Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I frequently receive representations from my constituents in Fremantle regarding their concern for the crisis in the marine environment. Factors such as population growth, increasing consumption, climate change and unsustainable fishing practices are having a devastating effect on marine biodiversity. The UN Environment Program has predicted that there could be no fish stocks in the world's oceans by 2048 if fishing practices remain the same.

I was proud to be part of the Labor government that created the world's largest network of marine reserves in Australia's Commonwealth waters. Marine reserves are internationally recognised as an effective tool for the management and conservation of marine environments. During the more than five years of national consultations, more than 500,000 people around Australia said yes to marine parks. There was probably no issue that aroused more passion among adults and children alike in my electorate of Fremantle than this. Unfortunately, the Abbott government appears intent on destroying this crucial network of marine protected areas. Last week I had a meeting with the Commonwealth Marine Reserves Review regional panel in Fremantle to insist that the health of Australia's marine environment remain a priority and to reflect the many concerns I have heard from my electorate.

Yesterday, I joined parliamentary colleagues Kelvin Thompson, Lisa Singh, Carol Brown, Andrew Wilkie and Peter Whish-Wilson to meet with the Stop the Trawler Alliance and receive a petition signed by 75,000 Australians who are concerned about the government's intention to welcome a large foreign factory freezer trawler, the FV Dirk Dirk, which has been rather cynically renamed the Geelong Star, into Australian waters. Senator Colbeck says his government will introduce regulations to ban factory freezer vessels more than 130 metres in length. However, Rebecca Hubbard from the Stop The Trawler Alliance has observed that such a ban would do little to protect Australian fisheries, since many factory freezer trawlers are under 130 metres in length. She says it is the way in which a vessel can hunt and harvest fish that is just as important, if not more important, than its length.

We know, from the experience of other parts of the world, including west Africa and the South Pacific, how large freezer factory trawlers cause localised depletion of fish species, as well as having significant by-catch impact on seals, dolphins and seabirds and causing the removal of large numbers of important species from the marine food chain. These industrial harvesters are the Godzillas of the sea coming to plunder 'our family silver—silver that moves, breathes and swims.' This beautiful description of marine life as 'our family silver' is by acclaimed writer Tim Winton, who lives in my electorate of Fremantle and who is deeply concerned about protection of the marine environment.

The former Labor government banned the operation of the supertrawler FV Margiris for two years while an assessment was done of its impact. The coalition opposed this ban and they are now systematically working to undo the protections put in place by Labor. I reflect on these short-sighted endeavours with a Cree Native American proverb: 'Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realise we cannot eat money.'