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

As my friend has pointed out: what else could they be bringing in? They could be bringing all sorts of contraband onto Australian soil. We do not know. Hypothetically, we do not know whether they have not deposited a sleeper somewhere in the Australian population as the result of landing on Australia’s northern shores. We do not know that, but surely it is possible. The Australian community would be wise to remember the breast-beating that goes on on behalf of the government in its ability to protect Australian borders when they contemplate these salient facts.

Even if you assume—and I do not—that these proposals will make a substantial change to the way in which we are able to apprehend foreign fishers, the deterrent value of the offences proposed in this bill are indeed very questionable. It is an economic proposition for impoverished Indonesian fishermen to return again and again to Australia despite the threat of being caught and losing vessels. I ask: will a prison sentence make a difference? Already we know that many of the fishermen are making multiple visits to Australia. There was notably one who was finally caught in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. He had not made his first, second, third or fourth visit. He had not made even his 10th, 20th, 50th, 60th or 100th visit. This person, before being caught, had made 103 voyages to Australia. What does that tell us? If you are an Indonesian fisherman, you would say, ‘Mate, what are the odds of being caught here?’

We also know that there is an economic imperative, apart from the fact that the fishermen, on just the odds, are not going to be caught in the first instance. We also know that the economic imperative driving this, at least so far as the Indonesian fishers are concerned, is the fact that the Chinese fishing fleets have overfished and denuded Indonesia’s own waters. So the economic value of the catch has increased as a result of the depletion of fish stocks in Indonesia. The opportunity—it is clearly not a challenge—for these Indonesian fishers is to say: ‘Hang on, we’ve got no fish stocks. We know that there is a real and ready market, a profitable market, for these fish we might catch illegally in Australian waters. Let’s give it a punt; let’s have a go.’ Of course we now know from the observations made by Customs, Quarantine and indeed the Australian defence forces as well as others, such as the Australian fishing industry—commercial and recreational—that we are now getting these mother ships coming to Australia, freezer vessels carrying large stocks of illegally caught fish.

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