Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill is not about the Margiris. This bill is about unfettered and arbitrary powers that are an attack on every recreational fishing community and every family fishing operation in Australia. This bill is not about protecting fish stocks and it has nothing to with the Margiris. It has everything to do with a Trojan Horse operation that introduces a new level of ministerial power that is extraordinary, arbitrary and unfettered. We in this place are custodians of good governance and we have to deal with the issues. But this bill is the likes of which we have not previously seen. The powers are arbitrary, they are unfettered and they are plenary, and the fishing community, as well as the general community, has been sold a pup, because it has nothing to do with the supertrawler. It has everything to do with a knee-jerk reaction that will not deal with the problem but that absolutely confers unlimited executive authority on ministers, without any reference either to fact or to the ability to appeal. It confers the ability to destroy any small family fishing operation on the basis of the slightest issue of social concern raised by the Greens.

I now turn to the concerns the opposition has on three fronts with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill 2012, because this is the 'arbitrary ministerial powers bill'. The first of our concerns is about unlimited arbitrary ministerial powers.

The second is about a chaotic process after the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, in his previous role as minister for fisheries, invited the Margiris into Australia, when he called in October 2009 for large-scale factory fishing vessels to come into Australia. That was not us. That was not the fishing community. A paper was signed off by the minister calling for large-scale factory fishing vessels to come into this country.

So that is the sovereign risk issue, which has already seen the announcement by Seafish that 50 Australian jobs will now be terminated. The question for the government is, will they compensate the long-term unemployed who had finally found a job and who, as of today, will not have that job? Will the Prime Minister compensate the long-term unemployed as part of the 50 Australians who are now losing their jobs? This is the live cattle issue on steroids. And it is a Trojan Horse, because it is an attack on every family fishing operation and every recreational fishing community in Australia.

Let me do something a little unusual and turn to the deep and specific provisions within the bill. The operative provision is 390SD subparagraph (3)(a), which reads as follows:

(3)   The Minister must not make an interim declaration—

that is, to cease operations, whether by recreational fishers or commercial fishers—

unless the Minister—

that is, the environment minister—

and the Fisheries Minister agree that:

and here is the critical quote:

(a)   there is uncertainty about the environmental, social or economic impacts of the fishing activity.

We spoke with the departmental officials and with officials from the two ministers' offices and asked, what is the definition of 'social uncertainty'? We asked that because this is a new level. To be fair, it was not for them to determine that. But nobody can define what social uncertainty means in the context of this act. And it is not just uncertainty; it is uncertainty in the mind of the minister. There are a number of ministers who live in a permanent state of uncertainty. But this is a new test: 'uncertainty in the mind of the minister'. Social uncertainty has been introduced into the environment act of Australia as the test for an arbitrary, plenary power which is unfettered in its application and can be implemented without notice, without pause, without evidence but simply on the basis of uncertainty.

That can be done, whether it is raised through a Twitter troll or whether it is raised in a letter from the Greens to the minister. There are no conditions, there are no limits, there are no barriers. But we thought long and hard about a definition of social uncertainty, and finally we realised that social uncertainty is when Kevin walks into a room where Julia is present. And that is precisely what happened on the weekend. Kevin walked into Julia's room and put in place social uncertainty by saying he would support the member for Fremantle's bill. And, voila! Two days later, the government reversed the position it had supported through three previous decisions. The government reversed the decision on the basis of social uncertainty, and now they bring in the legislation to justify that definition of social uncertainty.

So we now have an exemplar of the Ruddism that has infected the government: whenever the smallest issue is raised by opponents of fishing or of anything else, we have a decision which is immediate and which has human impacts in the form of 50 lost jobs as announced by Seafish—and those are just the Australian jobs that are to be lost. The vast bulk of those who will lose their jobs, I am advised, are the long-term unemployed out of Devonport. So I would ask the government—the Prime Minister, the minister for the environment and the minister for fisheries—to go to Devonport and meet those people who will lose their jobs as a consequence of this decision.

Let us go further into this notion of social uncertainty. The Environment Act is now guided by a new principle: social uncertainty. That means whatever the minister wants it to mean. 'Social uncertainty' means whatever the minister wants it to mean. A minister can now exercise powers that will close down and destroy a family fishing operation, which can close a recreational fishing ground, on no basis—simply that there is uncertainty. There is no requirement of proof of damage. There is no evidence required of fact. There is no evidence required of anything. It is a Trojan Horse to give the minister unfettered, arbitrary powers to be exercised without notice to the detriment of any fishing community.

I understand that people were genuinely and legitimately concerned about the issue of overfishing—but this bill does not address the quota at all. The quota today will be exactly the same as the quota of yesterday. But what has happened is that there is a new level of uncertainty. Let me give an example of this arbitrary power in the eyes of the fishing community. The Australian Marine Alliance have today issued a statement. Their headline is 'sustainable environmental economic'. They are supporting Australia's commercial and recreational sectors. They say:

We make no excuses for arguing that if this bill passes we will see dozens if not hundreds of businesses exit the industry. In our view the answer is not to give the department of the environment in Canberra greater control over fisheries management but rather for the fisheries portfolio to secure a competent minister who can effectively fulfil their duties as minister for fisheries. As an example, if this bill passes, it will give the department of the environment in Canberra the authority to stop recreational anglers all the way down the east coast from fishing for Bluefin tuna in Commonwealth waters.

That is a quote from the Australian Marine Alliance.

But let us take this further and go to the actual definition of 'uncertainty'—because there is no definition of 'social uncertainty'; it means whatever the minister wants it to mean. The government have created their own problem by inviting the Margiris in. The minister invited the Margiris in in October 2009 with the reference and the call for large-scale factory fishing vessels. They are not our words, but words from AFMA, in a paper signed off by the then minister for fisheries, the now Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. They invited, they argued for, they created the problem, and now they are creating arbitrary powers.

But it goes further than that, because you then ask: how wide is the range of activities to which the social uncertainty clause can apply? I will turn to paragraph 2 of section 390SD 'Interim declaration' in the bill before us today. It reads:

(2)   When making an interim declaration, the Minister may identify a fishing activity by reference to all or any of the following:

  (a)   a method of fishing;

  (b)   a type of vessel used for fishing;

  (c)   a method of processing, carrying or transhipping of fish that have been taken;

  (d)   an area of waters or of seabed.

So let us understand this: we have an arbitrary power, an unfettered power, an absolute power, which can be used without any just cause, which is non-renewable, which cannot be questioned, and which applies to anything anywhere. So the first part is the power and the second part, as contained in paragraph 2, is the scope and the extent of that power. It says 'an area of waters or of seabed'—any part of Australia, any fishing activity, anywhere at any time. This is not about the fact that there has been damage; there only needs to be social uncertainty.

So we now have the environment act being run on the basis of social uncertainty—giving arbitrary powers for application anywhere, anytime, to anyone. If you are a recreational fisher you might have had legitimate and understandable concerns about the Margiris. I had raised those concerns myself in calling for an independent scientific panel, and there was a genuinely independent scientific panel. I was surprised by the result. The independent scientific panel came down some weeks ago. It was clear and categorical and I had called for it. I accept that.

But when we look at this, the government's response is the same as it was for live cattle. It is the same as it was for the home insulation program. It is the same as Green Loans and Green Start. It is this example—again and again—of a position taken on the basis of any small public campaign, but with no concern whatsoever for the human consequences. Today, of all of the legislation we have seen in the last nearly five years, this is the most arbitrary, most extreme and most unfettered. It is quite extraordinary.

I turn again to the words of the Australian Marine Alliance, which refers to this bill: 'The more immediate concern is the bill to be debated in parliament today that has been hastily drafted by Minister Burke and that will give the minister for the environment and his department almost unfettered authority over all forms of fishing.' So this is a new arbitrary power on the basis of social uncertainty. This government is defined by social uncertainty. The vast majority of ministers live in a permanent haze of social uncertainty, and we have just enshrined that as the basis for the destruction of the livelihoods of small fishers.

This bill has nothing to do with the Margiris, about which people have genuine concerns and for which we have a solution. It has everything to do with a rank extension of authority in an arbitrary and unfettered capacity over the livelihoods and the recreational habits of Australian fishers everywhere. That brings to Australia a broader risk. We heard much from government ministers last week about sovereign risk. This bill introduces sovereign risk on a grand scale in Australia. This bill came after three consecutive decisions from the government.

In October 2009 the fisheries minister at the time called for large-scale factory freezer vessels. The small pelagic fisheries harvest strategy released by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, signed off by the minister, revised in October 2009, refers to the 'economies of scale in the fishery and the most efficient way to fish may include large scale factory freezer vessels'. The Margiris has been in play for seven years and this was a green light. This strategy was a green light to say 'come on down' to Australia. We did not invite the Margiris, Minister Burke invited the Margiris. That is what large-scale factory freezer vessel means. The Margiris is the definition. It is the response. It is the outcome of the October 2009 decision to release this strategy.

Seafish, an Australian company, then worked with the government. At no point was there an indication, according to the owners, that they were outside of the law, or that they were even outside of the policy. They operated on the advice, on the belief, on the understanding that the government wanted them here.

What is the result? Seafish director Gerry Geen—and let's start with the human consequences—said today that unfortunately the decision would mean that 50 Australians, including the 45 people engaged in Devonport, would lose their jobs. He went on to say:

It is going to be hard to have to tell those employees, some of them who were long-term unemployed, that we no longer have a job for them.

So there is a direct, real human consequences to Australia's long-term unemployed people. He continued:

It seems that after we have met every rule, regulation and request made of us, after years of working with the relevant authorities, that in the end the government reacted to the size of the Abel Tasman and not the size of the quota and the science that supports it.

I want to emphasise a point about sovereign risk. This decision sends an awful message to all potential investors in Australia to be very, very afraid. It shows that this government will change the rules after you are committed to a venture, putting at risk the investment, jobs and all the hard work of many people over many years. Then, when you have met all the new rules and requests, they can still just shut you down. That is sovereign risk. Sovereign risk is where people rely on the word and the law and they act, to their detriment but to the benefit of the country, on the basis of the word and the law and of the undertakings of ministers. Then, the government takes it away with no warning, with no ability to adapt and with no concern.

This is a very serious moment in Australia's parliament. We had the live cattle decision, which by the way is wreaking havoc right now in Indigenous communities across Queensland and the Northern Territory, according to meetings I have had with their representatives in the last few weeks. Those communities of Indigenous pastoralists and Indigenous cattlemen and women still are being affected by the live cattle decision, because of the ramifications in Indonesia, which has cut the quota to Australia. The government will say, 'Gosh, it is just a coincidence they cut the quota to Australia after we slashed their protein in half and after we made an arbitrary decision.' It is not a coincidence. It is a direct response and anybody saying otherwise is in denial.

That was the live cattle decision, but this is worse because these unemployed people had been taken on board. They had been employed and the firm had acted on the basis of following every law. And the ministers encouraged them. How can anybody ever again trust this government? How can anybody ever again do business with this government? How can any firm ever again invest with confidence in Australia? Whether it is the carbon tax, the mining tax, the home insulation program, Green Loans, Green Start or live cattle or whether it is this instance, where there is arbitrary executive power over our fisheries, the rules change overnight on the basis of an email. That is the truth of it and that is the problem. That is why this government is no longer fit for office.

They have made Australia an international laughing stock in terms of sovereign risk. We have seen that in our plummet down the World Economic Forum lists in terms of reliability and wastefulness of governance. What more of a message could this government have had?

With regard to sovereign risk we see that the minister created the problem when, as fisheries minister, he called for large-scale factory freezer vessels. The ministers, both of the them, created the problem when they gave comfort, succour, aid and invitation to Seafish to bring the Margiris into Australia. We know about the discussion and the negotiations. This government invited the Margiris into Australia and then they turned around and made Australia a laughing stock. That is Ruddism. That is what has happened to the modern Labor Party. It does not matter who the leader is. There is a deep infection in the culture of a political party that no longer believes in anything.

I now turn to the issue of science. I want to deal with the statement AFMA made on their web site on the issue of the Margiris. That statement was updated on Monday of this week.

It is headed, 'Why is AFMA confident that the boat's operations would be sustainable'—this is the scientific agency—'Because', they say, 'these catch limits are strictly enforced by AFMA using high-tech systems', 'Australia's fisheries management is consistently ranked among the world's best by international experts', and:

AFMA has found no evidence that larger boats pose a higher risk to either commercial species or broader marine ecosystems when total catches are limited and the limits are enforced. This type of fishing, mid-water trawling, is one of the most selective, which means the bycatch will be very low. AFMA works closely with fishers to minimise bycatch, and they will be required to follow several rules to ensure wildlife isn't impacted …

And it concludes:

The science shows that localised depletion is unlikely in this fishery, but AFMA will be keeping a close eye on this issue, given the concerns raised.

That was Monday! And on Tuesday, the government said they were uncertain. On Monday there was an express statement on the science. But, just in case anybody missed it, other people have commented on this. Minister Ludwig said in the Senate on Thursday, 23 August:

The setting of catch limits in the small pelagic fishery are based on strong precautionary principle. Under the harvest strategy for this fishery, the catch limit is capped at a maximum of 20 per cent of the estimated available biomass …

He goes on to say:

This is a very conservative limit … Even with that cap, the current management plan sets the quota to less than 10 per cent … These stock limits are based on science and assessed by the experts.

He then went on to say, in relation to a disallowance motion on the quota for the relevant fishery:

The disallowance motion being moved by the Greens is misplaced and could harm fisheries across Australian Commonwealth waters.

…   …   …

This disallowance motion is a message that the Greens political party do not support sustainable catch limits based on science … As minister for fisheries, I will not allow the emotive politics of the Greens political party to run fisheries management policy in this country.

It could have been a work from Monty Python, given what happened, because the government then turned around and did completely the opposite.

But it is not just confined to that minister, because here is what Tony Burke said on Q&A on 3 September:

So what I have signed off on today is effectively the big vessel will have to fish with the rules so the impact it has on the environment is no more than for fishing like a small vessel.

How about that? So, in terms of the official targeting, that part has already been measured as sustainable.

The question with this one, though, is: instead of 20 boats going out to all different parts of a huge fishery that goes all the way around Queensland and South Australia, you get a different impact.

He then goes on to say, 'If there's a problem, they have to move on'—so he had a move-on provision.

So let us understand what all of this means. All of this means one thing: this decision today, perversely, means there will be not one fewer fish caught. The quota that was in place yesterday is the same today, only there will be more boats catching the same number of fish. How does that work? The government have led people to believe there would be a lesser catch of fish. That is what is actually said here. There is not. Their scientific agency does not believe there needs to be a lesser catch. The minister for fisheries does not believe there needs to be a lesser catch. The minister for the environment does not believe there needs to be a lesser catch. So, three boats, or five boats, or 20 boats can now catch exactly the same number of fish. As has been said in the media in the last 24 hours: it is not the size of the boat; it is the size of the quota that matters. And the size of the quota does not change; only that there will be more boats catching the same number of fish. So, as a matter of logic, it has reached a point of perversity. Science has been displaced.

To finish, let me deal with the Magiris. We have said that we would be willing to work with the government to amend the Fisheries Act to ensure that there are stronger move-on powers. We are happy to sit down with the government to give greater move-on powers under the Fisheries Act, and we would be happy to do that now, to walk out of this chamber and support greater move-on powers. We will be moving an amendment to that effect, and I will be moving an amendment to the effect that the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities should explain the reasons for his decision to reverse the policy that he introduced as fisheries minister in 2009 which stated that there are:

… considerable economies of scale in the fishery and the most efficient way to fish may include large-scale factory freezer vessels.

And he should explain why he invited the Magiris into Australia by promoting large-scale factory freezer vessels, and explain what actions he will take to compensate the 50 Australian workers who are losing their jobs as a consequence of this legislation. I move:

That all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

'whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House calls on the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities to explain:

(1) the reasons for his decision to reverse the policy that he introduced as Fisheries Minister in October 2009 which stated: "There are considerable economies of scale in the fishery and the most efficient way to fish may include large scale factory freezer vessels";

(2) why he effectively invited the Margiris into Australia by promoting ‘large scale factory freezer vessels’; and

(3) what actions he will take to compensate the 50 Australian workers who are losing their jobs as a consequence of this legislation.'

However, knowing that we will also move an amendment to discuss the move-on provisions in the Fisheries Act immediately, we are happy to sit down with the government to provide a way forward for better protection on the Magiris today, this moment, this second—no problem. We will look for stronger actions. This bill keeps the same number of fish being caught. This bill creates sovereign risk. This bill, above all else, gives unlimited, arbitrary powers, an executive blank cheque, to the minister on the basis of social uncertainty. As of today we have a new standard in Australian legislative activity. Social uncertainty is the basis for executive absolute unlimited authority and that is why we oppose the bill. (Time expired)

Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion.

Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Flinders has moved as an amendment that all words after 'that' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. If it suits the House I will state the question in the form that the amendment be agreed to. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.

Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in favour of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill 2012. This is in response to the super- trawler, the vessel that was once known as the Magiris and now referred to as the Abel Tasman, seeking to fish in Australian waters.

To put some facts on the table with respect to this particular vessel, it is 120 metres long, and it weighs close to some 10,000 tonnes. At 600 metres the super-trawler's fishing net is 97 metres longer than the arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It has the capacity to store 6,000 tonnes of fish and can process 250 tonnes of fish a day. The company, Seafish Tasmania, has sought to fish 18,500 tonnes of blue mackerel, jack mackerel and redbait in the Commonwealth small pelagic fishery. This is, as I understand, about the half the quota allowed for these fisheries.

Once news broke that this particular vessel was seeking to come to Australian waters to fish in the small pelagic fishery Australians, quite rightly, became deeply concerned with the prospect of this particular vessel.

It became clear that the Margiris had, rightly or wrongly, developed a reputation elsewhere that had led to damage being done to fisheries in Europe and in Africa, and Australians became concerned. They became concerned from two perspectives. Recreational fishers were concerned that this vessel, with its capacity, would take substantial volumes of these species in areas where larger fish would pursue these smaller species as food. I became aware that tuna fishermen in Victoria were concerned that the Margiris had the potential to take a huge volume of these small species, which of course tuna target. Also, many Australians interested in marine conservation were concerned about the potential for bycatch—turtles, seals, dolphins and the like—being caught up and drowned in large numbers. This issue was raised with me.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, the responsible piece of legislation that sets out governance around these matters, is some 20 years old, and it was written at a time when it was not envisaged that these super-trawlers would come to Australia. It is quite appropriate for us to take the opportunity to look at the laws and ensure that they do reflect the views of modern Australia. As a consequence, the government has taken the necessary steps.

It became quite clear through the course of the public discourse on this matter that we were not clear on the science, we were not clear on the possible impact that a super-trawler—the second-largest fishing vessel on this planet—would have on Australia's fishery. We were clear, the science had been done, with respect to smaller vessels—the more traditional fishing vessels that are based in Australia.—but we have not seen a super-trawler in Australian waters, and we are unsure of the consequences. Quite rightly, we need to go away and review the science to try to determine what the impact of super-trawling in Australia might be. It is very important that we undertake that research.

My electorate of Corangamite is nestled between Geelong and south-west Victoria. We have many communities that enjoy recreational fishing. There is the port of Queenscliff, of course, which is a historic fishing port. The Department of Primary Industries in Victoria has a marine management centre there, a research institute, with a lot of marine scientists providing advice to the Victorian government about the Victorian fishery. With the state government cuts I understand some 15 scientists from there will unfortunately be losing their jobs.

But we have other fishing communities and ports. We have Apollo Bay, home to crayfisherman and recreational fishers, and many other communities that enjoy recreational fishing.

I would particularly like to take the opportunity to acknowledge Garry Kerr, who is a rec fisherman and owns a fishing tackle shop in Anglesea, for his representations to me on this issue. He was particularly concerned about the consequences of a supertrawler and what it might mean for the tuna that he likes to target himself and that many of the clients of his fishing tackle shop like to tackle.

So I think the approach adopted by the government is the right one. I think the concern raised by the community from a broad and diverse perspective, from recreational fisherman on one hand through to environmentalists and conservationists on the other, very much demonstrates that the legislative arrangements and the science that is in place at this stage are not adequate to give confidence and comfort to the environment minister, to the fisheries minister and indeed to the Australian community as to the consequence of supertrawlers and—what they might mean for our fishery and what they might mean in terms of bycatch—seals, dolphins, penguins or the like.

It is true that Australia has a world-class reputation for fisheries management. I think it is true to say that we have some of the best-managed fisheries on this planet. If we look at examples overseas, whether in Europe, North America, South America or Africa, we can find many examples where fisheries have not been appropriately managed, which has led to very substantial localised depletion. Because we wish to exploit our fisheries in Australia—as we should—but also have proper oversight and proper management plans, based on science, we will be able to continue to manage our fisheries in a way that can provide a commercial return, that can feed our society and that can provide an export market for us in a way that is sustainable. The Margirisor the Abel Tasman, or any other name the vessel may go by—very much calls into question the potential viability of this fishery. We do not know the consequences. Until the science is undertaken, as a precautionary measure we should not allow this particular vessel, or vessels of this size and scope, to continue to fish.

It is quite extraordinary that the recreational fishermen and the environment groups are at one on this. They have not historically been close. Often, in fact, they have been at loggerheads. I think when you have such diverse groups with diverse views coming together and lobbying members of parliament across the parliamentary spectrum, it is clear that the government needs to act—and indeed we did act.

But it is also very disappointing that politics are being played by the Liberal Party on this, and by the National party.

It is very clear that they do support super-trawler fishing in Australian waters, without the science being undertaken. Indeed, if they were in government, it is true and fair to say that this particular vessel—and other vessels of this nature—would be able to fish in Australian waters without the science being undertaken. Not only would this do great harm and damage to the fishery and create concern amongst environmentalists and conservationists but also, importantly, it would harm recreational fishermen who enjoy getting out on the water and targeting species such as tuna and the like. We will deal with those in due course.

The steps undertaken by both the ministers with respect to vessels of this nature are the right approach. It is the approach that I support and that Labor backbenchers have been lobbying for. I look forward to seeing this legislation pass. I am sure the Liberal Party and the Nationals will vote this down. I am confident that will happen. We will get to see their true colours on this matter. I am sure—

Mr Ewen Jones interjecting—

Geoff Lyons (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Herbert can have an opportunity, if he requires.

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think he should have a cup of tea.

Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think he should, too. He should have a Bex and a good lie down; absolutely. I thank the ministers. I thank my friend Garry Kerr from Anglesea for the representations he has made to me as a recreational fisherman and someone who is commercially involved in recreational fishing. I thank all of those who have emailed me and made representations to my office on this. I look forward to seeing this legislation passed and Australia's fishery being protected for the commercial interests of all Australians. I certainly commend the legislation to the House.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Food Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill 2012 proposed by the government. I wish I did not have to. Even though Australia has come to expect no bounds to the incompetence and knee-jerk overreaction of this government I do find myself despairing at this latest effort by them to undermine business in this country and at the scale of the sovereign risk it is subjecting its hard-working people to.

This is not just about foreign investment, this is about domestic investment. Let us be clear. This government's decision to shut down the fishing trawler is not based on science but simply on a massive sell-out of industry as they trawl for green votes. This decision is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut—a peanut. Instead of providing conditions for the ship's operation so that it would have no more a footprint on the environment than one of the five smaller boats it could have replaced, the minister is moving to deliver himself sweeping new powers that will enable him to shut down the fishing industry and destroy statutory fishing rights simply on the back of any media campaign, no matter how misinformed.

This bill allows the government to shut down any commercial or recreational fishing activity for 24 months if there is any level of uncertainty about environmental, social or economic impact of the fishing industry. As the old saying goes, there is nothing certain in life except death and taxes—and under this government that is a heck of a lot of uncertainty and a heck of a lot of taxes. There is always uncertainty, so there will always be an excuse to shut down the fishing industry. This will make the statutory fishing rights of our hard-working fishermen worthless and let me tell you that they are hard working.

This bill gives the minister unlimited powers and threatens every Australian commercial fishing operation at a virtual whim. In an attempt to address community concerns about the Margiris, the minister has gone to the extreme, by giving himself unlimited powers, which will impact on every family fishing boat around the country. The new powers will allow the minister to shut down industry for two years whenever there is social—in other words, perceived—uncertainty over the science, no matter how uniformed. Instead of ensuring conditions that could have ensured that the larger boat had no greater footprint than five smaller boats, this minister has just decided to shut down the industry for two years and leave it to another minster with a backbone to solve the issue.

Minister Ludwig has again been used as a doormat by the rest of the Labor Party to pander to the Greens—and as one of the better ones, Minister Ferguson, you know I am telling the truth. Rollover Joe is still reeling from the last time the government rolled him and made him shut down live exports completely devastating the industry and telling our major trading partners around the world that there is too much sovereign risk to trade with Australia and that they should take their business elsewhere. However, this time it is not just foreigners; it is Australian investors who are being told, 'Bad luck.'

Minister Burke was the Minister for Agriculture, when the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, in his portfolio—and, I understand, Minister Burke himself—approved the Small Pelagic Fisher Harvest Strategy. He did that as the Minister for Agriculture and now, as the Minister for the Environment, he is acting as someone who is totally unconcerned and uncaring about his previous strategies—basically inviting a ship of this type to come to Australia and provide efficiencies and now has changed his mind. What can you say? As the member for Flinders has already pointed out, this strategy—approved by Minister Burke in his previous portfolio as the Minister for Agriculture—clearly states on page two: 'There are considerable economies of scale in the fishery and the most efficient way to fish may include large-scale factory vessels.' I wonder what those opposite think of that when it comes to the legislation we are currently debating. That is a straight-out invitation to bring exactly that sort of ship here to Australia. What another Labor stuff-up! Minister Burke, as minister for agriculture, in fact appointed all the current board of AFMA—the authority he says he now cannot trust.

Minister Burke clearly invited this boat to Australia and has now changed his mind. Australian investors, with clear signals from Minister Burke on this, invested time and effort and significant resources to bring this boat to Australia. Over years, they complied with every requirement. This Australian company employed 50 Australian staff to drive the business. Seafish Australia has now been put in the terrible position of having to tell these staff they are no longer needed. Like the live exports debacle, this government has again sent a signal to all the countries of the world—and, in this case, the domestic investors in Australia, all our major trading partners and businesses large and small—that it is way too risky to do business in this country and that this government cannot be trusted. If Minister Burke had an ounce of gumption, an ounce of honesty, he would resign if he does not trust the authority he was responsible for—that he appointed, that he approved and that he agreed with. This is the authority he appointed, he approved and he agreed with.

Australia's fisheries are independently benchmarked and recognised as one of the most sustainable in the world. The management strategies are developed from sound science and extensive consultation with a broad range of stakeholders. The coalition has every reason to have confidence in the quota and management conditions applied to the small pelagic fishery.

This decision will open a Pandora's box. This is a major precedent that opens the door to other natural resources. Will the minister seek the same sweeping new powers to be applied across other natural resource sectors? Mining could be stopped for two years because of a public campaign suggesting that a new mining method which may actually reduce the impact on the environment creates too much public uncertainty as to its actual impact. The irrigation sector could be shut down for two years while they finalise the Murray-Darling Basin Plan because there is community concern about the impact on the basin. Even worse, Minister Burke may shut down the farming sector for two years because of perceived social uncertainty about the impact of new farming methods aimed at improving soil management because of perceived uncertainty. This will not only shut down resource sectors but also stagnate research and development that would lessen the environmental impact and increase public uncertainty.

To use an analogy, with recreational fishing, this government is saying that not only do you have a bag limit but you are also not allowed to go fishing with your mates and the industry cannot conduct fishing competitions, as the collective impact could be too great. The recreational fishermen are also on this minister's hit list already with the world's largest national marine park network not based on science, and now the minister is saying he can shut down any fishing activity if there is uncertainty, regardless of the science. This has really undermined the good work of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority and their dedicated staff, who are committed to sustainable management of the fisheries within government policy. The key here is that they implement government policy, policy which was overseen for three years by Minister Burke—this very same minister—when he was minister of the agricultural portfolio. And he now says that AFMA cannot be trusted.

This is so like the live exports issue. This is groundhog day for this government. The ineptitude of this government never ceases to amaze me and never ceases to amaze the Australian people. But, when it comes to the agricultural, fisheries and forestry portfolio, you can add to that a distinct element of, 'I couldn't care less', and you begin to understand why the live export issue escalated to such an incredible crisis. I never thought I would say this, but I am not sure that this decision by Labor, this legislation that they are putting forward now, is not worse than their actions in relation to the live cattle trade.

That was one of the worst decisions ever made—and certainly the worst business decision made by a government up to this time. It set back international efforts for animal welfare, and the sovereign risk has alarmed our trading partners. Indonesia wanted to work with Australia, and publicly said so, to solve that issue and they picked up the paper and read that they had been told that they were no longer needed at that time and that they would have to wait for cattle because they were not getting them.

While this government—and every government—have struggled to deal with Aboriginal welfare issues, particularly in Northern Australia, they also crushed the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people both directly and indirectly affected by that government decision. The effect of that decision on the North—which at the time I thought could never be worsened, but I am not sure that it has not been now—on 82 Indigenous stations and a community of some 17,000 depending on this trade, was enormous. These people do not want welfare; they just want to get on with their lives. And I can assure you that the fishing industry does not want welfare; they want to get on with their lives.

This government are far more worried about the lefties within their party room than they are about our relationships with our neighbours and with business and whether or not Australia is able to proceed domestically, let alone whether in a foreign sense we can get investment in our country and investment in our businesses and be able to create jobs.

The government is seeking a new arbitrary power unfettered and with no chance of review for the decisions. The government invited the ship into Australia and has now backflipped on its own decision. Minister Burke should resign—in any moral situation you care to name. He oversaw the department that invited the boat to this country and is now saying that the decision was wrong. It was a decision that only last week, in fact I would say as recently as Monday, he agreed with.

The implications of this bill for our international reputation are catastrophic. The implications in terms of sovereign risk are catastrophic and enormous. I support the amendment by the member for Flinders and I implore the parliament to get behind it and bring common sense back into this debate. This is without doubt just about the worst decision I have ever seen been put to be ratified by the Australian parliament. The issues of principle here are just gigantic. You tell people what the rules are and invite them to participate and then, at a whim, you say, 'I have changed my mind.' Forget about the investment, the years for compliance, the fact that we set our own quotas and forget about the fact that we agreed with the authority we appointed, because we now suddenly do not think they are good enough. Why? There must be a social issue somewhere. I think it is a disgrace and a shame that we are debating this here today.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think it is a disgrace and a shame that the opposition is not supporting this bill, that they are not supporting what is so clearly in line with community expectations and clearly in sync with community concerns—that is, to get answers to some questions on the impact of the second-largest and biggest fishing vessel on the planet to see what impact it would have on our environment, our fisheries and our industry. The public wants answers to questions concerning the operation of this supertrawler in Australian waters. How much will it deplete our waters of commercial fishing? How much will it deplete our waters of protected fish, mammals and even birds? How much would it deprive our long-term fishery operations and our recreational fishermen and women of their livelihoods and pursuits?

The people of my electorate want to know whether this or any other supertrawler can really operate within fishery and environmental rules, as they currently exist, and not wreak environmental destruction on our marine environment. That is all they want to know. I think it is a very legitimate question and the public have every right to an answer to that question. It is also clear that many members of the public, unlike the Abbott coalition, simply do not believe it is possible. Concerns have been raised on a continual basis for over a month. They have been expressed through multiple telephone calls to my office, many emails, letters in the media, communications with my electorate office and those of many other MPs. The minister also has received many communications on the matter. A substantial proportion of the public are clearly saying that they do not believe that a vessel with such a large processing and freezer capacity and that has the potential to pull out and process so much of the ocean's harvest on a continual basis—that is, within one geographic area in one fishing expedition without returning to port—can operate without a negative impact on the area in which they fish.

The minister has made it clear that this proposed event—the expedition of a supertrawler with such capacity—is unprecedented in Australian waters. It is clear that the proposal to have such as vessel operating in Australian waters, processing and freezing on board substantially larger volumes of catch in any one fishing expedition, is unprecedented. Fishing in this manner produces what people refer to as bycatch, the unintended catching of non-target fish.

Some of the things caught by trawlers are protected mammals. The seals, dolphins and a whole range of other things—and of course the food on which they rely—are protected by Australian law. A sustained and concentrated fishing exercise would surely increase the incidence of bycatch—or do those opposite suggest the contrary, as we are hearing?

What devastation would be caused by substantially increased and geographically concentrated trawling on these protected species? That is one of the questions that cannot be answered. The question is new, as is the capacity of any super-trawler to fish in such a sustained and geographically concentrated way. How can the government be content with a guess or a hope, as those opposite are saying, that environmental law will continue to be observed and that the unintended consequences of said activity on such a large, continual and potentially concentrated basis will not damage those species we are required by law to protect?

