Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

And it was a good speech. Thank you, Minister, I really appreciate it. I know he is being very genuine. That speech was on the last parliamentary sitting day of last year. Unfortunately, it did not receive the support of the House. Indeed, it was resoundingly defeated, but just by moving that particular motion I know that I got a guarantee from the coalition that we would, in government, cap buybacks to 1,500 gigalitres, which means that only 249 gigalitres remained to be recovered.

I know the minister has been to Griffith on at least three occasions this parliamentary term. I can recall him being there on 22 October 2010, 14 days after the release of initial guide to the Basin Plan; on 29 November 2011; and 15 December 2011, when 14,000 Griffith people turned up to protest against what they feared was going to be an erosion of their water rights. Certainly, this is all relative because we are talking about the erosion of the rights of fishers to fish in Australian waters. That is why this disallowance motion is so important, and that is why we are asking the government to agree with us on this.

We heard the member for Dawson give a very passionate address earlier. He is very concerned as well, not just for his electorate but for the rights of Australian fishers to be able to do what they have been doing for generations. It is an Australian right.

The Australian Marine Alliance highlighted in a 5 July 2012 media release—'United States' tuna purse-seine fleet steals the show in the Pacific as Labor and Greens relinquish support for Australian industry'—the relationship between the Australian Greens, the Gillard government and Australian industry and the fact that it had reached at that time a historic policy low. Goodness knows what that organisation would think now, because it has gotten progressively worse. Anyway, the chief executive of the Australian Marine Alliance, Dean Logan, said that, within days of the announcement to close millions of square kilometres of the ocean in the Coral Sea to Australian fishermen of all persuasions on the basis of protecting the environment, the massive USA tuna purse-seine fleet had agreed to pay Pacific Island countries US$630 million to catch in excess of four times Australia's total fish production in the same region—four times as much!

See this speech in context