Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On 2 June 2003, the then Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Dr Kemp, announced with some fanfare in a press release the Great Barrier Reef protection plan in which he referred to the commencement of a Representative Areas Program up the eastern seaboard of the Great Barrier Reef. In that press release he made the statement that only 4.5 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef is protected to date from extractive practices such as fishing. His words were that they were looking at closing about 30 per cent of the reef in an effort to protect it. Those figures started the lies that have caused a huge amount of problems and grief for the fishing and business community in my region and further down along the eastern seaboard.

The reality is that he was starting with a false premise. The figure was not in fact 4.5 per cent. That figure was obviously passed on to him by the bureaucrats within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. It was done to raise concern and support for what they were intending to do not from the resident region but more from the metropolitan areas of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane—from people who had no real idea of what was happening.

There was a question raised by one of the senior members of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority—a gentleman by the name of Randall Owens, a project manager for the fisheries issues group—challenging him on those figures. His comment was: ‘I accept your criticism with the emphasis on reef that it could be misleading, particularly to Joe Public who is only involved from a distance and not with the detail. And, yes, it could have been said that 22.5 per cent of the reef was protected, but overall five per cent of the marine park was protected in green zones. However, my personal opinion is that you may be flogging a dead horse for little gain. I don’t think it can win you much apart from some personal satisfaction. The number of people who want greater protection is substantial and certainly there is strong support for increased protection.’

By the very expensive ads taken out by GBRMPA and supported by the Wilderness Society and the ACF, pushing this lie into metropolitan areas, they were actually encouraging people to come out and support this and at the same time telling the minister that there was going to be minimum impact in the community. At the time I expressed concerns and said that, provided the basis of this was science, nobody would argue that you had to protect these areas, but the idea was not to push agendas such as that of the Wilderness Society, which is looking for a total removal of these people’s businesses along the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. At the time we were assured by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority that there would be very little impact on businesses. In fact, when the first draft was presented it looked as though what they were saying was correct and the fishing industry, which came in behind this and supported its concept, said that they were quite satisfied with the first draft.

However, at that point the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority encouraged the fishing industry to indicate the areas that they could not afford to lose. The industry did this in an effort to work through and support the process. Unfortunately, by giving freely of this information, when the second draft came out all those areas highlighted by the commercial fishing interests as areas that they could not afford to lose had been zoned either green as a conservation zone or yellow as a new zone for recreational fishing, which in effect shut down many of the fishing areas. The Northern Prawn Fishery, for example, had a seven-year plan of working towards ecological sustainability which had in fact been signed off as achieving that ecological sustainability by Environment Australia, the EPA and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority itself and was waiting on certification to come back from overseas through the IUCN. The changing of these zones made it totally unviable and unsustainable—with devastating impacts. I might add that the advice of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to the minister at the time was that the impact would be no more than $1.5 million to the fishing industry.

By July 2004, when the Representative Areas Program came into effect, we realised that there were major problems. In introducing the legislation I think $10 million compensation was allocated for those impacted by it, even though the minister was assured that it was $1.5 million. To date, we have spent close to $90 million in compensation. The new Minister for the Environment and Heritage has had to try and unscramble a very messy omelette. I give him full points for the work that he has done in lifting the cap from $200,000 per business to, with cabinet approval, an unlimited amount. There are still a lot of issues there that have to be worked through with the minister and we are trying to do that.

In the short time that I have here, I will just go through some of the horror stories. The owner of North Queensland Seafoods, Kevin Dempster, used to be a wholesale supplier of seafood, sourced from vessels operating out of the port of Cairns. Now the fleet is much smaller because of the RAP process and Kevin and another small operator have had to dispose of assets in order to meet financial obligations. Kevin is having to sell his family home to be able to stay in business. Rod Lacco was the owner of Opal Marine. Over the last 12 months his business has shut down completely, his family has broken up and his marriage is on the rocks. At this stage there is no restructuring for him. He had been working in the business for many years, and now the business is totally destroyed. Aqua-Cat Charters owned by Peter Todd was another very successful business that had been built up over 20 years. His business is down by over 40 per cent. Graham Gaerth of Cairns Marine Maintenance carried out maintenance work on engines, refits, trawlers et cetera and at the height of his business he employed 10 people. That has folded as a direct result of RAP. Maurie Stevens, a qualified motor mechanic, operated Stevens Outboard Services for 25 years. He employed two workers as apprentices, but his business has folded as a direct result of RAP. There are other people like Lyle Squires Sr and Cairns Marine Aquarium Fish that are taking tremendous risks by trying to go out further into the Coral Sea to maintain their businesses but struggling desperately. And the list goes on.

The way these people have been treated is an absolute disgrace. It is a disgrace that this decision, in relation to the Representative Areas Program, was based on false and deliberately inaccurate information provided by the bureaucracy, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, and it is my view that those officers who provided this information should be held accountable for their actions. I also believe that, as the five-year review comes around, we need to look seriously at how we can get these people back to work. (Time expired)

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