We cannot give the assurances asked of us by the public and demanded by the law. The numbers and the impact of such an event are, as I have said, absolutely unprecedented. Uncertainty remains, despite the best efforts of those experts to whom these questions have been put. I believe the public have a right to have their questions answered. It is the public's fishery; it does not belong to any one person or any one trawler or any one industry. The public's environmental assets and their sustainability are key here.

I support the minister's decision to amend the legislative framework that will enable all these questions to be put and to seriously be investigated and enable answers to be given to all those who seek them. This government has only recently announced the creation of the world's largest system of marine reserves. The sustainability of our fisheries and the protection of our wonderful and unique environmental assets is clearly a very substantial priority of this government. We are delivering improved systems of protected areas, delivering sustainable and therefore better fisheries going forward, which is good for the fishing industry and good for the protection of our threatened world.

So it is totally logical that we here on this side of the House—the Labor Party, the one party in this place with a logical approach to sustainability of environmental, social and economic needs—would exercise care and due diligence when it comes to assessing the potential of a vessel that is the second-biggest fishing vessel on the planet and which has sailed over the horizon and looked to fish in our waters.

Fundamentally, this is a new situation being faced by our fisheries, our fishing industry and a marine environment created potentially by a very new fishing tool. We have not seen this tool being used before in our waters—Australian waters, not waters overseas or somewhere else. It is unprecedented. Naturally there is insufficient data as to the impacts. The hypotheses are untested, so suggestions as to what may be done—or what outcomes are most likely—simply cannot be relied on by those with a legal responsibility to ensure, as best they can, that the consequences most of us fear are never realised.

Since the minister announced his decision to seek changes to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which will give him time to seek the conclusive answers to these questions, we have heard others in this and the other place make a number of points in the media. One party launched into an electronic media campaign announcing that they have delivered a great outcome in stopping the super-trawler from ever operating in Australian waters—and I have to tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. The super-trawler has not yet been stopped from going to sea and potentially wreaking havoc on protected mammals and their environments in our waters. That party should focus on results for a change and leave the multimedia mania for another time. I suggest that they focus on delivering their votes to successfully amend this law before they divert their attentions to prematurely announcing any achievement or bathing in greatness.

The Liberals, from what we have heard today, will be opposing the bill. There is a very real possibility that this amendment will not get the approval of the parliament and that the supertrawler will set sail in the months to come. From what we have heard today from the Liberal and National parties I suspect that they will say no—as they do to everything we bring before the House. We have heard a continuous echo—no, no, no, no, no—from the opposition. And we are hearing it again here today—to a bill to give the Australian public the answers they are seeking. What do we hear from the opposition once again? 'No.'

The shadow Treasurer was in the chamber last night speaking in favour of government legislation. He was devastated. I almost felt sorry for him because he was doing something his leadership team appears to have vowed never to do. He could hardly talk—which, for Joe, has to be evidence of acute psychological trauma. He was beside himself, unable to believe that the Liberal and National parties were actually going to vote with the government. They never intended to, irrespective of the merits of the cause. And so too here we can only expect the negativity already coming from the opposition.

I do not recall the last time the opposition voted in favour of enhancing environmental protections on land or at sea. They are against marine reserves. They are against the security of national parks. They are against doing a proper job of restoring the health of the Murray-Darling Basin and the River Murray's Lower Lakes and Coorong. They just hate the idea. They are against investment in school infrastructure. They are against investment in educational outcomes. Their party is against the NDIS. They are against the scientific process itself, and its conclusions—the well established and widely acknowledged consensus in the areas of climate and ecology. So we can only expect the opposition to vote against the amendment in this place and, quite possibly, do whatever it can to see that supertrawler set out to trawl our seas. We can only expect the opposition to unnecessarily and clumsily box itself in again to a position of ignoring the scientific questions, depriving itself of the means to improve its decision making, operating on the basis of spite and wilful opposition and, as a consequence, putting itself at odds with the will of the Australian public.

As I said earlier, I have not seen another bill in this place that is so clearly in line with community expectations and so clearly in sync with community concerns. The public wants answers to these questions. We need this amendment to seek those answers. We are all obliged to support the amendment because it is very important. All of us have heard from constituents in our electorates who are in support of ensuring that we get those answers. The Abel Tasman is the second biggest fishing vessel on the planet. I am pleased that people will not be rushed into decisions about it operating in our waters. The science behind current quotas is sound. However, the science behind the long-term effects of a vessel of this nature, of this size, are not. We are taking a cautious approach to this, prohibiting an activity while giving our fisheries managers and our environmental assessors the opportunity to give it proper consideration and get those answers that the public has been asking for. As I said, the public deserve those answers. We are adding the means by which such vessels can be assessed before any operations take place. We need a proper assessment and, if it is found to be unacceptable and threatening to our precious marine resources or to protected species, then the appropriate management responses would be implemented.

The government has introduced this legislation because there are unanswered questions. It is our duty as members of this parliament to seek answers to those questions and ensure that the public are satisfied. After all, all of us have been put here by the public. I have never seen another issue that has created such a great amount of correspondence to my office—continuous emails and phone calls from people who are concerned about having the world's second largest fishing vessel fishing in our waters. This bill will allow the government to seek out those answers and ensure that all the environmental impacts are known and we have all the information at our fingertips before any vessel like this is allowed to go out fishing in our waters.

The community need to be assured that the environmental controls in place are reflective of the expectations of the community. The expert panel will be able to assess the science to answer those very, very important questions. I am very pleased about this. I congratulate Minister Burke for acting on this after concerns were raised with him. I wrote many emails and letters to him on behalf of many constituents in my electorate over the last month. I am very pleased that he has taken that into account and ensured that he gets those answers for the thousands and thousands of constituents all around Australia who have been contacting our offices—and not just on this side; I am sure they are contacting people on the other side as well.

I am very pleased that this amendment bill has come to this House today to allow the government to seek those very important answers that will tell us what impact the world's second largest fishing vessel will have on our environment. As I said, this is a very important bill and I am very disappointed that the opposition is not supporting it—something which is so clearly in line with public perceptions and public views. I would encourage them all to rethink their position on this, to rethink what the public wants, to rethink what their constituents have been telling them and to vote in line with the Australian public, who put us in this place. I commend the bill to the House.

Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am somewhat taken aback by the contribution of my good friend the member for Hindmarsh. He states that the size of the catch and other issues have been raised and that there needs to be further science on the decision in relation to this large vessel that is currently moored at a port in South Australia.

I find that unbelievable. Obviously, his minister is not communicating to him in any shape or form.

It was in 2009 that the minister made the statement that formally invited these people to come to Australia. They accepted that invitation. In the years since then they have gone through, backwards and forwards, working out the science, arguing on the arrangements that needed to happen. The arrangements had been totally concluded; why else would they have left their home port and steamed all the way to Australia if they were not of the understanding that they had that support from the Australian government? They were down here to catch fish and had actually been allocated a quota of some 18,000 tonnes. So there was no clandestine arrangement. The science had been done. On websites even as late as yesterday the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, AFMA, was defending the science, arguing that it was totally appropriate for this to occur. I understand that the quota was approved by the government's own caucus only yesterday: 'No problems whatsoever; let's make it all happen!' The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has continually defended his decision as being based on science. The hypocrisy in this whole debate has been second to none.

I am one of those who have been defending the fishing industry—all aspects of the fishing industry—for many years. I have seen rights being stripped away. I have seen opportunities for commercial, sporting and recreational fishing being continually reduced. I have seen that reduction used as a basis to determine that fishing is not sustainable and for taking away those rights completely. All of this has not been based on science. There has been no scientific evidence to back robbing these small Australian family businesses of their opportunity to continue to make a living. Many of these businesses are intergenerational; they have been there for many years. AFMA, for example, has continually argued that because of its world-class management fishing was totally sustainable. But this minister and this government have continued to erode these rights. We have no better example of that than the current marine park initiative, through which we are seeing the closure of the Coral Sea because it is becoming a no-take zone for fishing. That initiative was not based on science. It was based on an e-mail campaign generated by an American organisation, which I refer to as a 'gan-green' organisation, called the Pew foundation. The Pew foundation is an oil and gas funded American conglomerate that decided to make itself a little bit respectable in the environment world, so it has gone about looking after the marine environment. It would not do it in its own unsustainable and totally depleted fisheries because it did not have the political courage to do it. Instead it travels around looking for the lowest hanging fruit and of course it found that here in Australia, where there is a government that is totally subservient to the Greens.

The Pew foundation has now come here with a campaign of some 400,000 computer generated spam emails, which frightened the living hell out of the government and pushed it into making a decision that has effectively destroyed even further the livelihoods of people who have been in the industry for a long time. An example of this is Bob Lamason, who owns Great Barrier Reef Tuna in Cairns. Bob used to pay $2,000 to $3,000 per vessel for licence fees in the 1990s for his six or seven boats—his maximum cost was about $20,000. For that he had a licence to catch a range of species, including 1,200 tonnes of tuna each year, which he sold into the prime Japanese market and got very good returns. Back then, there were no bycatch restrictions, no wire traces and no VMS, vessel monitoring systems, and he was allowed to cover a very wide area. Since then, through the pressure of green groups, he has been restricted to areas which in many cases are non-productive and in which he cannot catch target species. He is now paying an average of $40,000 per year for each of his four vessels, $160,000 a year, to fish and he is now permitted to catch only 600 tonnes of tuna a year. Unfortunately, because he is not allowed to fish in areas where the fish actually congregate, last year he managed to catch only 300 tonnes. So with his higher fuel costs, having to fish further out and being restricted to a five-hook limit it has been made almost impossible for him. He is one of those we are going to lose because of this minister's incompetent handling of this whole process.

As Bob has said, we are catching less than half of one per cent of the Western Pacific yellowfin and big eye tuna and fishers are paying $160,000 a year to do it. In the other two-thirds of the Western Pacific, which includes Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands, they take 2.4 million tonnes. You can imagine how much difference to the environment will be made by the 300 tonnes we are stopping Bob from taking. But we are going to destroy the family business in the process.

When you look at this bill, you have to be very concerned. The amendments will create a new chapter 5B of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which will enable the minister, with agreement from the minister for fisheries, to declare a fishing activity to be a 'declared fishing activity' on an interim basis if both ministers agree that 'there is uncertainty about the environmental, social or economic impacts of the fishing activity'. We are talking about the environment minister putting this bill up.

But he is now dealing with social and economic activities as well, which means that he can shut down any activity in any Commonwealth controlled waters, if he has a desire to do so, for a maximum of two years in the first instance. That is absolutely outrageous. That is in spite of the fact that we have seen a huge amount of science go into this.

With regard to this vessel, I had objections. I have concerns about bringing a vessel of this size into our waters and allowing it to take 18,000 tonnes of quota in one area. I think that there should be move-on provisions. If they had put move-on provisions in this, which ensured that this vessel had to take certain amounts out of different areas so that it did not totally deplete the stocks, that would have made a sensible management decision.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Good fisheries management.

Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, good fisheries management, not policy on the run like we are seeing with this, in a government that, again, is being influenced by a an email campaign run by the Greens and GetUp!. That is what this is about. It is not about fishing management. It is about the Greens and GetUp! putting the pressure on. They got in a panic. Yesterday it was fine. Suddenly, today, we are going to stop it. They have even changed the name to the Abel Tasman. If there had been sensible amendments which said, 'We will restrict where we can fish with these vessels,' I would have been absolutely supportive. I hope that we can put something up of a similar nature so that we can actually get back to appropriate management of this vessel rather than this other nonsense.

The other reason I oppose this is that we were told that all the science was done on this—and everything I have seen suggests the science is there. There may be a few little tweaks that we can do in relation to move-on provisions, but the science is there to suggest that this is okay. I have been arguing now for many years about decisions that have been made in my area based on email campaigns and not on science. I have argued very strongly that we should be using science and sustainability as the only criteria in relation to management of fisheries. This emotional claptrap that is being directed here by organisations such as the Pew foundation should be totally disregarded for the spam that it is. But, unfortunately, this government are a captive of the Greens and these interest groups because they do not know how to make a decent decision.

We have already seen sovereign risk issues in relation to the mining resource tax. That had a huge negative impact on confident investment in this country. Have a look at the debacle that the minister for agriculture was involved in in relation to live cattle exports and the sovereign risk in that, a shocking decision that was again made by interest groups and an email and video campaign. We are seeing exactly the same thing now being applied to our fisheries. The minister should hang his head in shame.

I have another impact in my area which I would like to raise. In 1964 Vic Oke and his brother Gordon bought the Cairns saltwater baths and they converted it into an oceanarium. From that time, with their love of diving, they started up a business which was followed on by Vic's daughter Bev, who married Lyle Squire Sr, and then that business became the Cairns marine aquarium. It is now owned by a third generation—Lyle Jr and his brother Cadel. Between them they have six children, all with a strong interest. So there was a possibility that this business could go for four generations. They have been catching reef fish for aquariums and have been taking fish from the same reefs for three generations. It has been recognised as being absolutely world's best practice and totally sustainable. They have been taking the same species from the same area for three generations.

What has happened? First of all, they were shut down by green zones and moved from that area. They were paid $3.8 million in compensation to allow them to buy bigger vessels so that they could move out into the Coral Sea to operate and to set up infrastructure at a Cairns base. Now with the new Coral Sea marine reserve restrictions it is likely that out of the 16 operators that are currently working there only three will be able to continue. This is an organisation that is recognised as world's best practice. The casualties of these limits in the Coral Sea marine reserve will include line and trap fisherman, rock lobster and beche de mer fisheries, and one other aquarium operator. The main problem that these guys face now is that because there is 100 per cent cost recovery the total cost of managing this fishery, which is $300,000, will be spread over three people instead of 16, which means it will be totally unsustainable for them.

It is interesting because I was talking only a while ago to strategic projects manager Ryan Donnelly from the Cairns marine aquarium and he said to me, 'Warren, the funny thing about it is that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority still holds us up as the poster child for the fishing industry in the Great Barrier Reef. These are the people who you would think would want to stop us from fishing on the reef. If we are forced out of the Coral Sea, the infrastructure, the boats, the buildings, our Stratford site and all our staff will have to go.'

These are the sorts of impacts that we are seeing from decisions being made because of populist calls by interest groups like Pew, GetUp! and the Greens. On the one hand, the government makes these decisions on the run without any consideration whatsoever of science. And then, on the other hand, they suddenly get the science and the vessel's operators make an absolute commitment over two years. They steam halfway around the world to be here to start the operation. There are 50 new jobs created et cetera. It needs some tweaking done, but then of course there is another campaign by another lot of interest groups and suddenly the government reneges on the deal. How good does that make us look? It is an absolute disgrace. The minister should hang his head in shame and those on the other side should be condemned for supporting this ridiculous legislation.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill 2012. Unlike the previous speaker, I commend the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry not only for working together through this issue but for noting the very legitimate concerns of Australians around the country and responding with this legislation. I also commend the member for Fremantle for bringing this issue forward with her intent to bring in a private member's bill. Of course, that is no longer necessary.

I note that the opposition will not be supporting this bill, which I have to say not only disappoints me but surprises me, given that this is in fact good legislation, legislation that takes a cautious approach to fisheries management in this country and an approach that at this point in time is appropriate. I note that in opposing this legislation the opposition have moved an amendment. The amendment effectively calls for reasons as to why this legislation has been brought into the House. Can I say to members opposite: if you want to know the reasons why this legislation has been brought into the House, simply read the minister's second reading speech. It is all explained there if you care to read it. It is outlined in a very clear way why this legislation is necessary and why it is responsible legislation.

Australia does indeed have a very good fisheries management record and a very good regime in place and has had so for many years. The reality is that circumstances change, and when circumstances change governments have a responsibility to respond to those changes. It has become clear that under existing legislation there is insufficient scope to deal with current fishing practices that we are seeing, including but not restricted to the use of supertrawlers such as the Margiris, now badged as the Abel Tasman. We have also seen in recent years the action taken by state and federal governments around the country to designate specific areas as marine reserves. They have done that again in recognition that changes are taking place and that, if we want to manage our fisheries properly, we need to ensure that they remain sustainable. The only way to do that is by continuous intervention, having assessed the impacts to date of what is currently happening.

Whilst the legislation is not specific to the size of fishing vessels, it does empower the minister to declare a fishing activity, which triggers a 24-month prohibition of fishing whilst an expert panel carries out a scientific investigation of the impacts of the particular fishing activity. Whilst some have argued that section 91 of the Fisheries Management Act provides the minister with additional powers under exceptional circumstances, I accept the minister's advice that that section does not provide sufficient scope to deal with issues such as that of the Margiris.

