Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I compliment the member for Wannon on his contribution today. While he put a little bit of humour into the debate, he raised very serious matters associated with the fishing industry in this country. At the outset, can I make the point that the coalition supports sustainable fisheries management and practices. I also put on the record that it was Minister Burke who created this issue by inviting these types of vessels to Australia as part of his 2009 Small Pelagic Fishery Harvest Strategy. Page 2 of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority strategy states:

… there are considerable economies of scale in the fishery and the most efficient way to fish may include large scale factory freezer vessels.

That should have sent a very compelling message to the fishing industry that the minister was already focused on what he was going to do in terms of bringing large fish-harvesting vessels into our waters. Let us talk about the unlimited power on the basis of social uncertainty, which the minister has talked about. The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill 2012 gives the minister extraordinary and unfettered powers and threatens every Australian family fishing operation. The bill states at 390SD(2):

When making an interim declaration, the Minister may identify a fishing activity by reference to all or any of the following:

(a) a method of fishing—

which the member for Wannon alluded to when he talked about where we go next, to the banning of fishing rods or handlines—

(b) a type of vessel used for fishing—

I have a vessel which I use for recreational fishing. I do not get to use it much but I have it down on the coast at Bermagui. I noticed with interest the member for Eden-Monaro voicing for the first time some concern about the fishing industry at Bermagui, which has a considerable number of commercial vessels. The bill continues:

(c) a method of processing, carrying or transhipping of fish that have been taken;

(d) an area of waters or of seabed.

I want to talk about sustainable fisheries and the way in which the fishing industry and the recreational fishermen in this country have looked after them. A few years back, we had a very serious problem in relation to the way kingfish were being trapped in our waters, on what it was doing to their numbers. The problem was rectified not through pressure from the environmental groups that drive this country but from pressure by the recreational fishing groups who are concerned about what this was doing to the species. I remind the community that it has not just been kingfish; it has been ongoing in the protection of our crustaceans, shellfish and the many other species around our coastline.

I have concerns about, and did have concerns about, what this minister was promoting in terms of this huge gigantic trawler. Why did I have concerns? Because his language when he was talking about it was the same language as the language he used when he was talking about shutting up our national parks in Victoria. I had a few words to say to the minister about that particular issue because shutting up the national parks to cattle grazing has been proven in the past to be a catastrophic exercise on behalf of the flora and fauna within those national parks. I do not want to see that happening with our fish stocks. In closing off on that particular comment, in 1992 I warned another environment minister about the repercussions of that particular move, and in 2003 we saw what locking up a national park can do not only to our native flora and fauna but what it can do to people's lives. I was proven to be correct on that.

The minister has gone to the extreme by giving himself unlimited powers which will impact on every family fishing boat around the country. The minister must not make an interim declaration unless the minister and the fisheries minister agree that there is uncertainty about the environmental, social or economic impacts of the fishing activity. Once more, the government is making policy on the run, and in the process is giving the minister unlimited powers that go way beyond addressing the current issue and the current concerns. The minister, under this act, will be able to overturn any fishing activity on the basis of even the slightest social complaint. And, importantly, any fishing activity can be overturned without the need for evidence. Uncertainty can be created by a complaint from a political source. The same absolute powers apply to economic or environmental complaints. In a new addition to the EPBC Act, the criteria now includes social impacts. It appears that the act is no longer about the environment.

What about sovereign risk, which has been raised here today by a number of people? This decision creates sovereign risk issues for existing fishers who hold licences to fish in Australian waters. Australia's commercial fishing industry will not have the confidence to continue to invest if any quota and/or licence can be overturned at the whim of the government.    This decision makes a mockery of the whole Australian Fisheries Management Authority process, which the government relies on for its scientific advice and, which, once again, the member for Wannon referred to.

The precedent of ignoring your own independent management processes and world's best science quite frankly terrifies me in relation to my own concerns about the state of the industry. It is obviously a knee-jerk populist decision with ramifications that are endless in their connotations. The decision this week follows on from the disastrous chaos created by the government with the ban on live exports which resulted in an industry brought to its knees.

And what about the harvest strategies? Australia's fisheries are independently benchmarked. The management strategies are developed based on science and extensive consultation with a broad range of stakeholders, which of course includes the people within the industry itself—that is, the people in the commercial fishing business and the people in the recreational fishing business, which creates a very solid economic base for many of the rural and coastal towns in this great country of ours.

The small pelagic fishery harvest strategy was released in June 2008 and revised in October 2009 with Minister Burke as the fisheries minister. Specifically, that particular strategy states the following:

… small pelagic species are caught in high volumes and have low unit value. Additionally, there are high capital costs associated with the large scale catching units and specific processing infrastructure required. As a result, fishing operators need to have heightened efficiency—

wait for it—

and there are considerable economies of scale in the fishery and the most efficient way to fish may include large scale factory freezer vessels.

Three years ago this current minister made that statement.

Let us now look at that other minister, that very competent, in some people's eyes, agriculture minister who sits in that other place, Minister Ludwig. In August he said in response to a Greens' motion—and you have to really listen to this because it indicates the hypocrisy and the double standards of this government:

This disallowance motion is a message that the Greens political party do not support sustainable catch limits based on science.

I agree with that.

It is a message that says the Greens want fisheries managed by politics, not qualified fisheries managers. And it says that the Greens do not support the commercial operators who fish in some of the world's best managed fisheries.

That message should be well understood, because I have no doubt that the same disregard for the science and management of our commercial fisheries will be extended to the legitimate pursuit of recreational fishing. As Minister for Fisheries—

this is the now agriculture minister—

I will not allow the emotive politics of the Greens political party to run fisheries management policy in this country.

Yes, good on him!

We will ensure that the Australian Fisheries Management Authority is independent, that it makes independent decisions based on the science through its expert commissioners and on the facts that are presented to them. They will continue to make decisions based on sound judgment to ensure that fisheries are sustainable and meet all the ecological requirements—and, moreover, predicated on the precautionary principle so often espoused by the Greens.

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