discussing today—and that is, of course, the issue of illegal fishing. I cannot believe that you can have such incompetence from a national government on an issue of such substance and importance to Australia.

Illegal fishing is not just a fishing issue. It is a border security issue; it is a quarantine issue. Where we have seen absolute and spectacular failure of government it is in this area. The Howard government can spend $1 billion and more on a war in Iraq, ostensibly to secure Australia, yet it cannot find the resources to effectively police our borders and to get on top of this issue. I will not go into the detail of some of the outrageous claims that have been made by government ministers as this crisis has deepened but, as we have seen with the AWB scandal, this is an area of staggering incompetence. It has been allowed to drift, and now we have enormous pressure on our northern fisheries as a result of the Howard government’s incompetence. The objective of this structural adjustment package is the sustainability of our fisheries. We have a problem in our northern fisheries and it is a direct result of this government’s incompetence.

In addition to that, structural adjustment pressures have come onto fishing operators through massive hikes in the cost of fuel and now, of course, the skill shortages in the industry are spilling over into higher costs that are also putting structural adjustment pressure on the industry. There is another matter I would like to mention in the context of this debate: the food labelling issue—an issue that is very close to fishermen. We have a lot of products coming in from overseas, and I think This Day Tonight has run a couple of programs on this. If the government were to look at doing something very constructive for the Australian fishing industry, it would tackle this issue head-on, get some clear labelling requirements and make sure that it got the state and federal governments together to ensure that on the ground there is a policing of these food labelling regimes so we can educate consumers about the products that they are consuming. Quite frankly, I am a great fish eater, but there are some fish I would not eat in a fit—they are laced with arsenic, mercury, lead and all sorts of things. In saying that, that is not denigrating the Australian product; it is basically the overseas products that have this problem.

I understand that the Western Australian Fishing Industry Council are meeting with the minister today. These are some of the issues that, no doubt, they will be raising with the minister, particularly that issue of illegal fishing. I hope that this minister takes it seriously and does not deal with the problem with a press release that says, ‘We’re on top of the problem.’ We have had a 75-metre boat, Chinese crewed, a mother ship of 640-odd tonnes—that is a lot of fish—fishing in our waters. This has to stop. We have to get a surveillance up; we have to get better coordination between the assets that exist at local, state and federal level; and we simply have to put more money in. This is advice to the government: cut the tens of millions of waste on advertising, put it into this task and do the nation a favour.

See this speech in context