There has also been considerable debate about the scientific evidence which underpins sustainable fishing policy, and I will make some comments in respect of all of that. Firstly, there is the question about quotas. The issue of quotas has been discussed at length by several of the speakers thus far. That is one of the issues and perhaps the issue that most people focus on. It is the issue that immediately comes to mind. It is, however, not the only issue under consideration with respect to this legislation, and I will talk a little bit more about that in a moment.

The second and equally important issue is how the fish are caught and what impact the activity itself has on the marine environment. The impact of the activity needs to be managed just as much as the quota needs to be managed. For example, the impact of a very large vessel which has the ability to remain in one location for extended periods of time would likely be very different to the impact of several smaller vessels fishing in the area for short periods. These are issues which the expert panel will be asked to report on.

I will turn for a moment to the question of the Margiris, because this legislation has indeed arisen because of the application by the Margiris to fish in Australian waters. The Margiris is a 142-metre vessel weighing 9,500 tonnes. It can process over 250 tonnes of fish each day and has a cargo capacity of 6,200 tonnes. I understand it was brought to Australia by Seafish Tasmania, which has secured an 18,000-tonne quota for jack mackerel and red bait. I also understand that the Margiris will tow a net some 300 metres in length. The 18,000-tonne quota is half of the entire allowable catch for the area of coastline which extends from south-western Western Australia to Queensland—roughly from Perth to Brisbane.

The use of supertrawlers is not new to fishing. What is interesting is that today the experience has led to trawlers being banned in several other parts of the world. I understand that that has previously been the case also with the Abel Tasman. In 1999 the Abel Tasman, then named the Atlantic Star, lost its right to fish in US waters after trading its US flag for a Dutch flag. Indeed, the vessel has an interesting history. Let me just take you through that history. Between 1991 and 1995 I understand that the vessel was named the Apollo Two. Between 1998 and 2002 the vessel was named the Siberian Enterprise. Between 1999 and 2008 it was also named the Atlantic Star, and from 2006 onwards it was named the Annelies Ilena. It then comes to Australia as the Margiris and again changes its name to the Abel Tasman.

The interesting thing about all those name changes is: why would you need to continuously change the name of the vessel if it is not to perhaps run away from a reputation that you do not want attached to the vessel? I would have thought that if the vessel was proud of its history it would retain its original name and wherever it went it would use that name—but not so. The vessel seems to change its name whenever it moves from one location to another. I have to ask the question: why does it need to do that?

Can I return to the issue of quotas. I pointed out earlier on that the area that the vessel was seeking a licence for extends roughly from Perth to Brisbane.

If most of the catch—the 18,000-tonne limit that it is seeking a licence for—were to come from one specific location, that would have a significantly different impact on the fishing stocks than if the catch came from an area evenly spread right across from Brisbane to Perth. Those are the kinds of questions and issues that the scientific panel needs to respond to before a licence should be granted. Those are the kinds of concerns that I believe are properly being raised by people across the community and by this government.

Likewise, if the vessel were to remain in one location for extended periods of time, what would it do to fishing stocks in that particular location—including the bycatch, which others have talked about—not to mention the other environmental impacts of having a large vessel like that operating from one specific point? What environmental impacts would result from all that? Again, we do not have answers to those questions. We do not have answers to those questions because we have never had in Australia a vessel of this type. There is no history to go by. There is no precedent to use in order to try and find answers to these questions, so therefore we rely on speculative assessments as to what might or might not happen if we allowed the vessel to fish under the current licence. Frankly, estimates are not good enough. We need to have more reliable information.

Interestingly, on that very issue, I understand that not long ago in New Zealand a similar experience was had in respect of a Korean supertrawler that was allowed into New Zealand waters. It turned out that, even with the very strict conditions that New Zealand applied to their licence, those conditions proved ineffective and that trawler exceeded its quota. I am unable to say what other breaches occurred, but, if the quota itself could not be monitored, then I have to question how well you can monitor each of the other conditions that are attached when a licence is issued to such a vessel.

But it is not just about quotas. Regrettably, too many of the speakers opposite have just focused on the issue of quotas. On the issue of quotas, I accept the science that has been put together by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority. My concerns are not with respect to the quotas. I understand the 18,000-tonne quota that has been sought by this vessel in Australia represents half of the total catch of that particular type of fish, and that that in turn only represents about 7½ per cent of the total fish stocks in our waters. So that is not my concern. My concern is about the impact that a single vessel of this type will have on the environment.

Speakers opposite have also talked about the 50 or so jobs that might be lost if this licence is not approved. If this ship does not catch the fish that are in the waters, other ships will. If that means that we have to license several smaller vessels, I suspect the total number of jobs created by doing that will far exceed the 50 it is suggested will be lost if we refuse the licence to this operator. In fact, it is because of its efficiencies that this large trawler is being brought in. It is in effect to save costs, and in my view that means it will reduce the number of jobs that will be created.

Recreational fishers have also raised their concerns, certainly in my state of South Australia, with respect to the intrusion of a large vessel of this type into our waters. The South Australian government and the Tasmanian government have both expressed their opposition to this vessel fishing in waters within their jurisdictions. Certainly Minister Paul Caica from South Australia has made it absolutely clear that he does not want this vessel in South Australian waters.

There are a number of other matters that are of concern with respect to this issue. The experience of large trawlers around the world leads me to be very concerned about the impact that such trawlers have. I understand that several countries have already, after having large trawlers in their waters, banned those trawlers from re-entering their waters. It is true they may not have the same fishing management guidelines and regulations in place as Australia does, but nevertheless the fact that these types of vessels are being banned in several parts of the world raises the question as to why. It is clear that we have not had a vessel like this in our waters and therefore the impacts of such a vessel are indeterminable. The scientific panel that will be put together hopefully will be able to address many of the questions that have arisen in the course of the discussion on this issue over the last few weeks and enable the government, if it decides that a licence will be issued, to at least issue the licence with appropriate conditions, which may be stricter and more enforceable than those that are being sought right now.

It is also the case, as we have seen on many other occasions, that it does not matter how good and how tight you think your regulations are; breaches of the regulations are always a possibility. It is always a possibility, even with the best of intentions, that issues such as the bycatch will also prove to be much more serious than the operators of this vessel claim they will be. This legislation simply puts into place a precautionary approach to managing an event that we have never had to manage in the past. It makes more sense to be cautious than to regret the decision after the event, when perhaps the damage has been done and cannot be undone. I commend the legislation to the House.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too would like to talk on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill 2012. I support the amendment moved by shadow minister Hunt. But let me first say that I am totally and utterly bewildered at the rank hypocrisy of the government on this issue. I have never seen the like. I really thought the live cattle export thing was one of the greatest disasters we had encountered, and in economic terms it probably is, but, on a scale of integrity, this must be close to rock bottom.

Since 2009, the government has been aware of this company. In fact, it has almost encouraged it to come to this country, to bring the Margiris here. You have statements by Mr Burke. You have statements by Minister Ludwig. You have statements by AFMA, our peak fishing authority. Not only that, but the personnel of AFMA would have been appointed by those two ministers. For heaven's sake, it has your fingerprints all over it. So the Margiris comes to Australia. It complies with all our rules and regulations. Fifty employees are nominally employed. And then we drop the axe on it. And now we have spent the debate today, starting with the member for Corangamite and going down to the last speaker, talking about and demonising the Margiris.

If you want to know where I stand, I am not a great fan of large factory vessels. I make no apology for that. But that is not the debate we are having today. The debate we are having today is about whether this company came to Australia appropriately, almost at the invitation of the government, complied with its requirements, was given a quota of 18,000 tonnes—which, by the way, I think is excessively high—and then was told to stop. And how was it told to stop?

This legislation that the government is proposing and that we intend to amend gives the minister almost unfettered powers, powers that can be used in a draconian way or in a capricious way. The definitional powers in it are just so wide that you could drive a bus through them. First, the minister has the authority to declare a fishing activity a 'declared fishing activity', so he can pick anything out, anywhere in Australia. It is not just the Margiris; this is just the start of a new regime in fish management. And then, on the very flimsiest of grounds, he can bring his powers into play on environmental, social or economic impacts. The effect of that could be devastating. Contrary to what members of the government have been saying today, we are opposing this bill not so much because of the Margiris situation, bad as that is, but because this introduces a new level into fish management—and into primary industry management, for that matter—the like of which we have never seen.

I want people to get a bit of an understanding of what a vessel like the Margiris is capable of. In Queensland we have, through a whole series of state, state-federal, federal and now federal offshore activities, a whole regime of control of the fishing industry which is, quite frankly, draconian and which has drummed countless good people out of the industry. On top of that, we have people who the member for Leichhardt spoke about this morning who are hanging on by the skin of their teeth because of what this government has done already. The longline tuna fisherman that the member for Leichhardt referred to has seen his quota go from 1,200 to 600 tonnes and, because of where he has been allowed to fish, effectively down to 300 tonnes. Let us just note that: 300 tonnes. One hourly sweep by the Margiris could catch that man's entire yearly output—one hourly sweep of the Margiris. Frightening stuff, isn't it?

I am not here to demonise the Margiris but to show you the strict nature of what fishermen have been placed under in this country without any concern for them. Some of these families of Australian fishermen, as has been pointed out today, have been there for three or four generations serving this country with quality product and being subjected to the most extraordinary rules and regulations. We had a thing called the east coast trawl plan, which reduced the number of trawlers on the Queensland coast from 750 to 500—in fact, it reduced it even more, to 460. We were told that the reef was now sustainable, 'But we need a little bit more of the area of the marine park for scientific and other purposes,' and that was to be an absolute maximum of 20 per cent. When the maps came out, was it 20 per cent? No, it was 34 per cent.

Where I live—where the Gladstone, Bundaberg, Hervey Bay and Tin Can Bay fishermen live, who use the southern part of the Barrier Reef—effectively fishermen were losing 70 per cent of their fishing area. These guys have been through hell. Some of them went and bought new trawlers, so that they could go where? To the largely unregulated Coral Sea. But, once again, Labor was ready for them. We have heard from the member for Leichhardt today how the longline tuna fishermen have been slowly squeezed out of the business. Various green groups come to me and say that the longliners really wanted to get out of the business. In the end they did want to. Why? Because the number of hooks they could use was restricted, where they could fish was restricted and how many tonnes they could catch was restricted, to the point where it was not an industry anymore. Of course they would take compensation—the poor devils had nothing left.

Then we had the effects of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park annual research plans program, which hopefully sometime in the future will be reviewed. Some people took compensation from the program, or sold their smaller vessels and got into larger vessels to go into the Coral Sea. But what did we find there? We then had about 30 trawlers owned by about 20 entities—not a lot of people at all. I know one fisherman who has a capacity of 30,000 to 50,000 tonnes in a year; I suppose there might be the capacity, with all those vessels, to take about 300,000 tonnes. But the member for Leichhardt told us today that in Papua New Guinea waters alone one million tonnes is taken; in New Caledonia waters the figure is 1.4 million tonnes. What sort of idiots are we? We are not saving the planet. We are fattening up the fish in our part of the Coral Sea for the people who can come into the international waters on the northern side and fish it out.

If any honourable members really want to see what goes on in the world, go and have a look at the Tokyo fish market. Go and see those huge igloos—like Second World War air force igloos—with the rows and rows of tuna and the auctioneer going along on a little stool and knocking down every single fish. There are rows of them, every day—tens of thousands of tonnes. Then look at what we do. Down the whole east coast of Queensland, not just in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, we have various types of prawns, including eastern king prawns, tiger prawns and endeavour prawns. The total output of that whole strip of coastline is about 4,400 tonnes. If you add 600 tonnes of scallop meat, it is about 5,000 tonnes. The Margiris can hold in its coldroom 6,200 tonnes. The Margiris can hold in its coldroom more than the entire prawn and scallop production of Queensland in a year. I am saying that not to demonise the Margiris but to demonstrate the extent of the controls we have imposed unfairly and unnecessarily on Australian fishermen. They are ridiculously draconian, ridiculously constrictive, to the point where in our own supermarkets we are buying 72 per cent foreign fish. Here we are, the great clean, green marine environment in the South Pacific, and we cannot catch enough fresh fish for ourselves. What a ludicrous situation.

I come back to my original theme. This is draconian, capricious legislation that will not just stop with the Margiris; it will be a double-edged sword that will cut a swathe into many other areas where this government want to pander to the Pew foundation or some element of the green industry or the Greens party. It will put our fishermen in situations that might be embarrassing for the government. We have seen their grand gestures like closing down live cattle exports, like putting pink batts in roofs, and now they are closing down the Margiris for two years—but not on any grounds of science. For God's sake, they had three years to examine the science, yet now we have in the House today this rushed piece of legislation. This legislation should be tossed out but, in the event that we cannot toss it out, we will at least do our very best to amend it.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hinkler's contribution to this debate on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill 2012 was one of the most interesting I have ever heard. He put a very strong argument for endorsing the government's legislation, yet he then turned around and said he opposes it. He argued that bad fishing practices in other parts of the world—practices which have led to the depletion of fishing stocks—are a reason for Australia to have bad fishing practices as well. It was a very confused contribution. He argued against sustainable fishing whilst, on the other hand, pointing out the problems that exist. He pointed out the Margiris's enormous capacity—6,200 tonnes—and talked about the problems faced by the fishing industry in Australia. But he then said that he does not support this legislation to prevent the Margiris from fishing in Australian waters.

I come from a coastal electorate. We have had issues with fishing within the Shortland electorate. Lake Macquarie is at the heart of the Shortland electorate. Over the years, issues surrounding fishing have been very much on the table. In my electorate I have been approached by many fishers, both professional and recreational, and they have all put compelling arguments to me that we cannot allow this ship to fish in Australian waters.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So why, yesterday, did you vote in the Senate to approve it?

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hear the member for Paterson. Hopefully he is offering his support for the recreational and professional fishers in his electorate. The father of a fisher from his electorate was the first person to hit my office complaining about this ship fishing in Australian waters. If the member for Paterson were in tune with his electorate, he would know the depth of feeling fishers have towards this ship fishing in Australian waters.

Australia has a long and proud record as a leader in sustainable fishing. The legislation before us today recognises that decisions on fisheries need to be based on scientific fact, not on emotion. This legislation is about ensuring that scientific facts are collected before any decision is made. If we were not interested in the science, we would either allow fishing to continue—without having any true knowledge base—or, alternatively, we would ban it up-front. In two years, we will have that information. I am quite sure that, when that information is collected, it will lead to a ban on ships like the Margiris fishing in Australian waters.

This ship has been forced to change its name on numerous occasions in various parts of the world. It has a storage capacity of 6,200 tonnes. That means it is capable of catching 20 bus loads of fish each day. It is twice the size of any boat currently fishing in Australia, and this boat would be fishing in direct competition with Australian fishers—fishers such as those in the member for Paterson's electorate. The potential for bycatch is enormous—turtles, dolphins, seals and undersized fish. One of the key factors in fishery management is making sure that the fish caught are the correct size so as to ensure that breeding can continue.

I think the sustainability of our fishing industry is extremely important and something all members of this parliament would like to ensure. Having a sustainable fishing industry means that those of us who do not fish can continue to enjoy the fish which come from our ocean and that those who work in the industry can maintain their jobs. I want to see the professional fishers in my electorate able to continue fishing.

I mentioned Lake Macquarie earlier. Some 15 years ago, professional fishing in the lake was causing a depletion of fishing stocks and there were issues relating to bycatch. There was enormous division within the community between professional fishers and recreational fishers. The outcome was that professional fishing was banned in Lake Macquarie. We still have a strong professional fishing presence in the area—the professional fishers have moved to ocean fishing. The difference the ban has made to fishing stocks in Lake Macquarie has been enormous. Fish stocks in the lake have increased. That has helped maintain the lake as an enjoyable spot for recreational fishing. As a result, tourism to the area has increased. So there are enormous benefits from ensuring sustainable fishing.

So sustainable fishing in Lake Macquarie has gone from being on the edge of falling over, when we had professional fishers fishing in the lake, to the point now where we have a very healthy lake, with the fish stocks increasing on a daily basis. If you extend that to the fishing trawler dealt with in this legislation—which has the ability to take large stocks of fish—you can see that the impact on the sustainability of our fisheries would be enormous. What happened on that small level in Lake Macquarie will happen on a much bigger level on the Australian coastline as a whole.

So the legislation we have before us today is very important, and I am disappointed—very disappointed, actually—that the opposition are not supporting it. We on this side of the House know that the strategy of the opposition is to oppose for opposition's sake, so every time we put up a piece of legislation we are ready for them: we have the expectation, shall I say, that the opposition will oppose it. I spoke last night on the charities and not-for-profits bills, which I thought the opposition would support. But, no, it opposed them. Today I am talking about sustainable fishing, about ensuring that our fish stocks are not depleted by the Margiris coming into Australian waters. However, rather than having any vision and looking to the future, I would argue strongly that the opposition are opposing this bill for opposition's sake, and without having spoken to their communities. This bill is about assuring the community that environmental controls are in place, which reflects the community's expectations.

