Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill 2012. Frankly, I am not shocked that we find ourselves in the situation where we have, on yet another issue, a government making it up as they go along. It makes me wonder: what is the use-by date on government policy these days? You would have to classify the product of government policy these days as clearly perishable, because it really does not last very long at all before coming into this place. All it requires is some tweets or an ABC Four Corners program or something of that nature and this government will put themselves into all sorts of convulsions. As my colleague the member for Wannon said, it is government by GetUp!—and that is what we are seeing here.

What is required in these situations is a sober reflection on the serious issues that are at stake here, not the sorts of knee-jerk convulsions that I thought were limited only to the Minister for Trade and Competitiveness when holding press conferences, jigging himself about in public display. But I suppose what we are seeing in policy terms here is pretty much the same as what we saw from the minister for trade on that occasion. We have a government here that is once again, while claiming to be immutable on these sorts of topics, performing a backflip in the space of hours in response to a few tweets and demonstrating that they just do not believe in anything. It is not hard to change your mind as constantly as this government does from one day to the next when you do not believe in anything in the first place. I think this is a matter of significant concern to the Australian people. This is not just a moving feast; this is a moving farce. We are constantly faced with these issues from this government on a regular basis. This matter involves very serious issues that affect not only the sustainability of our environment and our fisheries but affect the thousands and thousands of people who depend on the fisheries industry for their livelihoods.

The complete U-turn on the supertrawler Margiris is just another example of the Labor government making up policy on the run, oblivious to or regardless of the sovereign risk they have created for this nation. At the heart of it, that is why the coalition are so concerned about the way this matter has been brought into this place and it is one of the critical reasons we are not signing up to what the government have sought to impose on this parliament today. There was the live cattle fiasco, there was the East Timor farce, there was the Malaysian people-swap—and it goes on and on and on.

As the government keep making it up as it goes along, it seems to be governing as if there were no yesterday. So, whatever you said and whatever you did yesterday does not matter, and there is no tomorrow. There are no consequences that one has to be accountable for tomorrow; the government lives in the moment. This government constantly lives in the moment. It lives within the space of 130 characters on Twitter rather than actually looking at the broader perspective and at what is necessary to deal with these very sensitive matters before the parliament.

I said the other day that the government had finally stopped a boat and that on this occasion they had stopped a legal one, and it is one they had actually invited in. This is at the heart of the confusion and the uncertainty that the government I think create for themselves, not just on this decision. What confidence can any commercial operator, any investor, have when the government are so clearly and plainly willing to turn policy on its head after working for years and years with a company, indicating all along that there would not be a problem?

It reminds me of that bloke who used to be on the Vicar of Dibley. He used to sit on the parish council, and his contribution to a meeting, when he was asked a question about something, was, 'Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes—no!'' 'No', at the end of the day, was ultimately his answer, but you were always led to believe that he was going to take a different view. And that is what it is like with this government: yes, yes, yes, yes—no; yes, yes, yes, yes—no. What confidence can people have when this government makes policy decisions the perishability of which is so plainly on display in what we have seen here today? It was the minister for fisheries, now minister for environment, who invited large-scale factory freezer vessels to Australia when he said, in relation to the 2009 Small Pelagic Fishery Harvest Strategy:

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

You would think, if you were someone who was interested in bringing such a vessel to Australia that that was a pretty good indication that the government was actually on board with this decision. But in 2008 Minister Burke, as fisheries minister said:

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; and

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

I lament the fact that companies seeking to operate and employ Australians, as this one has done, cannot rely on the stated positions of this government in making decisions about their future and about the future of their operations so that they can make commitments to people in terms of putting employment in place and going about their business.

If the government wants to know what is crashing business confidence in this country they need to look in the mirror, because it is this flip-flop attitude which does not give business any confidence. Of course there are massive problems of increased regulation under this government, which is having a massive impact on productivity and innovation, but when you overlay that with the uncertainty which comes with the way decisions are made in this country you only get yourself into a more serious situation.

I note that even the member for New England this morning, when he was commenting on the ABC, highlighted this issue of sovereign risk, in his understanding and in working through these issues today. I think he was making some very good points. I hope he follows through later today, when this bill is finally considered, having reflected on the very important points that he has raised about the way in which this matter has been handled. As he said this morning, it is not just this issue that is at stake. If this bill is passed today, and this parliament supports the flip-flop attitude of this government, then it is sending a message, as is the government, that investors can have no confidence in the decisions of this government, and business will make investment and employment decisions on the basis of that. How that can be in the national interest is completely beyond me.

