Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to support the Environmental Protection and Diversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill 2012. For the benefit of those listening, I point out that this debate is basically about the supertrawler but obviously the legislation before the House is this bill, a piece of legislation that is about preserving species forever, for the future. For the young children up in the gallery listening, we are talking about making sure that all of the species that are in Australia at the moment are around when your grandchildren are around. That is what the legislation in used for. It is a bipartisan piece of legislation mostly; both sides of the House support it.

The member for Flinders, the shadow spokesman on the environment, would agree that this is important legislation, although I think yesterday the House was presented with a letter that he wrote asking for the preservation of the Tasmanian tiger. I think the horse might have bolted on that one. When we write letters, the devil is in the detail—I assume he meant Tasmanian devils. Nevertheless, the legislation that we are talking about is all about preserving species, and this declared fisheries activity bill is about making sure that all the bycatch, as referred to by the member for Robertson, is not going to be impacted on. How so? By having significantly large trawlers such as the current one that is in the media.

Environmental protection is something that is important to me, and obviously the people in Moreton, the electorate that I represent. Even though it is an inner-city electorate a long way from most of the fishing parts of Australia, a long way from the Coral Sea, nevertheless a lot of people in my community have spoken about the marine parks, particularly in the northern part of my electorate up near the Brisbane River. Numerous individual and community groups come to me urging me to support the Coral Sea. They have also written in about the supertrawler legislation. The people of Moreton realise that all our precious oceans need to be protected. Australia is quite unique in that we control and look after, basically for the rest of humanity, 11 per cent of the earth's surface. We are a small country but we are responsible for a big chunk of territory, obviously most of it marine. This is an important issue in Queensland and it is certainly a topic we have been hearing some contradictory views on from those opposite. I will particularly focus on the Queensland representatives that have spoken.

It started for me back in the 2010 election campaign when Senator Boswell from Queensland put out some quite misleading information about fishing and what the Labor Party was going to do for fishing. He put fear into every tinnie owner in Queensland by suggesting that Labor was going to stop people from fishing. We go back to the facts—there is not going to be an impact on 96 per cent of the Australian coastline, wherever you walk down to the water. You can still throw the line into 96 per cent of Australia's water. And in some of the parts where you cannot it is because the Army is doing exercises there, and the like. In the last few weeks we had Senator Boyce putting out information and running a campaign—giving out free fish and chips at an event down in the Deputy Prime Minister's electorate—also suggesting that the Coral Sea legislation will stop you from jumping in your tinnie and going for a fish. Well, it does, as long as your tinnie can go more than 400 kilometres offshore. That is a pretty big tinnie as far as I can work out—if you can go offshore 400 kilometres to fish.

Then we have had comments from Senator Joyce. The last name of the member for Brisbane is Gambaro, which, in Brisbane is synonymous with seafood—her family has had a long connection with seafood. She has been part of this duplicitous campaign suggesting that the Labor Party has a campaign to stop people throwing a line in. It is certainly a very duplicitous campaign—a load of codswallop, you might say.

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