The bill will set up an expert panel that will assess the science to answer the very important questions being asked about this supertrawler. As legislators—I repeat, as legislators—we have the obligation to assure the communities that we represent that adequate controls are in place and that we will have sustainable fisheries into the future. I believe the legislation we have before us today will do just that.

The Margirisor, should I say, the Abel Tasman, because it is has changed its name again—was being assessed under a 20-year-old act. Since then, of course, many changes have taken place, and so the minister needs to take into account new or different types of considerations. It is very important that we are able to look at this from a different perspective. The legislation does not say 'new fishing activities'; it says 'specified fishing activities'. That is because there may be a change in the way that a past activity is playing out.

It is really important that this legislation gets through this parliament, and quickly, because it is vital for the future. We cannot allow uncertainty about fisheries to continue, and this bill is about making certain that we will have a sustainable fishing industry into the future. We need to look at all the implications—social, environmental and economic—associated with this supertrawler operating in our waters. One of the strong points of this legislation, I think, is that both the minister for the environment and the minister for fisheries must look at imposing these conditions and there has to be agreement before we can go down this track, as there is in this case. We cannot allow uncertainty—not on issues like this.

I do not think any issue has engendered such wide-ranging debate in my electorate as this one has, given that, as I said at the beginning, it is a coastal electorate and we have had issues around fishing in the past. I can share with this House that not one person has contacted my office to say that the Abel Tasman, as it is now called, should be allowed to operate freely in Australian waters. I agree with my constituents. I think that a very, very strong case against that has been put forward, but to make sure that that case is based on scientific fact we need to go down this path.

I commend the minister for bringing this bill before the parliament to deal with an issue that is so important to the community that I represent and to the Australian community as a whole.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill 2012. Hypocrisy reigns supreme in this parliament, because Minister Burke, as the minister for fisheries, in 2008 released the Australian Fisheries Management Authority discussion paper Small pelagic fishery harvest strategy. That report was revised in October 2009. The report says, on large factory freezer vessels such as the Margiris, now the Abel Tasman:

… there are considerable economies of scale in the fishery and the most efficient way to fish may include large scale factory freezer vessels.

Hypocrisy reigns supreme not just because the minister who is now moving this bill was the fisheries minister who appointed the AFMA commissioners in whom he now says he has no faith; hypocrisy reigns supreme within the Labor Party because Senator Ludwig, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, reaffirmed the 18,000-tonne quota on 23 August, and on 10 September the Labor government voted to support the quota. Why the shift, in two days?

This bill is not based on science. It is based not on sound management nor on good governance. This bill is based on hypocrisy, because the government do not believe what they are saying; nor do they believe in what they are doing. I have concerns about this bill because it is bad policy being brought upon us by a bad government, driven by the wrong reasons. The measures in this bill, in effect, were debated in the Fisheries Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2012. I spoke to that bill on 16 August:

The amendments to the bill will allow for emergency power to be introduced to partly close or close a fishery without stakeholder consultation in case of emergency.

The minister for fisheries already has these powers—voted on, supported. Now this government wants to override the minister for fisheries, to override AFMA and to introduce new powers for the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. I would have thought that the left hand might have spoken to the right hand, that there might have been a whole-of-government approach.

The member for Shortland raised the recreational fishing industry. I do a lot of work with the recreational fishing industry. I am part of their group. What concerns them is the ad hoc way in which this has been put together. In division 2, subdivision A, at 390SC, the bill says:

What is a declared fishing activity ?

(1) A declared fishing activity is a fishing activity that is specified in:

It goes through a range of measures and then says:

(2) A fishing activity means an activity that constitutes fishing.

Then, in subdivision B, it says:

390SD Interim declaration

Making an interim declaration

This is the part that concerns me:

(1) The Minister may, by legislative instrument, make a declaration (an interim declaration ) that a specified fishing activity is a declared fishing activity.

Note 1: For variation of an interim declaration, see subsection 33(3) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 .

Note 2: For revocation of an interim declaration, see section 390SG.

(2) When making an interim declaration, the Minister may identify a fishing activity by reference to all or any of the following:

(a) a method of fishing;

(b) a type of vessel used for fishing;

(c) a method of processing, carrying or transhipping of fish that have been taken;

(d) an area of waters or of seabed.

From my reading and understanding of this legislation, these measures can apply to recreational fishermen. This minister, at a whim, without any science and without any consultation can shut down entire areas, not just for commercial fishing but for recreational fishing as well. The minister will no longer be required to go through the management processes for marine parks. He can just shut down at a whim the entire Coral Sea, the entire Great Barrier Reef, all of the Commonwealth waters off New South Wales and all of the Commonwealth waters off Victoria and Tasmania. He can shut down all the waters off South Australia, off Western Australia, off the Northern Territory and off Lord Howe Island. This minister will have unfettered powers which are not restricted to commercial fishing; they can apply equally to recreational fishing.

If you want to understand how concerning this is, look at the first part of this bill, which talks about the penalties. If this minister decides that an area is to be shut down for, let us say, recreational fishing, the civil penalty is:

390SA Civil penalty—declared fishing activities

…    …    …

  (a) for an individual—5,000 penalty units;

and then:

390SB Offence—declared fishing activities

  (1) A person commits an offence if:

      (a) the person takes an action; and

      (b) the action is taken in a Commonwealth marine area; and

      (c) the action is a declared fishing activity.

      Penalty: Imprisonment for 7 years or 420 penalty units, or both.

So now, because of the mismanagement of this government—the lack of understanding in what they have done, the failure to consult—we see a situation where recreational fishing can be captured by this bill. The members of the Labor Party talk about good fisheries management and say that they have done the science. I have concerns about the science by the independent commissioners appointed by Minister Burke and the scientists who have said that the science is correct. It has been reaffirmed this week. In fact, Minister Ludwig said in the Senate this week that the science is correct. If the science is correct and they have concerns, who will drive this legislation—which can shut down a fishery based on social concerns?

It could be people such as GetUp!; it could be people such as the Pew foundation. It could be anyone who creates a social concern, which then gives the minister the leeway to shut down or declare invalid a whole fishery—not just for commercial fishing but also for recreational fishing.

People target the Margiris; I too have concerns about the size of the vessel. I would much rather that 10 smaller vessels employing 10 times the number of people worked an area. But this government and, in particular, this minister for the environment when he was minister for fisheries, sought vessels of the size of the Margiris to undertake the fishing of 18,000 tonnes of mackerel and redbait. The difference is that this capture will be used and frozen for human consumption rather than just for baitfish. If indeed they wanted to apply better fisheries management, they would have a move-on provision—in other words, they would specify that only a certain amount of the 18,000-tonne catch could come from certain areas, which would be broken up by the size of the catch. That would spread the risk of overfishing in one area across the whole of the nation.

There is no argument that the 18,000-tonne haul is a concern. People have concerns over the size of the vessel and the size of its haul, and I can understand that. The recreational fishing people have expressed that concern to me. But, in my discussions with them, people from the recreational fishing industry and the main peak bodies said to me, 'If there were move-on provisions, it would lessen the heat and the argument.' This government has not listened to the people who are affected; it has listened to the green groups, such as GetUp! and Pew. This bill gives so much potential to cause damage to an individual minister, who is irresponsible and hypocritical. As I said, this is the minister who appointed the ACMA commissioners and this is the minister who in the Small Pelagic Fishery Harvest Strategy went out and sought vessels of the size of the Margiris. He now wants to stop fishing by such vessels on the basis of social concerns. Either you base things on science and then manage the science and the expectations or you play to populist politics.

Why did none of the members here stand up before Minister Ludwig spoke in the Senate and approved this legislation on the 10th? Why did they show no concern? In fact, one of their own members, the member for Braddon, an area that is affected, said in the Advocate on 4 August:

Sometimes you've got to stick with what you believe is right when popular opinion might not agree. You have faith in your institutions and you demand they be accountable, but if through sheer populist sentiment you push your institutions aside, what hope have you got?

That statement was made by one of the parliamentary secretaries—a man who has the port of Devonport in his electorate. But hypocrisy knows no bounds, because on 11 September he put out a press release which said:

Sid Sidebottom … today welcomed the news today that the Federal Government will introduce legislation to toughen up environmental controls on vessels like the super trawler.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can count on Sid!

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can count on Sid! He's always there to be depended upon! So, when his own community is depending on him, what does he do? He takes an each-way bet.

What you need to consider in environmental management of fisheries is regional total allowable catches. In other words, only so much can come out of each area. That spreads the risk over a broader area. What you need to understand is that people such as the Australian Marine Alliance have problems with this draconian bill. The chief executive of the AMA, Dean Logan, said:

The explanations given by ministers Ludwig and Burke throughout a range of media interviews over their knowledge and handling of the so-called super trawler have been watched closely by all involved.

He went on to say:

The majority of comments raise very serious concerns about whether both ministers, especially Minister Burke, have actually misled the Australian community. Perhaps more on this will be exposed by a freedom of information request and almost certain court action.

What people want is good management and a solid, secure pathway. Those who invested on the basis of an express approach by Mr Burke, who wanted the ship in here in the beginning when he was fisheries minister want is low sovereign risk. This bill denies it. The recreational fishers want a realistic outcome, which can be achieved in relation to this fishery by having move-on provisions—in other words, regional total allowable catches. The recreational fishers also want exclusion from this bill. The recreational fishing industry wants not to be caught up in this form of politics. As I said at the very beginning, this minister, with an express wish, can shut down any fishing. He could shut down snapper fishing more than three miles offshore because someone says that it is socially unacceptable. He could shut down the recreational shark fishing in Victoria because somebody says, 'We don't think that's socially acceptable'. He can shut down any fishing. As I said, he can shut down the entire Great Barrier Reef for recreational fishing as well as for commercial fishing without having to go through any due process. After the minister has made a decision to do that, he has to report to a committee. But there are no guidelines in this bill as to who can be on the committee and what qualifications they must have. The committee, as I said earlier, could consist of the Greens, the GetUp! Movement, the Pew foundation or anyone who wants to get involved in the social politics.

This government needs to stand firm on its commitment and address its own bill by adding to it move-on provisions and, in particular, by amending the bill to exclude recreational fishers. I call on the government to walk in here today and move an amendment to its own bill, before we do so, to exclude recreational fishing activities from being caught up in this legislation.

Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The federal government's decision to stop the supertrawler operating in Australian waters for up to two years is, I believe, a very significant and a very positive development. I applaud the government and the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities in particular for finally acting in this matter. The case against the supertrawler is, in my opinion, overwhelming. For a start, there are doubts over the science.

Can I say up-front that I have enormous respect for the Australian scientific community and for the work that it does and I am very mindful of the fact that, in my electorate, I have a disproportionate number of marine scientists and fisheries experts—in fact, one of the highest populations of such people, pro rata, of any city in the country. But the fact is that the views in the scientific community are divided; there is not a clear consensus one way or another in this matter. For example, in Tasmania, our own Dr Andrew Wadsley has done some very good work picking apart the science behind the quota and has found many errors. Further afield, Professor Jessica Meeuwig, who is a research professor at the University of Western Australia, has had this to say:

But we are largely ignorant about the effective population structure of these species. Of the four species considered for exploitation, the population structure of blue mackerel is uncertain, and jack mackerel and redbait are believed to have eastern and western subpopulations. No dedicated population studies have been conducted on redbait nor is any information available for Peruvian jack mackerel. Moreover, little is reported about adult movements of any of these species except that larger jack mackerel are found in deeper waters.

That is one opinion from a very highly regarded Western Australian professor. I will quote again, this time from a friend of mine from Hobart, John Biggs. In an online blog comment this morning, he wrote:

Science's role is to provide the information on which policy can be made, its role is not to create policy. Policymakers certainly need to take the science into account, which means they are satisfied it is fully up to date … But policymakers also need to take into account a range of other factors, including the opinions of the public who elected them. Science may tell us what can happen but that does not mean to say it should happen. And in any case, the science here is focused on a specific species, not the whole ecosystem, is out of date and statistically wrong according to Dr Wadsley and others.

There are also doubts, in my opinion, over the effectiveness of the government's safeguards and, in particular, the promise of an observer onboard the supertrawler Margiris. To save money, the government is moving to replace fishing observers with electronic monitoring through the Fisheries Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1), which passed this House in August and is now before the Senate. The government variously described the conditions it had imposed on the Margiris as 'tough', 'stringent' and 'best practice' but the reality is that the key condition of an onboard observer was nothing more than a facade. In introducing the bill, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Sid Sidebottom, told parliament:

Trials and cost-benefit analyses have shown that the more data that is required for a fishery, the cheaper it will become to use e-monitoring systems, rather than observers.

There are also doubts about the risk of localised stock depletion. This is one of the most important reasons that a single large vessel is much more problematic than a number of smaller boats filling the same quota. I suggest it is self-evident that one very large vessel with one very large net going into a relatively small fishery will have a disproportionate effect compared to a smaller number of vessels, which would probably operate across a broader area by comparison.

Another problem with the supertrawler Margirisand I will call it Margiris because I think renaming it Abel Tasman was downright offensive, particularly to the Tasmanian community—was that it had no social licence. Very few Tasmanians in particular wanted the vessel. That is not at all surprising, considering there are well over 100,000 recreational fishers—men, women and children—in Tasmania in a population of only half a million. I understand that elsewhere in Australia there are similar levels of concern with supertrawlers. This is very important. We in this House should represent our communities. It is too easy to simply say, 'Some government agency at arm's length knows more and we will disregard the view of the community.' That is not our job and we should not do that; it should only be done in extreme circumstances. It should not have been done in this case.

There has also been the problem of the misconduct by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority when setting the quota relevant to the Margiris. I refer here to AFMA advisory committees. The outcomes of the February meeting of the resource assessment group were not accurately recorded and concerns by at least two members of the group were not communicated up the chain to the management advisory committee. We know that because the concerns of at least two members of that committee are now on the public record. Their concerns went to what is called the South East Management Advisory Committee. We know that at its meeting in March—the key meeting when the recommendation for the quota relevant to the supertrawler Margiris was finalised—the committee did not comply with the Fisheries Administration Act. We know that the proponent for the supertrawler, Mr Gerry Geen of Seafish Tasmania, a man with a direct conflict of interest, remained in that meeting—which in my opinion was entirely improper, but it was allowable as long as the committee had explicitly given him approval to remain in the meeting, and they had not. When I challenged the CEO of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority about this, remarkably the CEO said that AFMA does not take its act literally—that, in fact, it has developed in-house workaround arrangements because it has difficulties with the act.

I have taken these concerns to the ombudsman, and I am pleased that the ombudsman feels there is enough substance to my concerns about the conduct of AFMA that it is currently investigating the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, in particular its conduct regarding the setting of the quota relevant to the supertrawler Margiris.

Finally, there is also a question mark over the big picture and the fact that AFMA blocked the supertrawler Veronica in 2005 with the support of the Howard government. In fact, at about the same time, the proponents for the supertrawler Margiris commenced their work. 'So what?' you might ask, Mr Deputy Speaker. Well, the proponent for the Margiris, Mr Gerry Geen, was on at least one of the AFMA advisory committees in 2005 when AFMA blocked the Veronica. If that does not raise serious questions about the conduct of AFMA and whether a supertrawler should operate in Australian waters then I do not know what will.

I am not saying that Mr Geen has done anything wrong in these matters. In fact, I am genuinely concerned that Mr Geen has been allowed to do a lot of work, spend a lot of money and give employees a lot of hope when his expectations really should have been cut short long ago by either the Howard government, the Rudd government or, much earlier, the Gillard government. No, my issue here is with fisheries management in Australia and the fact that far too many people with direct conflicts of interest are allowed to occupy positions on key advisory bodies. Remember that Mr Geen, from Seafish Tasmania, the proponent for the supertrawler Margiris, was heavily involved with AFMA when a competitor vessel, the Veronica, was stopped, and he was again heavily involved more recently when the quota relevant to the Margiris was set. Surely, this is entirely improper of AFMA and should not be allowed to continue.

I urge the government to turn yesterday's announcement into law as quickly as possible—and I urge my crossbench colleagues to support the government. I also urge the government to ensure that this two-year assessment process which has been identified is done effectively and is absolutely beyond question. And given all the uncertainty over the setting of the quota for the supertrawler Margiris I also urge the government to revoke that quota and not allow any other vessel to fish it in the interim. Regrettably, I would also add that, while the government's announcement yesterday is to be applauded, I think it could have gone much further. Ultimately I will be supporting an amendment I expect to be moved by the member for Melbourne which would seek to ban supertrawlers permanently.

