Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is great to rise today to speak on the Fisheries Legislation Amendment (Representation) Bill 2017, because I have great childhood memories when it comes to fishing. Growing up in the northern outskirts of Brisbane on the doorstep of Moreton Bay, my father, Ron, would often take me out fishing. He developed a love of fishing in me from a very young age. My father had an eight-foot punt and a 12-foot punt with small engines on the back, so we had flat-bottom boats. We would often get up Saltwater Creek, the Pine River, Cabbage Tree Creek and Nundah Creek. We would go mudcrabbing and fishing for bream and flathead—great childhood memories. Sometimes we would get out the front around Scarborough reef, or out in Bramble Bay and around Woody Point.

One day, when I was about 12, we went out and caught a massive flathead of about 70 centimetres—this was before you let them go; this was when there were plenty of them around—a stingray, a grey nurse shark, which we let go, and a whole lot of whiting. Great childhood memories. We would come home and have a bit of a feed. I love eating seafood. We would also camp up on the banks of Saltwater Creek, which is now all a state green zone to allow crabs and fish to breed up and repopulate. We would camp up there and go crabbing for a couple of days. Great childhood memories. As a father of three boys myself, it is important to me that my sons can also enjoy fishing when they choose, as they get older.

Aussies are a nation of seafood lovers. We consume some 14 kilos of seafood every year. That is below red meat, which is about 31 kilos, and chicken, which is 21 kilos, but I think we would eat more seafood if there was more of it and it was a little bit cheaper. Seafood, generally, is health for you. Fish is. It is a good thing to eat. Throwing another shrimp on the barbie is not only a part of our national identity but an important part of our economy, too, even though that phrase was used for a tourism campaign in America. We call them prawns here. Currently in Australia, the fishing industry is worth $2.8 billion and employs over 14,000 people. We want to ensure that the fishing industry continues to grow—not just recreational fishing but commercial fishing as well, which is very important.

The bill before the House today seeks to amend the Fisheries Management Act 1991 and the Fisheries Administration Act 1991 to recognise and give a greater voice to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander fishers and recreational fishers in the management and decision-making process related to our Commonwealth waters. Other minor amendments include increasing the size of the Australian Fishing Management Authority board from seven people to 10 people and extending the eligibility criteria to ensure that those appointed have expertise in matters relating to recreational Indigenous fishing.

Extending the board will allow a broader range of views and ensure the committee has an appropriate mix of skills, knowledge and experience to fulfil its role. It has also taken steps to ensure that the Australian Fishing Management Authority is completely independent. This will only strengthen the integrity of our fishing industry. We are proposing that no person who holds an executive position on a fishing representative organisation be allowed, which I think is important, because they can be biased. If you have someone just representing a board of recreational fishers, some of those people want to close down commercial fishing, which I think is wrong. So, they need to be independent, with independent skills. We further propose that no person holding an executive position in a fishing industry association be allowed to be appointed as an Australian Fishing Management Authority commissioner.

These amendments will give a greater voice to and recognition of all parties involved in fishing practices. Currently, there is little input from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander fishers in fisheries management. We believe that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander customary fishing should be incorporated into fisheries management systems.

To quickly explain what we mean when we are talking about Commonwealth waters, it is the waters that surround Australia from three nautical miles to 200 nautical miles out to sea. It accounts for only six per cent of our commercial fishing, which I think is a bit of a shame. I think we could do a lot better in that space. New Zealand, which has waters a lot smaller than ours, has output that is much bigger. Part of that is because the fish down there are fed better and grow better, apparently, and the environment is better for them to repopulate quickly. But I still think that in commercial fishing Australia isn't doing enough. Australians want to eat fresh Australian seafood, and not everyone wants to go out and catch it themselves.

All of the eastern side of my electorate of Petrie is on the waterfront—the Moreton Bay area, Bramble Bay and Deception Bay. Over the Christmas period in 2014 I went out on the Marvin, a prawn trawler that works in state waters but not in Commonwealth waters. Gee, those guys work hard. I went out about 6 pm and came back at about 8 am the next morning. You set the nets at about 8 pm and it trawls, and at 10 pm you have to pull up the nets and sort the catch. The net is immediately dropped back out, at 10, so by the time you finish sorting the catch, which takes about an hour-and-a-half, you have half an hour before the net comes in again and you have got to do it all again—no sleep, right through the night. They work extremely hard. We were catching bay prawns, tiger prawns and sand crabs. A lot of the bycatch is thrown overboard. There isn't a lot of bycatch. There were a few small whiting and small crabs. Interestingly enough, the dolphins are down at the back of the boat knocking off the part of the bycatch that goes back, and sharks underneath that get the crabs. It was an interesting night, and I encourage members from all parties who have local trawlers—I know the member for Solomon would in his electorate—to ring them up and go out with them for a night. It is extremely interesting. You see how hard they work and you develop a better understanding of commercial fishing.

