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

I take this opportunity to again speak about the ongoing travesty that is occurring in Australia's fisheries and marine environment with the introduction of the foreign supertrawler Geelong Star.

It was only three weeks ago that I spoke about the seven protected albatrosses that were killed in its nets. This vessel has now killed more than nine dolphins, 12 seals and 10 albatrosses, and it has now caught a highly protected whale shark in its gigantic and destructive nets. Whale sharks are gentle giants. As the largest fish in the sea they can reach 12 metres in length and 20 tonnes in weight, and they are protected by law. These protected species, along with other game fish like marlin and the small pelagic fish they rely on for food, form the basis of valuable tourism industries that support thousands of jobs in regional communities up and down the Australian seaboard. Yet they are being destroyed by the controversial foreign factory trawler Geelong Star, which employs fewer staff than the average McDonald's restaurant and sends the vast majority of its profits offshore. To date the Australian Fisheries Management Authority has withheld information from the public regarding the lifting of this highly protected whale shark onto the back deck of the supertrawler. It begs the question: do the government and ACMA believe that highly protected whale sharks are another unavoidable and acceptable bycatch of our fisheries?

The negative impacts of this supertrawler on Australia's unique marine life, fisheries and coastal communities far outweigh any perceived benefits, and I call on the government to listen to the Australian public and intervene to protect these values by permanently banning all supertrawlers from our small pelagic fishery.