I would like to quote from a Greenpeace fact sheet on some of the issues we need to consider about toughening up the government's bill and banning supertrawlers permanently. The supertrawler Margiris is 142 metres long, twice the size of any vessel that has fished Australian seas previously. It is six times longer than the average Australian fishing vessel. It can process—and this is a typical supertrawler—up to 250 tonnes of fish a day and store 6,200 tonnes of fish before it has to return to port. This is fishing on an industrial scale never before seen in Australia—nor should it be. Fishing on such a scale has an enormous bycatch that kills a large number of very precious animals. For example, in the past 15 years, bycatch from the 20 supertrawlers fishing off West Africa has killed an estimated 1,500 critically endangered turtles, more than 18,000 giant rays and more than 60,000 sharks. And not only are they destroying these precious animals, they are destroying jobs. Supertrawlers are inherently machinery intensive and personnel light. They are job killers, not a job creators. They have done enormous damage around the world where they have been allowed to operate. For example, they collapsed the South Pacific fishery. I am still quoting from the Greenpeace fact sheet here. 'Scientists said there were so many jack mackerel in the South Pacific that the fishery was impossible to overfish. But supertrawlers, including the Margiris, fished so much that in 2006 the Pacific fishery collapsed to 10 per cent of healthy stocks. Fisheries managers are calling for fishing to be cut by half, with some scientists arguing for a five-year total ban in that fishery.' They have also effectively wiped out West Africa's commercial fish stock. 'Since supertrawlers, including the Margiris, started fishing off the west coast of Africa, most commercial fish stocks have become fully exploited or overexploited.' In other words, there are effectively no more fish for commercial fishing—and that is what supertrawlers have done in recent years in other parts of the world.

Frankly, it should be up to the proponents of such vessels to prove to us that they are environmentally and economically sensible, rather than the current situation where it is up to the government to prove that such vessels are inappropriate. I believe that if we were to amend the government's bill and ban supertrawlers permanently it would put the onus on any future proponent of a supertrawler to make a strong enough case to convince a future government to change the law. It should not be up to us to work out how to say no. The onus has to be reversed. It should be up to the proponents of supertrawlers to convince us in the future that they have changed their ways and things are better. It should be up to a future proponent of a supertrawler, if they want to have one operate in Australian waters, to persuade a future government to change the law to allow it.

I will wind it up there. I will finish by saying that yesterday's news was great news for a great many Australians, certainly for the overwhelming majority of Tasmanians that I am aware of. I applaud the government for doing it and I call on my crossbench colleagues to understand that the government's bill should be applauded. And the issue of science is a fair point, but remember that there is uncertainty even within the scientific community.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill 2012, which those listening to the broadcast would assume concerns the activities of the supertrawler Margiris. And I guess, in one sense, it does, except that, when you look at the extraordinary powers that this bill will give to the minister for the environment, you could be forgiven for thinking that he, with his partners the Greens, has taken this opportunity for a giant regulatory overreach.

That regulatory overreach will give the Australian government, in the form of its environment minister, control over fishing activities anywhere, in any capacity, done by any body, organisation or individual on the basis of a new term, 'social uncertainty'. It is a term that I have not encountered in legislation.

Like most people in my electorate of Farrer, some of whom have contacted me today, when I look at images of the supertrawler I do not like what I see. That is an instinctive reaction. It is the kind of instinctive reaction that many people would get when they visit an abattoir or see some of the perfectly legal and perfectly humane activities that are carried out in the farming industry. There are parallels between this issue and the live cattle debacle engineered by this government. But we cannot stand in this place and react on the basis of instinct. We can use our instinct to look again at a situation, to analyse it, and to say to our scientists and departmental experts: 'What's going on here? What really is happening? Do you have any ability to make changes?' We can and we should do those things. I am sure that, up to a point, the minister has done those things. But what has been produced for the parliament to consider today is not that.

If the minister particularly wanted to target a piece of regulation or legislation aimed at the supertrawler Margiris he could have done that. He could, for example, have introduced some provisions to make the ship move on—in other words, not stay in the same catchment area for longer than a certain period of time. He did not do that. He could have, and it has been done, legislated for a particular vessel on a particular occasion. There are many reasons why that would be a bad public policy approach, but he could have done that. In an attempt to address community concerns about the Margiris this minister has gone to the extreme. He has given himself almost unlimited powers, which will impact on every family fishing boat around the country.

I do not represent any ocean. The electorate of Farrer comprises 30 per cent of the state of New South Wales and it is all a long way from the sea. But I do represent recreational fishers and I do represent communities that love angling, that have seen the invasion of the concept of inland marine parks, that have seen a horrible, complicated bureaucracy grew up around just wanting to go out on a Sunday afternoon and throw a line in the waters of Lake Hume, the Menindee Lakes or the Murray River. Those communities are being attacked by the bureaucracy from every side.

The reason I want so strongly to speak against this bill is to recognise not only the appalling principle that is being engineered by this government but the rights of people in my electorate to carry on fishing and angling, and to carry on doing their business. They want to be able to that in a way that does not leave them with a federal environment act overseeing their every single move, an act that has the ability to stop the activity, to limit it and to put in place something so unrealistic that the very Australian activities of recreational fishing can no longer take place.

I have talked about principle. One of the principles we are seeing in this is a government that is making policy on the run. In the process, it has given the minister unlimited powers, but what has really happened is that a social media campaign, very successfully engineered by GetUp! and the green movement, has pushed this government into action. Social media is an amazing opportunity for people to make their point. From relative obscurity they can suddenly be in the public eye. It is something we have to countenance and resist up to a point. It is policy-making on the run; it is quite interesting to see. Every family fishing operator and every recreational fisher will be impacted by this.

Let us look at the language of the minister's bill. Clause 390SD(2) says:

… fishing activity by reference to all or any of the following:

(a) a method of fishing;

(b) a type of vessel used for fishing;

(c) a method of processing, carrying or transhipping of fish that have been taken;

(d) an area of waters or of seabed.

The minister will be able to overturn any fishing activity on the basis of even the slightest social complaint. There does not have to be any evidence. An uncertainty can be created by a complaint from a political source, from a lobby group interest group or from a social media website. This absolute power can apply to economic or environmental complaints. There is no indication what the term 'uncertainty' means in this legislation. It provides scope for the minister to stop any fishing activity without any substantive case. That creates a cloud over our entire fishing industry.

This bill, by stealth, accident or sheer incompetence, will impose the most extraordinarily draconian powers on basic rights, which is why all parliamentarians in this place should oppose it. The minister is saying that he will decide who fishes, and where, when and how they do so. It does not matter what investment may have gone into a pipeline to provide the opportunity for people to work in the fishing industry, what investment there may have been to get a ship, a boat, a trawler out into the waters. I am not talking about the supertrawler; I am talking about any fishing vessel. Nobody can have certainty. You could have gone to all this expense. You could have worked-up the ship and the crew. You could have provided jobs to long-term unemployed, which I understand is what the supertrawler has done and which many fishing vessels do in areas where unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, is quite high. You could have done all those things and you could have a lot of skin in the game as a small business, which a lot of our fishing enterprises are, and see the minister decide that, because of a complaint, because of a whim, it is all going to be ended. There is no point in members of the government saying: 'That's not what this is about. That's not what this minister would do.' That is not the point. The point is that we in this place should not give ministers this undue power. We have the Australian Fisheries Management Authority. We have had the science, we have had the advice, we have appointed independent experts. We appoint independent experts in this place to death because we know that we are not the experts. Yes, we can make decisions based on what they tell us. We should not contract out the decision-making, which is something this government does very well. We should not contract out the decision-making to independent bodies, but we should rely on their advice.

Where this advice tells us, as it has in the case of the fisheries, that this is one quota that will not result in more fish being extracted from our seas and that this is in line with every international and national agreement and piece of policy that we have at this point in time, why would the minister race in here on a whim reacting in a moment of horror in the face of what is just an environmental campaign? It has been writ very large by social media, admittedly, but it is a campaign nevertheless, not based on fact, principle or any good public policy.

We have no idea what the parameters of this 'uncertainty'—and the term in the legislation is 'social uncertainty'—might be. As I asked before, will it apply to a lake in the middle of my electorate? Will it apply to every lake in Australia until the minister's assessment of that uncertainty rests? Does it affect the Murray or Darling rivers, which also flow through my electorate? We have already seen the greatest level of uncertainty since Federation occur up and down the lengths of these mighty rivers with the government's wrecking-ball approach—the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. This has already knocked irrigation communities for six, through the uncertainty created by the government's completely unrealistic water diversion targets.

As other speakers have noted, a similar knee-jerk reaction occurred with last year's live export ban to Indonesia. During the last parliamentary sitting I met with a group from Gulf Horizons. To hear their description of how an entire pastoral region of Northern Australia is on its knees because of that live cattle decision was truly horrifying—another knee-jerk reaction, another reaction of 'Oh, my God, what do we do about this? There's something that has appeared in the media; we have to act now,' without consideration of process, all the facts or just the appropriate rationale. Millions of dollars have been taken out of farming and freight livelihoods forever in one single swoop. Then of course the agriculture minister went, 'Oops!'—it was another of those moments—and he tried to backflip. This is exactly what we are seeing here with this decision.

Under this amendment before the House, potentially we will see every family fishing operator and every recreational fisher waking up in the morning and wondering what sort of social uncertainty the minister might be experiencing on the other side of the country. Rumours already abound through inland Australia about the possibility that Labor's marine park legislation for our coastline could somehow extend and infiltrate into inland streams and lakes.

If recreational fishing takes any more of a hit in my electorate in western New South Wales then that might be more than the small towns that rely on it for tourism and income can stand. It would be the last nail in the coffin for some of them. If you look at the inland rivers now with plenty of water in them and the country blooming, it is a fantastic place for families to take their children to camp, fish, sit in the sun and have a really good-value Australian holiday—not on the coast, not in Bali and not anywhere offshore but actually to support rural Australia when it needs it but also when it can offer so much.

The minister's intention to extend his powers means that he can do that at any time on any whim. We know that when this government gets a knock on the door from their partners the Greens they react—and they react in a way that is not in their own interests either and certainly not in the interests of the people of Australia.

In making a few calls to local fishing groups and businesses around my electorate this morning I found that no-one is really aware of the extent of these changes the minister is planning to foist on them. That is because there has not been any consultation. How surprising! This government is ramming through legislation with apparently unintended consequences. The fisher who pops his boat out on Lake Hume on a Sunday morning with his son can be penalised for pulling out a trout instead of a yellow belly or a cod simply because some fish libertarian felt socially concerned over the removal of non-native fish stocks! Of course they have not been consulted. What would their response have been? It would have been, 'Please do not go ahead with this draconian and stupid piece of legislation.' As one local fisher told me, you would want the minister to have to jump through a few more hoops before they could bring in anything like this. That is the point. There has not been consultation. There has simply been this awful, knee-jerk reaction designed purely to respond to a populist campaign. As we have seen so many times before, when the dust settles, when the truth—as it always does—gets out, people will realise, 'Oops, perhaps we shouldn't have done that. Look at these unintended consequences for our country, for our investment and for our fisheries.'

I will end where I began. Instinctively, I am like everyone else. I look at the supertrawler and think, 'I'm not sure about that.' But that is not what we are talking about here today. Ostensibly what we are talking about is an opportunity to give this government an enormous new regulatory power in the area of the environment. If people think that the green groups that have agitated so successfully for this will stop at this and will stop at a vessel of this size without wanting to go the line and look at vessels of different sizes in different fisheries carrying out different activities for different purposes they are crazy. This would only just be the beginning. We should resist it at all costs.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill 2012. To any objective observer, this is a really puzzling bill. We have a long established system for regulating fisheries in Australia which is recognised around the world for being rational, science based and allowing for a proper balance of commercial and economic considerations on the one hand and environmental and sustainability considerations on the other.

Under the operation of that system, a company based in Tasmania was awarded a quota to fish for certain species of small pelagic fish. The company decided that the way it would exercise its rights to fish up to the limit set by the quota was to bring to Australia a large fishing vessel called the Margiris, now renamed the Abel Tasman. What happened next was that activist groups like Greenpeace and GetUp!, with the enthusiastic support of the Greens political party, started an advocacy campaign designed to raise public concerns about the activities of this vessel, even though its activities will make no difference to the total amount of fish caught.

As recently as Monday of this week the Gillard government was defending the current system. The fisheries minister, Joe Ludwig, had this to say in the Senate:

This government, like those before it, takes the position that output controls, particularly individual transferable quotas, are the preferred approach to fisheries management.

He went on to share with the Senate the advice he had received from 'eminent fishery scientists' of their 'confidence that food-web impacts of the small pelagic fishery on predators and the small pelagic fishery species themselves, including through localised depletion, are unlikely'. In other words, he advised the Senate on Monday that his expert scientific advice was that it was unlikely that there would be adverse impacts on the food web from this fishery activity which had been previously authorised under the existing regulatory arrangements.

Yesterday, however, there was a complete change of position from the Gillard government, leading to the bill which is before the House today and which we are now debating. According to the minister's second reading speech, this bill would:

… incorporate a new chapter into the EPBC Act—

that is, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act—

that will allow the environment minister to prohibit a declared fishing activity while an independent expert panel undertakes an assessment of the potential environmental, social or economic impacts of the activity.

However, this can only happen if:

… the environment minister and the fisheries minister agree that there is uncertainty about the environmental, social or economic impacts …

The other thing that the minister tells us in his second reading speech is that this prohibition can last for 24 months. That is to say that the effect of making this declaration is that fishing activities as specified in the declaration, in that particular area and using the specified methods, are prohibited for up to 24 months. This is truly policymaking on the run, overturning a well-established and world respected system of evidence based policymaking in Australian fisheries management, and the coalition therefore opposes this bill.

In the time available to me I want to make three points. Firstly, we are seeing here from the Gillard government a panicked reaction. The minister's attempts to justify the measures in this bill are threadbare indeed. Secondly, the sweeping new power which this bill would grant the minister for the environment creates great uncertainty for both the entire commercial fishing sector and the recreational fishing community. It should be opposed on its merits. Thirdly, this dramatic backflip by the Gillard government—by no means their first and, I suspect, not their last—adds to the already high perceptions of sovereign risk for those doing business or seeking to do business in Australia.

Let me start firstly with the proposition that what we are seeing here is a panicked reaction to a political advocacy campaign. I have already cited the remarks of Fisheries Minister Ludwig in the Senate just on Monday of this week defending the current system. In addition, Environment Minister Burke just a few days ago issued what at that time was understood to be the definitive response to some of the public concerns expressed in this political advocacy campaign. His measures would have imposed new restrictions on the methods that this vessel could use as it fished. For example, as he told the ABC's Q&A program, if the vessel were to catch a dolphin—something it is not permitted to do—it would then be required to cease fishing and move 50 nautical miles away before it could start fishing again.

Just a few days later it turned out that that policy response was not his definitive policy response and he now wants new and even wider powers to deal with the issues posed by the proposed activities of the Abel Tasman. Why is it that he now wants these new powers? According to his second reading speech, it is firstly because of:

… the nature of this vessel and in particular its capacity to remain in the same area of ocean for extended periods of time …

It is also apparently because of the following:

Experience over the last couple of months has however shown that the act does not provide sufficient powers to suspend a fishing activity where there is uncertainty as to the potential environmental, social and economic impacts of the activity …

It really is very odd that Minister Burke would say this now when just three years ago, as the minister responsible for fisheries at the time, he oversaw the issuing by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority of something called the Small pelagic fishery harvest strategy. When you read the Small pelagic fishery harvest strategy it describes its purpose as follows:

The development of the Small Pelagic Fishery (SPF) Harvest Strategy (HS) reflects obligations under the Commonwealth's Fisheries Harvest Strategy Policy and Guidelines … the HS is to provide—

that is to say it is required to provide—

the Australian community with a high degree of confidence that commercial fish species are being managed for long-term biological sustainability and economic profitability.

This document issued under the auspices of then Fisheries Minister Burke went on to say:

small pelagic fish species—

are an important food source for many threatened, endangered and protected species (TEPs) and other species and it is therefore important that the SPF HS takes into account the ecosystem role of these species …

Finally, this document went on to say:

I need hardly add that 'large scale factory freezer vessel' is a good description of precisely the kind of vessel which is now the subject of controversy.