There are a few little things—red tape—that frustrate commercial and recreational fishers. The boat I was on had two licences, a 45-foot licence and a 30-foot licence, and they were using, I think, the 30-foot licence that night. They are not using the 45-foot licence because they don't have a 45-foot boat at the moment. They wanted to lease their licence out to another 30-foot boat, but they couldn't do it under the 45-foot licence. It just doesn't make sense that a smaller boat couldn't use the larger boat's licence—it has to be exactly 45 feet. A lot of the boats are older. There isn't a standard 45-foot new boat—you have to have one custom-made and it costs millions. I mention that because red tape can be an issue. That is a state government issue in Queensland, but we need to think about that federally, as well.

There are three types of fishing. With Indigenous fishing, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are allowed to catch fish, turtles, dugong and whatever it is they catch for their own consumption. I think that is appropriate, as long as it is not sold commercially ongoing. It is for only what they can eat.

As I said, recreational fishing is extremely important—thousands of jobs; people like to do it. I went out fishing in commercial boats on the Coral Sea with my father in my early 20s. I have been fishing up in the electorate of the member for Solomon, on Melville Island, at the fishing lodge on Indigenous land up there. It's a great thing, recreational fishing, and we need to allow Australians to fish in Australian waters. We need to make sure we have appropriate rules that enable it to be sustainable for generations to come.

Commercial fishing is also important, and I don't think parliamentarians do enough to make sure that we can support them. We have the third-largest fishing waters in the world, yet we are 60th in productivity, which goes to my point about commercial fishing. Queensland I think is also lagging behind, because we make up only 11 per cent of commercial fishing in Australia. If you look at somewhere like Tasmania, they have a lot more commercial fishing than we do, but partly that is because they have a lot of aquaculture down there, which is great; we all like to eat Tasmanian salmon. But I think Queensland should also be trying to look at how we can improve aquaculture in our state and make the most of it. Not everyone wants to eat cheap Indonesian basa or Vietnamese fish. We want to be able to go and buy Australian fish, and it's very difficult, if you go to the local fish and chip shop, to get it.

We've also done a little bit with green zones. In November 2012 the previous, Labor, government expanded the marine protected area to some 3.2 million square kilometres. Following considerable concern from communities around Australia—recreational fishers who would have been locked out and commercial fishers who would have been locked out—part of our election commitment in 2013 was to review it. There were a lot of keen consultations. It was robust, comprehensive and scientific. The Director of National Parks is currently preparing management plans for Australia's marine parks following two public consultation periods, and these plans will soon be provided for government's consideration.

The coalition government is investing a substantial amount of money into marine parks for conservation, for fishing and for recreation. We've allocated $56 million to implement new zoning, and we'll wait for the formal advice. We have increased the proportion of the estate that is under a higher level of protection from 60 to 63 per cent. My understanding is that the actual conservation side of it will increase from 60 to 63 per cent. We maintain the number of high-value ecological features protected at 331, and we've significantly increased the number of ecological features protected on the sea floor from 192 to 265. The plans cut the impact to business in half, which I think is important when compared with the previous zoning, from 8.21 million to 4.1 million. Eighty per cent of the estate is open to commercial fishing, compared with 64 per cent under Labor. I'm not being political when I say that; I'm just saying that we need to make sure we are looking after commercial fishers as well. The draft plan also restores access for recreational fishing.

The bill has received widespread support from peak industry bodies, including the Commonwealth Fisheries Association and Seafood Industry Australia. These amendments were not considered lightly. The various bodies consulted on the amendments were the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Department of Finance, the Australian Public Service Commission, the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, the Commonwealth Fisheries Association, the Australian Recreational Fishing Foundation, the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation's Indigenous Reference Group, and the Prime Minister's Indigenous Advisory Council. I wonder how we get anything done when we consult that widely, quite frankly. I mean, that's a lot of consultation. If we have to go through that for everything, then, yes, I do have concern, once again, regarding red tape. That's a lot of consultation. I think we need to be much better at reducing red tape. A number of bodies representing recreational and Indigenous fishers made comments on the inquiry—the Victorian Recreational Fishing Peak Body and the Tasmanian Association for Recreational Fishing—but, once again, I can see nothing from Queensland there. So I would say to those in this place that recreational fishing is important, and this bill gives them a voice on the board.

I know the member for Solomon has established a group here, the Parliamentary Friends of Recreational Fishers, to support recreational fishing. But I still think we should be focusing on commercial fishing as well. We can have a great environment, make sure we have good breeding grounds and make sure there is a certain bag limit, but, please, whoever's in government: let's look after commercial fishing as well. Our population will only get bigger. We want to eat clean seafood, and most Australians do not have the time to go and throw a recreational line in or go out fishing. We need to make sure they can buy it at a reasonable price. More thought needs to be given to aquaculture as well.

It is important that governments continually revise their legislation to ensure they are looking after Australia's needs. Recreational fishing is becoming more and more prevalent in Commonwealth waters as boats and so forth improve. It's important that the interests of recreational fishers are considered in Commonwealth fisheries management, but not at the expense of commercial fishing, which also should be encouraged. I do support this bill.

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