Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to inform the House of the lengths to which a WA Labor minister will go so as not to be seen announcing a divisive fishing ban. On Melbourne Cup day, while the people of Esperance were watching the races, WA environment minister Reece Whitby touched down in a chartered aircraft. He'd blown into the seaside town to reveal the configuration of his so-called 'South Coast Marine Park'. Previously, thousands of Esperance people had taken to the streets to protest the widespread fishing bans that the park will entail.

Rather than walk through the airport terminal like everybody else, Mr Whitby was whisked from the tarmac by a car to beautiful Twilight Beach, where he'd arranged a press conference. But according to the Esperance Weekender, he suddenly pulled the pin on Twilight Beach after receiving a tip-off that opponents of his fishing ban were there. In reality, a handful of supporters had gathered.

I can confirm that those who Mr Whitby left in the twilight zone are indeed small in number. Of 6,000 respondents to my recent survey on the marine park, more than 90 per cent oppose it. After his unscheduled U-turn, Mr Whitby eventually unveiled his unpopular measure—not at one of the jewels in WA's dazzling crown of beaches, as he'd planned, but back in town behind a barren garden bed outside a government office block.

We now know Mr Whitby wants to lock up 20 per cent of the fishing waters along a 1,000-kilometre stretch of ocean, from the border town of Eucla, west to Bremer Bay. If his red tide of regulation is not resisted, the fishing communities of Albany, Peaceful Bay, Nornalup, Walpole, Windy Harbour and Augusta could be next. That's why I'm heartened to hear that my WA Liberal colleague Neil Thomson MLC has moved to disallow the marine park.

Mr Thomson's motion is likely to be debated in state parliament this Thursday. Although Labor will probably use its numbers to ram the fishing ban through, Mr Thomson's motion will put the strong objections of the south-coast locals on record. Mr Thomson plans to commission an urgent review on all marine parks imposed by Whitby and his WA Labor comrades. The draconian south-coast fishing ban follows WA Labor's decision to shut down the famous Horizontal Falls in the Kimberley. These blunt-edge bans are bludgeoning WA tourism and fishing businesses.

By contrast, Mr Thomson's review will aim to maintain access for commercial and recreational fishers to their coastal waters. The Liberals know that fishing is fundamental to the Western Australian way of life. Unlike Mr Whitby, we are not ashamed to show our faces in Esperance or anywhere else along the south coast. His fishing ban is not based on science. It will imperil livelihoods and lifestyles. This is the fishing ban that the south coast rejects.