Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks, Speaker. The issue of localised depletion has an impact on species that I am responsible for under national environmental law. There are other issues that ran around the campaign. People would discuss the size of the net and things like that. But, ultimately, localised depletion and the impact on predatory species was at the core of that.

Seafish Tasmania, as well as going to AFMA, have written to me giving an indication of this mother ship proposal that they have in place. On the face of it, many of the environmental issues that we were dealing with a few months ago still arise in this new proposal. What I have asked my department to do is to prepare fresh advice on the two legal questions that they will have to answer. The first question is: is it a new fishing activity? The second question is: is there uncertainty as to the environmental impact?

I will receive that advice from the department and I will make a call on that. But I have written today to the company and made clear to them that, depending on that advice, which I will not prejudge, I absolutely reserve the right to make further declarations in respect of any different ideas or uses for the vessel that come up. The tests will be the same as they were last time—is it a new activity and is there environmental uncertainty? If those tests are met then a new declaration will go ahead and that will mean that we have a situation where activities of that nature are illegal while the scientific work is carried out.

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