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

I do not accept that explanation. I simply say to the parliamentary secretary and the government: get your act together. You have had a long time to prepare your budget and yet you get a $10 million line item in there that you have not allocated and you tell this parliament that it is going to be for some restructuring purposes. You have had a year to prepare a budget yet you cannot tell us the details. This is typical of a government that not only underspends but also fails to deliver on its commitments. An important example of this is the mandatory retail grocery code of conduct. On 1 October 2004 the then Deputy Prime Minister issued a press release making a commitment on behalf of the coalition. Mr Anderson said, ‘Within 100 days of the election’:

A re-elected coalition government will impose a mandatory Code of Conduct on the horticultural industry.

The code will give producers a fairer deal on their terms of trade and on resolving disputes with produce buyers, which are in many instances large supermarket chains.

Yet the minister told ABC listeners on Anzac Day this year that retailers were never part of the decision. It is now more than 600 days since the election and we still have not seen a mandatory code for the horticultural industry. The question on every producer’s lips is, ‘Why can’t the government deliver on a pre-election promise that it made to rural Australia?’ There is no mandatory code on the table and certainly not within the 100 days. Can the parliamentary secretary explain? I know it is not her responsibility directly for this—it is the responsibility of the incompetent ministers who have made this commitment and this promise—but can we have an explanation for the sector as to why the government has been so incompetent that it could not fulfil the promise?

There are a number of quarantine issues that are of real concern to the opposition and, of course, the culture of Biosecurity Australia is of concern to rural producers as well as to the opposition. I want to raise with the parliamentary secretary and the minister the case of Marnic Pty Ltd. The botched management by AQIS of the process of assessing an application by this company, Marnic Pty Ltd, has exposed gross mismanagement of the quarantine process under this government. In this case, AQIS initially approved an application from Marnic for a permit to import worms for fishing bait. After going through numerous hoops, Marnic eventually imported a batch of worms and distributed them to bait suppliers around the country. It was only after the worms were distributed that AQIS finally contacted Biosecurity Australia about the case and were informed that the worms posed a risk.

It was revealed during estimates hearings last month that, prior to the botched process surrounding the application from Marnic, AQIS did not have any standard procedures in place for assessing such applications. Many of AQIS’s records, letters and emails, relating to this case had been lost. It was also revealed that until this botched assessment there was no arrangement in place to ensure new AQIS staff knew how to process an application for a permit. When it was discovered that a permit had been issued to Marnic to import marine worms without a proper assessment of the quarantine risk, there was not a thorough review of other like permits but just a discussion amongst staff about possible problems elsewhere. Does the minister think that a thorough review of all risk areas should have been done in this instance? Why did he not make sure that such an assessment was done? Hasn’t the government’s management potentially exposed taxpayers to a large compensation payout to Marnic which will probably be similar to the payments that were made to the Hewitt brothers a couple of years ago?

This is a typical case of what has happened in the whole biosecurity area in this country under this government’s management. I could go through a list of import risk assessments that are outstanding: bananas, uncooked chicken meat, apples, mangos from Taiwan, taro—I could go through quite a few. Why is it that the government after 10 long years in office cannot get on top of the quarantine task?  I would like the parliamentary secretary, on behalf of the minister, to take these questions on board—simply because this is not good enough. Here we have two important agencies that are entrusted with the quarantine task simply not talking to each other. (Extension of time granted)

I understand that there are some other imperatives in this debate, but I want to turn to the issue of illegal foreign fishing as part of this portfolio. During estimates hearings last month, departmental officials said that the increased funding to combat illegal foreign fishing is expected to result in a doubling of the number of apprehensions in 2006-07. Last year there were approximately 300 apprehensions, so the government is now expecting apprehensions in the order of 600 illegal foreign fishers a year.

In answer to a question on notice, the Attorney-General advised that between 1 January 2003 and 31 March 2004 there were 1,588 sightings of vessels in Australia’s exclusive economic zone suspected of being in breach of fisheries law. So, over a 15-month period beginning in January 2003, there were 1,588 sightings of possible illegal foreign fishing vessels in our waters. Last year during supplementary estimates, Coastwatch reported that in the 2004 calendar year there were 8,108 sightings of possible illegal foreign fishing vessels in Australia’s fishing zone. Coastwatch now says that in the 2005 calendar year there were 13,018 sightings. This is a problem that is absolutely out of control. At a time when sightings of illegal foreign fishers are increasing by around 5,000 per year, the measures announced in this budget will, by the government’s own estimate, only increase apprehension by 300 a year. The government has lost control of this situation.

I have been around Australia over a number of years talking to the industry, coastal communities and state governments and their agencies about this problem. While I have been around Australia, seeing the extent of this problem and watching it grow worse, I have seen not only incompetence on the part of the government but also an actual denial that there is any problem at all. Of course, we had that famous example of a minister issuing press releases. I cannot quite remember how many he did but every one of them said we were on top of the problem and every one of them was issued at a time when the problem was getting worse. The minister was not on top of anything but his own rhetoric. We know from the migration legislation that has now been introduced into the parliament that Australia has no borders, and that is the real reason, I guess, underlying the inaction of the government. They do not see that there is a border to defend because they have basically surrendered the borders.

The simple fact of the matter is that illegal fishing poses a huge problem not only to the fishing industry but also to Australian agriculture. This parliament has heard on numerous occasions what those problems are. We all know what they are; we have known about them for 10 years. We have known about them for a long period of time. Not only is illegal fishing depleting our fishing stocks and affecting the livelihoods of Australian fishers and coastal communities that depend on this particular resource but also we know from the nature of illegal fishing that it poses significant threats to Australian agriculture, let alone the border security issues that are raised by the illegal entry to our northern borders particularly.

The government has lost control of this situation. Because of the government’s incompetence this situation is now out of control. We will support measures in this budget to retrieve the situation, but I say to the new minister in this portfolio: do not make the mistake of your predecessors in issuing press releases about how you are getting on top of the problem when we understand that, in the area of sightings, there is an increase of some 5,000 sightings a year. Even allowing for some duplication in that, there could be over 1,000 sightings. You are simply saying, ‘We are only going to apprehend 300 of those.’ I suspect the sightings are pretty accurate and understate the real extent of the problem, so we are going to have 300 new apprehensions and an increase in sightings of some 5,000. The northern borders are leaking like a sieve. It is the government’s incompetence that has caused it. In the words of the great John Kennedy, coach of an Aussie Rules side in Victoria, ‘Do something.’

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