The government has been saying how devastated the Greens were after the New South Wales local government elections. They have been trumpeting up their position. I am not quite sure that they have actually reflected on the primary vote results for the Labor Party in those local government elections, but they were at much pains to go out there and trumpet the fact that they had put the Greens in their place, and that the Greens were no longer the tail that was wagging this dog of a government. But it is true that the Greens are the tail that is wagging this dog of the government on a daily basis. Even the minister for fisheries has said, as the member for Hume just reminded the House:

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

That is tough stuff. He said:

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.

It would have been great if the companies involved here could have relied on that statement, because he was really putting it out there. He continued:

They will continue to make decisions based on sound judgement—

at least someone was!—

to ensure that fisheries are sustainable and meet all the ecological requirements …

Now there have been a couple of tweets and this minister has turned into a twit in terms of how he has responded to these issues. But he has form, as we know, in relation to the live cattle trade. He absolutely has form when it comes to these issues: talking tough and rolling over. I see it in my portfolio on an almost daily basis. The government seeks to talk tough on these issues but does not have the substance to back up the claims when it really counts.

It is what you do that counts. People make judgements about your performance—on what you do—and what they see happening as a result. And what they are seeing happening in this parliament today is a government that simply cannot make up its mind. It is being blown to and fro by the huffs and puffs of the Greens and GetUp!. That is what is running the policy of this government. That is what is driving them. That is what has become the artificial soul of this government, because this government does not have a soul. It does not believe in anything. It is simply made up of those who will do whatever deal they think will keep their Prime Minister in power and keep themselves in power, and they are trying to manage an unravelling farce which is very plain to the Australian people.

I have concerns, as do my colleagues, about the extensive nature of the powers that are placed in this bill. The overreaction to the issues that are being raised here are similar to the responses we have seen from the government on other occasions.

There have been offerings from the member for Dobell, on which the government is relying, to try to tidy up their first attempt in this. It is not the first time the government has relied on the member for Dobell. The government relies on the member for Dobell every single day for their legitimacy as a government. And it is for them to explain that to the Australian people. It is surprising that they are now relying on the member for Dobell to try to clean up this latest knee-jerk mess that has been brought into this parliament.

The amendments of the member for Dobell, which insert the word 'commercial', do not deal with the problem of charter boat operators, which are—guess what?—commercial. As a result, the protections offered here, at the last minute, do not afford the protections that we believe are necessary to ensure that we are in a position to protect the very important matters that are at stake in this debate.

There are some important facts. The vessel is targeting small pelagic fish. Pelagic fish live near the surface in the water column, not on the bottom of the ocean. They swim continuously in open water and they tend to be nomadic. The Small Pelagic Fishery is managed by AFMA under a statutory management plan. Fish are caught under a quota system. No boat size limits apply in this fishery or in any fishery managed solely by the Commonwealth. The total allowable catch for each species in each zone of a fishery is set annually by AFMA, which the minister who is now the minister for environment endorsed. There are seven such allowable catch limits for the Small Pelagic Fishery. They are set by the AFMA commission, which considers advice from the Small Pelagic Fishery Resource Assessment Group, the South-East Management Advisory Committee and AFMA management and considers other information. The members of this group have expertise in commercial and recreational fishing, conservation matters, fisheries management and fisheries science. It does not include Twitter. I suppose the government has chosen not to listen to the commission because of its inexperience with Twitter, which is where the government gets its advice from. It includes representatives from AFMA, resource assessment groups, states, industry bodies, scientists and economists. It also has representatives from the environment and recreational sectors. AFMA must be informed of all catch landed and it must verify this information. The harvest strategy is more precautionary than the Marine Stewardship Council's global best practice. The harvest strategy is based on sound science, recognises the ecological importance of the species and is precautionary. The strategy has three tiers, which allows for higher potential catches where there is a higher level of information known about the stock. The harvest strategy restricts the total catch for each species to a maximum of 20 per cent of the estimated stock biomass. It limits the catch in a way that ensures fishing does not cause the stock to decline to unsustainable levels. Total allowable catches for small pelagic fisheries are small. They are set at 10 per cent of stock for the redbait east fishery. For all other small pelagic fisheries the Margiris will be harvesting, the current allowable catch is 7.5 per cent of the estimated stock biomass.

The advice was clear. This government always says it likes to take advice. The science supports the position the government took previously, but it is in conflict with the urgings of what has become the soul of this government: GetUp! and the Greens. As a result, we are seeing a backflip which we can add to the many other backflips we see daily from this government. I call on the parliament not to allow this farce to pass the parliament; it must restore some sense to this debate.

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