Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The motion highlights that the federal government is completely out of touch with the Australian fishing industry. They are clearly in no position to be critical of the Queensland state government given the lockup of vast areas of our fishing based on a whim. More than 100 regional communities and many more businesses throughout Australia rely on the fishing industry for their livelihoods, but, despite this, the proportion of wild catch in Australia represents just 0.002 per cent of production worldwide. We export $1.5 billion and import $2.5 billion worth of product, which makes Australia a net importer of fish product. Australian seafood only makes up 30 per cent of domestic supply. Our fishers operate to world's best practice. Of the 70 per cent of imported product, three countries make up the bulk of that figure: Thailand, 26 per cent; China, 14 per cent; and Vietnam, 12 per cent. In 2009, an estimation of adherence to the UN code of conduct put Australia fourth out of 53 countries. Vietnam was ranked 45th, Thailand was ranked 42nd and China was ranked 22nd.

Like many other industries in this country, Australian fishers operate to world's best practice. Queensland already has a massive area of its waters under protection, which in itself is not a bad thing. However, knowing that we can barely monitor and police the current no-go-zones, locking up more of our waters will only open the back door for illegal operators. We currently cannot control the number of people coming to Australia and we certainly cannot control illegal fishing in our northern waters, and probably other waters around Australia. Northern Australia is virtually: 'Look on—we can't do anything about it because we haven't got the manpower to control the reefs.' There are no species of fish in Queensland waters that are under threat and there was no need to increase the Coral Sea by 2.3 million square kilometres. There was no scientific evidence to support this closure.

A government member: Rubbish!

That is not rubbish, my friend. Read the facts. The Queensland LNP government have cut off a measly $200,000 from Sunfish, which is an industry based organisation and only has three per cent community membership. The minister has announced that the government will no longer fund bodies such as Sunfish and Suntag. The government was voted in by the Queensland people and they have had to cut costs. The Anna Bligh government ran the state into the ground and there had to be cutbacks somewhere.

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