Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

I am really staggered, Senator Brown, that you come in here continually making statements about what can and cannot happen in a marine protected area. You obviously do not understand it. It is very concerning. Obviously you do not support the fishing industry either; otherwise you would have taken a real interest in it.

Finally, in relation to the capacity of companies to hang on to areas that they have, a company cannot just sit on an area without doing what is required of it under the conditions that the permit was granted for—including looking after the environment. It cannot just sit there and not do the exploration that was agreed to as part of the application. So there were a number of things that I felt needed to be corrected in the final part of this debate that were continually repeated by the Greens and that simply are not true.

Question put:

That these bills be now read a third time.