Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Like the Chen Long. You wonder, in those circumstances, why it is that the government pretends that this piece of legislation is going to make a material difference. I go back to the point about the potential for profit at very little risk by these illegal fishers. I recall the member for Chisholm’s mention of Dr Jim Fox, from ANU, who said:

... poor Indonesian fishermen will not easily be turned away from the lucrative shark fin trade because they receive exorbitant prices in China for their catch.

I know Professor Fox. If anyone knows this subject as to what is happening in Indonesia, it is him. He went on to say:

... the level of over-fishing in Indonesian waters by Chinese crews is so great that Indonesians are being forced to fish in Australian waters.

We know that to be the case. As I said, one fisherman caught in Arnhem Land had made 103 trips prior to being caught. Of the 4,122 recorded sightings—those are just the recorded sightings—of foreign fishing vessels in the Australian fishing zone between January 2004 and January 2005, how many do you think were actually apprehended—one per cent, 10 per cent or 15 per cent? You would hope so, wouldn’t you? No, less than 0.25 per cent were apprehended. We have a problem of huge magnitude here which we all acknowledge, but I am not certain that prison sentences and fines should be the front line of our response.

In estimates last week, the Managing Director of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, Mr Richard McLoughlin, told the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee:

There are many more vessels apprehended outside the three- to 12-mile zone than are apprehended inside of it.

Of course, as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, we cannot impose custodial penalties on illegal fishers beyond the 12 nautical mile zone. However, it is interesting to note that Coastwatch reports that in 2005 there were more than 13,000 sightings—

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