In other words, there has already been a thorough process carried out which balances up the commercial considerations on the one hand and environmental and sustainability concerns on the other, a process overseen for much of the period, as it happens, by Minister Burke. We are now expected by Minister Burke to believe that, when this process occurred, nobody thought about or considered the possibility that a vessel of the size of the Abel Tasman might be used, and nobody thought about or considered the possibility, which is now so alarming to him, that it could stay in one place longer than smaller vessels. Nobody gave this a second thought, even though such vessels are now and were at that time, just three years ago, in common use in many parts of the world.

If Minister Burke were genuinely concerned about this issue, there are a range of other measures that he could use to address it, including, for example, imposing additional conditions requiring the vessel to move on from a particular location after a particular period. But the reality is that he is clutching at straws, desperately trying to find a justification for this measure, which in substance is a response to a short-term political campaign. It is difficult to understand the rationale for the mechanism set out in the bill, which is that, under clause 390SH, there will be an expert panel established to look into the declared fishing activity. We know that the establishment of an expert panel is a preferred tactic of the Gillard government. We saw it with Julia Gillard's 'citizens' assembly', which was going to achieve a 'deep and lasting consensus' on climate change; we saw it in her appointment of Angus Houston and other panellists in an attempt to cover up her backflip on asylum seekers; and now we see the same preferred tactic being used here. On any analysis, it is an empty charade when you consider the very thorough and comprehensive process already undertaken to assess the relevant fisheries activity, including its environmental and sustainability impact.

The second point I would like to make in the brief time I have is about the extent of the uncertainty created for the entire commercial fishing sector, on the one hand, and the recreational fishing community, on the other, by the wide provisions set out in this bill. Under this bill, if it passes into law, the minister will be able to make a declaration that he and the fisheries minister agree that 'there is uncertainty about the environmental, social or economic impacts of the fishing activity'. That is in clause 390SD(3). 'Uncertainty' is a very low bar indeed. It means that the minister will be able to overturn any fishing activity on the basis of even the slightest social complaint. Everyone who has ever dropped a line over the side, and every commercial fishing operator anywhere in Australia, should be alarmed about the potential for their intended fishing activities to be banned at short notice based on 'social' considerations. The wording appears to have been specifically chosen to give the minister the power to act in response to political campaigns by particular activist groups. The mere existence of such campaigns will automatically qualify as generating uncertainty about the 'social impacts' of the fishing activity.

One point that strikes you on reading the bill is whether there is any limit on the minister's power to use this mechanism repeatedly. Nowhere in the bill is there a provision that the declaration can only be made in respect of a particular fishing activity if no such declaration has previously been made. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this mechanism is really a smokescreen for the real motivation of delaying the activity which has caused political offence. It is also noteworthy that nowhere in the bill is there any provision requiring the minister to have any regard to, or do anything in response to, the report of the expert panel once he receives it, other than to publish it on his website and table it in the parliament, under clause 390SL.

My third point is to join with my coalition colleagues in highlighting the way that this dramatic backflip by the Gillard government yet again adds to perceptions of sovereign risk. In industry after industry we have seen the same story play out: businesses invest to carry out lawful operations, and then the Rudd or Gillard government in a political panic changes the rules. We saw the abrupt cancellation of Home Insulation Program after many operators had invested heavily and built up inventory in reliance on the existing rules. We saw the sudden decision to cancel the live cattle export trade, also involving this inglorious Minister Ludwig. And now we see this abrupt eleventh-hour reversal of position on the conduct of fisheries activities by the holder of an entitlement to fish and to catch a certain amount of fish, an entitlement issued by the government under the law after a thorough analysis of the relevant commercial and environmental factors and after setting total catch limits based on scientific evidence. This decision creates sovereign risk issues for anybody who holds a licence to fish in Australian waters and it is likely to dramatically reduce the confidence of Australia's commercial fishing industry to continue to invest—if any quota or licence can be overturned at the whim of the minister. Today's decision makes a mockery of the entire Australian Fisheries Management Authority process on which the government relies for its scientific advice.

I conclude as I started, by noting that this bill is a panicked political response to a campaign initiated by certain groups of activists. It is policymaking on the run. It overturns a well-established, world-respected system of evidence based policymaking in Australian fisheries management. The coalition opposes the bill.

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Fremantle has long been a fishing community and it has long been a leader in environmental protection and sustainability. My community has been thrilled with the federal government's recent announcement that Australia will establish the world's largest network of marine sanctuaries in Commonwealth waters. That is why, from the moment I heard that a supertrawler was en route to Australia and was seeking to operate in those same Commonwealth waters, serious alarm bells began to ring about what this might mean for local fishers and for marine biodiversity.

When one considers the scale and indiscriminate nature of this kind of operation—with its potential to exact damaging localised depletion of fish species for which we have imperfect or non-existent data; with its potential to wreak havoc on the existing food chain and marine ecosystems; and its potential to kill large numbers of animals like seals, dolphins, sea lions and seabirds as the bycatch victims of its enormous drag nets—there can be no question but that the precautionary principle must apply.

And, when one looks into the history and practice methods of supertrawler operations elsewhere and considers the impacts they are likely to have on the distinctive features of Australia's marine environment, there could be no option but to address the legislative inadequacy that has until now prevented the ministers responsible from acting to protect Australia's oceans and fisheries. I am glad that, through the galvanising events of recent weeks, the government has found a way to give the environment minister that power.

For me, the urgency and clarity of taking action—of proposing a private member's bill, together with a number of my Labor colleagues, as part of that galvanising process—was further reinforced by a number of considerations. First, I represent an electorate, and I come from a state, that is within the proposed area of operation for this veritable Godzilla of the sea. The fishing community I represent was quick to make its concerns known about the nature and scale of a supertrawler operation. Commercial fishers in Fremantle, and in WA more widely, are only too conscious of the preciousness and fragility of our fisheries, and they have undergone a series of complex and difficult adjustments over at least the last 10 to 15 years in recognition of the changes required to ensure that our fisheries and our oceans are sustainable into the future. This process has certainly not been without a fierce and frank debate involving fishers, scientists, regulators and conservationists, and it has not been without some economic and social consequences for a number of long-time fishing families in Fremantle, and yet, through that process and the advocacy of marine scientists, there is no doubt that both the recreational and the commercial fishing communities have become acutely aware that our oceans deserve and require stewardship of the highest quality.

A supertrawler fails that standard with its onboard fish-processing and storage capacity of 6,200 tonnes, which means that the vessel can stay in a particular area of the sea for extended periods and trawl it dry. A supertrawler represents the very antithesis of the approach that sustainable Australian fishery management requires and that maritime conservation demands. It is the marine equivalent of strip mining or clear-felling, depleting the oceans of life with industrial scale and efficiency.

My Labor colleagues and I have received the message loud and clear from our communities. This has been one of those issues where a strong public consensus has formed instinctively and decisively around the common-sense view—which is also, I might add, the scientific view—of marine scientists like Professor Jessica Meeuwig; namely, that a supertrawler operation like the one presented by the MV Margiris is unsustainable and presents unacceptable risks to marine ecosystems and local fisheries.

I want to acknowledge the input of literally thousands of people, from experts to ordinary people from all walks of life, in Fremantle and around the country. I thank those who have sent me emails and letters, those who have phoned my office or visited my office to express their concerns and those who have attended rallies and written to newspapers. I recognise with gratitude, too, the support and advice I received from a number of people and organisations, including the team at Greenpeace; the Wilderness Society; Sea Shepherd; Environment Tasmania; the Save Our Marine Life coalition, especially David Mackenzie, Michelle Grady, Tim Nicol, Paul Gamblin and Chris Smyth; Perth barrister Greg Mcintyre SC; ANU professor Andrew Macintosh; and dozens of local fishing organisations that have written to me on this issue. I also want to thank my Labor caucus colleagues with whom I have worked very closely on this issue, particularly my Tasmanian colleagues the member for Franklin and senators Carol Brown and Lin Thorp. I also want to mention the member for Wills, who was going to second my private member's bill if we had gone ahead with it.

Finally, I want to acknowledge Professor Jessica Meeuwig, the Director of the Centre for Marine Futures at the Oceans Institute, University of Western Australia, and a Conservation Fellow of the Zoological Society of London. Professor Meeuwig provided invaluable and clear-sighted advice on this matter, as she has done in the past, and I want to quote from the letter that she provided to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities on 27 August. It says:

Increasing the total allowable catch to 18,000 tonnes represents an unsupported 10-fold increase over previous landings. This is a significant increase from one year to the next. The calculation of this new quota assumes that the estimates of biomass are reliable. It is notable that the estimates are generally based on old information (blue mackerel in the East 2004), inferred from other species (jack mackerel—East), or actually entirely absent (jack mackerel—West, Peruvian jack mackerel, redbait—West). It is thus likely that biomass estimates (and associated quotas) are much more uncertain than is currently reported.

Further:

This proposal for a super trawler is clearly an example where significant uncertainty exists in biological knowledge, both in terms of the species themselves and their unfished biomass. The entry of the Margiris is appropriately considered a new fishery from an ecological perspective given it represents effectively a new gear and the Western region is largely unfished and as such, should not be initiated. Moreover, precautionary spatial closures are not yet in place. As such, the Forage Fish Taskforce recommendations do not appear to support entry of a super trawler into Australian waters.

Professor Meeuwig ends her letter to the minister as follows:

In closing, I had the privilege of introducing the documentary "The End of the Line" for a showing at Parliament's theatre in 2011. At the time, I was asked "how is this relevant to Australia? We don't have this kind of highly industrialized supertrawling here." I answered that the film provided a salutary lesson in terms of the negative impacts that such fishing can have on ocean health and how important it is to protect Australia's oceans because they are still relatively healthy. At a time when Australia is leading the world in marine conservation by establishing a legacy network of reserves, it seems incredibly counterproductive and short sighted to introduce more unnecessary opportunities for the overexploitation of our oceans.

I think that makes the argument as well as it can be made, and I know that the minister himself, who, along with his staff and department, deserves enormous credit for the painstaking work that went into the creation of the historic marine protection in the south-west marine bioregional area, has been seriously exercised by the need to prevent the supertrawler from undermining that achievement.

I have no doubt that it was a great relief to hundreds of thousands of concerned Australians to hear yesterday that the government will create the additional powers under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to allow the minister for the environment to stop the supertrawler operating for up to two years while the environmental, social and economic impacts are assessed by an expert panel. This length of time is needed because of the present lack of scientific evidence and data regarding the target species and their unfished biomass as well as bycatch impact. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has also initiated a root-and-branch review of Australia's fisheries management system to put in place the appropriate processes to deal with issues such as new fishing methods, technologies and vessel types and sizes as they arise.

Among those who will be celebrating this outcome are the students of Fremantle primary school who last week, on a blustery morning at South Beach Cafe, presented the Prime Minister with a card that said, 'Thank you for introducing the world's largest network of marine sanctuaries.' That achievement, which will resonate far into our future, is one of the most significant achievements of this Labor government. It was partly by seeing the importance of our oceans through the prism of that reform process and its outcome that I and many others welcomed the precautionary approach that will prevent the operation of the wandering, plundering MV Margirisor the FV Abel Tasman, as it has now renamed itself, for what I understand is the fifth time—until environmental, social and economic assessments have been carried out.

There is often a kind of cynicism and doom and gloom when it comes to the political process and its capacity to address problems when they arise, so I would like to finish by recognising that we do have, by and large, a healthy and responsive system of decision making in Australia and that this has been one of those cases where representatives and the people they represent have worked together to find a solution.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak very strongly in opposition to the government's proposed amendment to the EPBC declared fishing areas. With all due respect to the member for Fremantle, who I do respect, I am afraid we are going to have to differ very strongly in this case.

I have followed this debate very closely and I am strongly opposed to both the process the government has undertaken in relation to bringing the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill 2012 before the House, and also the actual intent of this legislation and the uncertainty it creates. Quite frankly, this is an absolutely appalling mess. It is chaotic, it is confusing, it has created uncertainty and sovereign risk for the entire fishing industry, and it is illogical.

I was interviewed today by journalists as I walked into Parliament House, and I spoke about the appalling process we have witnessed over the past 48 to 72 hours. Let us cast our minds back to Monday, when the front pages of newspapers were full of headlines about Labor MPs muscling up to the Greens. It was all very hairy-chested stuff. They were going to take on the Greens. Also on Monday we had the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in the Senate, Minister Joe Ludwig, extolling the virtues of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority as an independent body responsible for the sustainable management of Australia's fisheries. In all his comments on Monday and leading up to Monday, he was standing by the science. In all of his public comments, that is what the minister was doing. Then we had this collapse yesterday—this absolute, abject failure of governance—as the government caved in, once again, to a little bit of pressure from the Greens and GetUp!

I am not sure why Labor members actually bother going to Labor caucus meetings anymore; they only need to log on to GetUp! to find out what their policy position is going to be; they only need to go to a Greens' party meeting to actually find out what they are going to be voting for next week. This root-and-branch review, which was also part of the minister's announcement yesterday, has just opened the door again for more Green madness. This is a classic example of a jellyfish cabinet: there is not a spine amongst them, and, just like a jellyfish, they will cave in the moment there is any pressure whatsoever. Just like a jellyfish, they will float along wherever the political current of the day may take them. And, just like a jellyfish, I am afraid they have not got the brains to chart their own direction. This is an appalling move by the minister for the environment. I knew the minister for the environment had leadership aspirations; I just didn't realise he wanted to lead the Greens!

Let us get to the substance of the issue before the House today. Let us look at the substance of the legislation and what it means to the Australian fishing industry and quite possibly the recreational sector as well. This bill, if it goes through the House today, will provide unfettered power to the minister to act on the basis of what is described as 'social uncertainty'. What is ostensibly an environmental act, the EPBC Act, will now have a clause allowing the minister to take action based on 'social uncertainty'. For the life of me, I am not too sure what that even means. I heard the shadow minister trying to describe it; he said social uncertainty was when Kevin Rudd walked into a room with Julia Gillard, and that is probably as good a definition as I have seen so far. It appears to me, though, that social uncertainty basically relates to being government by Facebook. It is government by GetUp! If you can whip up a bit of public concern on any issue, create some 'social uncertainty', the minister will have unfettered power to shut you down—and not based on any environmental considerations—based on 'social uncertainty'.

It made me think. It gave me pause for thought. Who in Australia right now is good at whipping up public concern with misinformed, emotional, half-baked campaigns? That would be the Australian Greens. The member for Petrie may laugh, but she knows it to be a fact: the Australian Greens are famous for whipping up public concern on half-baked emotional arguments. This amendment is an enormous folly by this government because it plays straight into the hands of their greatest enemy, the Australian Greens, who are the greatest threat to jobs in regional Australia. If this legislation is passed today, this will not be the end of it. The so-called supertrawler will be the sideshow to the big game as far as the Greens are concerned. This will not be the only project that is affected. This will flow on to the entire Australian commercial fishing fleet. If members opposite doubt me, they can just reflect for a moment on the Australian Greens' performance when it comes to the forestry industry. We have seen this all before. They are insatiable—they will never be satisfied. What is to stop the Greens from using this legislation to take on other sectors of the fishing industry which do not meet with their approval and their radical agenda? They can go out there now and start complaining about the size of wheat harvesters. Perhaps they will be complaining that mining excavators are too large.

The Greens exist as a party of protest. The Special Minister of State may snigger, but he knows it to be a fact as well. They are a party of protest. That is the only way they can exist. They cannot exist unless they have something to fight. Just like GetUp!, the entire structure of the Australian Greens is based around running campaigns, calling for donations to run those campaigns, and fighting for something—fighting for anything. They are not a party of responsible government. And the day that this Prime Minister signed a power-sharing agreement with the Greens was a dark day for regional Australia and it was a dark day for the Australian Labor Party, and there are many members opposite who know that. There are many members of the Australian Labor Party who regret that day, who regret that appalling scene where the Prime Minister gave up the prime ministerial courtyard to allow the Greens come in, all beaming smiles as they took charge. There are many members opposite who know that was a huge mistake and a fundamental flaw in the judgement of the current Prime Minister.

The potential impact of this amendment to the act is obvious to anyone who has had any association at all with commercial fishermen. It effectively throws science out the door. It throws the principles of sustainable fisheries management out the door and it virtually throws AFMA out the door as well. It is a vote of no confidence in AFMA by this government.

We have got ourselves into an appalling situation. This nation already has a tightly regulated fishing industry which is one of the most sustainable in the world. I know that to be true because I have heard the minister say it himself. I heard the environment minister, who was previously the minister for fisheries, say that himself. I have heard the current minister say that himself. So we already have a tightly regulated fishing industry—among the most sustainable in the world—but GetUp! does not like one particular allocation of quotas to one particular vessel and the Greens do not like it either; therefore we cave in. Minister, grow a spine.

