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

Sacking the government was a good idea, I can tell you that. The people of Queensland have spoken and now Campbell Newman has the mandate to make these changes. In fact, everyone knows he has to in response to the appalling state of the Queensland economy. It is the worst of any state in Australia, including Tasmania. We are badly off. To anyone who lives in Queensland: if you do not know that, you do not know much.

Tony Burke is the single biggest threat to recreational fishers of Queensland. He did not listen to Sunfish or anyone else when he made his decisions on the extended marine park network. The Australian recreational fishing industry is the largest stakeholder affected by this lockout. These fishers are locked out forever—not for just one day, one month or one year—and there is no compensation as such. There is no compensation for on-land stakeholders either. I am talking about boat shops, tackle shops and the like, and they support the community and our economic base. Just two weeks ago, Mr Burke locked up another 2.3 million square kilometres to Australian fisheries. This is a disgrace. He we are, an island nation, and we are importing more than we are exporting. That in itself should tell you a story. We do not need any more interference into our fishing. It should be more like New Zealand who have a self managed industry and it works very well. We should listen to them a little bit more often in this particular case. It simply highlights that the Labor government has no desire to admit that their policies are hurting the Australian fishing industry, which are not based on any scientific evidence whatsoever. (Time expired)

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