The Lakes Entrance fishing fleet in my electorate is, in many ways, no different to this so-called supertrawler. Every fisherman in my electorate understands this. They should be worried about the impacts of this amendment to the act. Just as the so-called supertrawler does, they each have what is called a statutory fishing right attached to their boat. They have a quota, as part of the statutory fishing rights, for species in a small pelagic fishery. Then, to generate what is called the total allowable catch, they have a harvest strategy—and the stock being harvested has been assessed by the CSIRO. So we have leading Australian scientists, recognised as some of the best in the world, making assessments. When the data is considered too old—as has occurred at times in the past—they have adopted what is called the 'precautionary principle' and reduced the total allowable catch. That is exactly the same process which has been applied to this application. That is a process the responsible minister has supported and it is a process which applies to all commercial fishing vessels operating in Commonwealth waters around Australia. That is why all those fishermen in my electorate today are deeply alarmed by the direction this government is taking.

Both the current fisheries minister and the previous minister, who is now bringing this flawed amendment to this chamber, have extolled the virtues of that system—of the way our fisheries have been run for the past five years—ever since they have been ministers. Both of them have extolled the virtues of Australian fisheries and how they are being managed in a sustainable manner. They have described it as world's best practice. Both ministers have spoken in support of AFMA on many occasions. We have had a process which has provided a level of certainty, enabling fishermen right around Australia to invest in the industry with certainty. They have had confidence that decisions affecting the future of their industry would be based on science and that the government was committed to supporting the industry. But, as of yesterday, and as we debate this bill here today, all of that certainty has been thrown away by this government.

This amendment to the act is reflective of a government in total disarray and in panic. This is a government which falls apart under pressure. I fear that this is the live cattle export issue all over again. It would not be so bad if this were just about politics, but this is about people's lives. Already we know, from the proponent of this particular supertrawler, that 50 jobs will be lost as a direct result of this government's decision. I believe the uncertainty created in the rest of the industry will lead to further job losses.

The government has form. The live cattle issue had disastrous impacts on the cattle industry. Members opposite say they care about outcomes for Indigenous Australians and I believe they do. But did they consider, in supporting the government's reckless ban on live cattle exports, the impact that would have on Indigenous stockmen? Many lost their jobs.

If we do not have a government which can provide certainty and be responsible in the face of adversity, the Australian people have no reason whatsoever to have faith in any decision this government makes. If we do not have a sustainable fishing industry based on science, what do we base it on? Do we base it on the number of emails we receive? Do we base it on the number of tweets on Twitter? Do we base it on the number of people who have signed the electronic petitions posted by GetUp!?

A government with any spine whatsoever would go out there and start arguing its case. You could go out there and start arguing the case based on the quota concept. You could argue that the quota has been allocated according to science and that there will be no extra fish caught just because the vessel might be larger. That is a fact. I do not think anyone opposite would argue against that point. So you could make a case based on that argument. Hell, we have done that for the last 20 years or so. That is an approach the government might like to take.

The government might want to mention that we have an independent authority in place called AFMA and that AFMA is using the best available science Australia can provide. It might want to argue the case on that basis. The government might want to argue the case on the basis that AFMA has found this application acceptable on environmental grounds. Instead the government just caves in—too gutless to make a decision and stick with it. The government could have pointed out that Australia has a long and proud history of sustainable fishery management. It might have pointed out that the Australian fishing industry pays millions of dollars in levies every year to fund these independent assessments and scientific evaluations. It could have done that—or it could just cave in to GetUp! and the Greens. Clearly the environment minister has chosen the latter course of action.

It is especially disappointing to me because I represent, based at the port of Lakes Entrance, the largest fishing fleet in Australia. Today I have had the chance to speak to fishing industry representatives and they are worried about this government. They are worried the government has closed the door on science and opened the door to the environmental radicals. They know that the quota was sustainable and very precautionary. They know that many scientists, both within AFMA and independent, have made public comments supporting the quota. They make the point, quite rightly, that fisheries management must be based on science and not on politics. They also make the point—and this is the kind of point that fishermen would make—that fish do not actually care if they are killed by a large boat or a small boat. The size of the quota does not change according to the size of the boat. It is the quota allocation which matters; it is the science which matters.

In conclusion, I will let AFMA themselves provide the final words. As you would expect, AFMA have put out some media releases during the course of this debate. One from 31 May said:

Quotas are set at sustainable levels using the best available science that takes broader ecosystem impacts into consideration.

Because total catch levels are strictly limited by total allowable catches not quota, the size of the boat does not matter from a sustainability perspective.

  …   …   …

As always AFMA will apply strict management, monitoring and compliance powers to ensure any boat operating in the fishery is doing so sustainably.

On Monday, they put out a further statement which said:

As an independent government regulator, AFMA takes advice from Australia's and the world's best scientists to set sustainable catch limits. Total catch limits are less than 10 per cent of the fish stock, which is far more stringent than internationally accepted standards.

  …   …   …

This type of fishing, midwater trawling, is one of the most selective which means the bycatch will be very low. AFMA works closely with fishers to minimise bycatch and they will be required to follow several rules to ensure wildlife isn't impacted.

The science shows that localised depletion is unlikely in this fishery but AFMA will be keeping a close eye on this issue given the concerns raised.

It says 'AFMA will be keeping a close eye on this issue' because that is what AFMA does. It is a tightly regulated industry. AFMA will often have observers on our boats. In this case, I understand, there is going to be some video monitoring of the activities.

We had a system in place. People understood it. It provided certainty, it provided confidence, and the fishing industry could invest in the future knowing that the government would stand by it—until yesterday and until this bill came before the House this morning.

In closing, I simply say: the coalition support sustainable fisheries management and sustainable fisheries practices. All fishermen should be concerned that the powers in this bill could be used against any of them and, indeed, that they could easily be extended to further reduce access to any natural resource in the future. This legislation is just another sad example of this government caving in to the Greens. It is just another tool for the Greens and other environmental groups who campaign against our fishing industry and another example of why Australians want an election. They simply do not trust this government to get anything right.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week, I participated in a debate at the University of Melbourne where the Institute of Public Affairs spokesman attacked the Labor government as being elitist, out of touch with ordinary people, out of touch with their supporters. But today I heard Liberal Senator Abetz on the radio, attacking the bill before the House as 'populist' and a 'knee-jerk reaction' to public opinion. Well, make up your mind, guys. You cannot have it both ways. Either Labor are out of touch with what people want or we are doing what people want. In this case, it is blindingly obvious that we are indeed doing what the public wants—and what, Senator Abetz, is wrong with that?

What is wrong with doing what fishermen want us to do? What is wrong, Senator Abetz, with us listening to Colin Stephenson of Spreyton, in your home state of Tasmania, who says that stocks of Australian salmon in Bass Strait were overfished by trawlers in the 1960s and took decades to recover? What is wrong, Senator Abetz, with us listening to Burnie fishing store owner Rodney Howard, also in your home state, who said that he and other commercial operators feared for their livelihoods if the supertrawler was permitted to operate, saying, 'There will be a huge decline in game fishing because if bait isn't there, the big fish won't be either'? What is wrong, Senator Abetz, with the government listening to the 350 recreational fishermen who towed 100 boats from Devonport to Burnie in July, or the 200 cars which drove through Hobart or the 150 cars with boats attached which travelled by convoy through Launceston on the same day? Senator Abetz might not be interested in listening to the views of his Tasmanian constituents, but we are. And what is wrong with listening to the recreational anglers of Warrnambool in western Victoria, or the Warrnambool city councillors, who said there was potential for the supertrawler to take most of the food supply for fish targeted by recreational anglers in western Victoria?

In the same vein, I was intrigued to hear some of the media questioning of the government ministers yesterday along the lines of, 'Aren't you caving in to public pressure?' Are the questioners suggesting that there is something noble and honourable about thumbing your nose at public opinion? They imply and suggest that we should overlook or ignore public opinion, yet they are the first to accuse us of being out of touch and to foster cynicism about the political process and its failure to deliver what people want from it. That is fundamentally undemocratic and elitist. Frankly, governments should make a habit of caving in to public opinion. They would get elected and re-elected more often if they did.

To listen to those opposite spitting the dummy over this bill, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill 2012, is very revealing. They cannot bear the idea of a win for people power. For them, it is a revolutionary threat to business's cosy, predictable domination of political discourse. For them it is unbearable, quite intolerable.

I want to quote at some length Tim Winton's speech to MPs here in Canberra back on 9 May, because, try as I might, I cannot improve on his words:

Think of your happiest moments, your most vivid memories. A holiday. Summer. It's always summer, isn't it?

…   …   …

In mine I'm always standing on a beach, beside an estuary, on a jetty. Holding a fishing rod. Or a net, a mask and snorkel. Hunting and gathering is in my blood. As a boy I loved the freedom, the direct engagement with the physical world, the feeling of competence. Now, I didn't know it at the time but I'd inherited two great treasures: a cultural tradition and the living ocean that sustains it.

…   …   …

Australians are islanders. Coastal people. Almost all of us live on the edge of the world's biggest island. On the veranda of the continent. … This is what we tap into when we go on holiday now. … That yearning is deeply embedded. We still want to engage with our physical surroundings. And the thing is we can. In the developed world that's rare.

…   …   …

During my own lifetime the world's oceans have suffered a terrible decline. I've read about it. And I've seen it up close and ugly. When I lived in Greece I saw the results of oil spills, dynamite fishing, lax regulation. I've surfed in raw sewage in Indonesia and putrid medical waste in Brazil. And I've wondered: am I swimming in the future? Will my grandkids inherit a sea of … plastic? The global trends aren't great. Collapsing fisheries, dying corals, gyres of plastic the size of entire countries, catastrophic oil spills that ruin the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of fishing families and poison the food chain for decades.

He went on to say:

We all know we're pushing the ocean too hard. And the pressure to relegate marine protection—to defer it—that pressure is intense. And the balance is not in the ocean's favour. Taking a loss has become business as usual. …

We have to stop spending beyond our means. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Otherwise we'll be the generation—the richest, most mobile and well-educated generation in Australia's history—that passes on a dud inheritance, and leaves the estate in arrears. Bequeathing a loss to a family, a community, a nation, that's a despicable thing to do. 'Kids, all this … plastic is yours. Don't spend it all at once.'

It is being claimed that this bill represents a repudiation of the science and a repudiation of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, the experts. I want to draw the attention of the House to a letter from Professor Jessica Meeuwig, Conservation Fellow of the Zoological Society of London and Director of the Centre for Marine Futures, Oceans Institute, University of Western Australia, in which she makes the following points:

Increasing the total allowable catch to 18,000 tonnes represents an unsupported 10-fold increase over previous landings. This is a significant increase from one year to the next. The calculation of this new quota assumes that the estimates of biomass are reliable. It is notable that the estimates are generally based on old information (blue mackerel in the East 2004), inferred from other species (jack mackerel — East) or actually entirely absent (jack mackerel —W est, Peruvian jack mackerel, redbait— West). It is … l ikely that biomass estimates … are much more uncertain than is currently reported ... such assessments do not allow us to infer that the populations will remain sustainably fished with a sudden 10-fold increase in landings as would be allowed under the new quotas.

To address concerns around localized depletion and hyperdepletion that may occur when super trawlers are active, we need to understand population structure (how do young fish recruit across the region?) and adult movements (will adults replenish depleted areas?). Yet again, our information is uncertain. Of the four species considered for exploitation, the population structure of blue mackerel is uncertain, whilst jack mackerel and redbait are believed to have eastern and western subpopulations . In addition no dedicated studies have been conducted on redbait, and no stock structure information is available for Peruvian jack mackerel, a species that is often assumed to behave like its cousin, the jack mackerel, despite having very different life history characteristics.

N othing is known about adult movements in any of these species except that larger jack mackerel are found in deeper waters. In the event of localized depletions by the super trawler, we therefore have no evidence that these regions will be replenished by eith er mobile adults or recruits—

M any forage fish have been or are being overexploited; their rapid growth rates and high reproductive output are not sufficient to protect them against the sustained rates of harvest of super trawlers ... the species available to the super trawler (blue mackerel, jack mackerel, Peruvian jack mackerel and redbait) are larger, live longer, and feed higher up the food chain than do species typically classed as forage fish ... the species potentially allocated to the super trawler show great similarity with cool water, reef-associated species already recognized as vulnerable to overexploitation ... in Western Australia.

Bycatch is a concern. In a study fur seals, interacted—

which is a polite word for ' killed ' —

with over 50% of all mid-water trawl shots ... most fishing activity occurred on the shelf ... within the animals diving range... It is unclear... how fur seals would respond to a much larger net in terms of their ability to maintain orientation and exit the net, particularly given its substantially larger size.

We have a set of species that we know little about that are relatively vulnerable to overfishing based on their life history... We do know from global experience that super trawlers are incredibly efficient and can cause local depletions, from which these species may not recover quickly. We also know that super trawlers have been problematic globally in terms of their sustainability. Opening Australian waters to a super trawler at a time when our knowledge base for this species is uncertain is risky and inconsistent with the precautionary principle.

This proposal for a super trawler is clearly an example where significant uncertainty exists in biological knowledge, both in terms of the species themselves and their unfished biomass.

She says she had the privilege of introducing the documentary The End of the Line for a showing at Parliament's theatre in 2011. At the time, she was asked : 'H ow is this relevant to Australia? We don't have this kind of highly industrialized super trawling here. ' She concludes by saying:

At a time when Australia is leading the world in marine conservation by establishing a legacy network of reserves, it seems incredibly counterproductive and short sighted to introduce more unnecessary opportunities for the overexploitation of our oceans.

There have been claims made that banning the super trawler will lead to job losses. However , I have been advised by the Australian Maritim e Officers Union, Jan Thompson— no relation — that the super trawler is crewed by about 50 Croatian nationals. Sea Fish has shown no interest in a collective agreement with the union, save fo r last week saying it wanted a m aster and chief engineer for approximately one month. Sea Fish has said the workers on the vessel are tec hnically sub contractors who do not work for wages but for a percentage of the catch. This raises questions about the applicable 'market salary rate' in the event that such workers were to apply for 457 visas, not that there i s any sign that they have. If t he Liberal Party genuinely want to help these Croatian workers, they should start advocating that , while the vessel works in international waters , the workers should be paid the minimum rates as per the International Transport Workers' Federation a greement.

I want to pay tribute to some of my colleagues who have spoken previously in this debate. I was first contacted about this issue by the m ember for Corangamite, Darren Cheeseman, who explained to me the super trawler proposal and the level of opposition to it coming from both environmental groups and fishermen. I was subsequently contacted by environmental groups about the issue, and wrote to Minister Ludwig about it in July. At the invitation of Julianne Bell of Protectors of Public Lands, I attended a protest rally at St Kilda Beach on what was described as Stop the Super Trawler National Day of Action , on 11 August.

I also want to pay tribute to the m ember for Fremantle, Melissa Parke, who prepared a private member ' s bill to stop the super trawler, which has been a wonderful catalyst for government action. In their five years here both Darren and Melissa have proved to be courageous and articulate advocates for the environment and animal welfare— quite outstanding. I should also acknowledge the other g overnment speakers — the m ember for Hindmarsh, Steve Georganas, the m ember for Makin, Tony Zappia, and the m ember for Shortland, Jill Hall. I want their constituents and people right around Australia with a concern for the environment or animal welfare to know that they have committed and courageous representatives who stand up on these issues, both when it is fashionable and when it is not.

6   When you stand up and advocate the cause of ot her living things like seals, dolphins or sea birds, these other living things are blissfully ignorant that you a re doing it, so the political reward for your actions is often unclear and the political cost is often very clear. But , in acknowledging the work both of the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities and of the m ember for Fremantle, the m ember for Corangamite, the m ember for Hindmarsh, the m ember for Makin and the m ember for Shortland, these colleagues who have helped bring about this b ill, I want to return to some words from Tim Winton:

When your grandkids ask you what you did as a member of parliament some of them, I'll admit, will be entranced by your stories of tax reform. Stands to reason. They'll love the story about that parliamentary committee. But think of the day when you help your granddaughter reel in her first flathead, the day you take your nephew to the aquarium, the morning you take your grandkids snorkelling in a marine sanctuary and their eyes are out on sticks. There's always that quiet moment you get on the way home. After they've seen that turtle, those dolphins, the rockpool full of life. That'll be when you let it slip. Offhand. You know, real casual, about what you did when you were in parliament. You helped save Australia's oceans.

With marine parks and with this b ill, these members have helped save Australia's o ceans, and whatever else they do in their p arliamentary careers, their children and grand children will be very much indebted to them and Australia will be a better place for their contribution to it.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.