Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I must say I am delighted to see such interest in the Fisheries Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fishing Offences) Bill 2006 and in fisheries management generally. I also have to say that, broadly speaking, I agree with what Senator Siewert and Senator Bartlett said in their comments on this bill. A lot of the things that they were both urging the government to do are things that the government has in place or has in mind, things that will happen in the fullness of time. I think the contributions by the last two speakers have been useful in that regard, and they did in fact recognise some of the good work that the government has been doing in recent years.

I am rather proud of my own involvement in this. About five years ago, when I first came to the fisheries portfolio, the rape of the patagonian toothfish in the Southern Ocean was in its prime and there was a lot of illegal activity in the north. Nothing had been done in the Labor years; I recall that no-one cared about illegal fishing anywhere then. In fact, illegal fishermen and boat people used to land on the shores of Darwin Harbour and catch a taxi into town. That is what the protection was like back in Labor’s time. Of course, things have changed considerably in the last five years. The patagonian toothfish, which was under severe pressure, has now, at least in Australian waters, been given some protection. I have to acknowledge an environment group in Tasmania, Isofish and its organiser, Alistair Graham, with whom I worked very closely when I was parliamentary secretary for the environment; we actually put in place some programs then to track the criminals around the world.

Over the years, the government has put a lot of money into the fight against the patagonian toothfish pirates in our territorial seas, particularly around Heard and McDonald Islands. I have to say with some pride—touch wood—that we have cleaned the pirates out of Australian waters insofar as the rape of the patagonian toothfish species is concerned. It is still a problem on the high seas. Several years ago, Australia took a leading role in forming an international task force to try and address illegal fishing on the high seas. Patagonian toothfish were our real interest, but other nations came together to join Australia and the United Kingdom in the High Seas Task Force that took forward a lot of measures to address illegal fishing on the high seas.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, the high seas have always been seen as the domain of the world at large. Nobody owned the high seas, so you could ply the high seas without particular rules and regulations. I guess that was good one, two or three centuries ago but, nowadays, when the marine environment is so fragile and precious, we have to look at some regimentation of the high seas. The High Seas Task Force, of which Australia was an initial member and a leading force in, pushed the envelope regarding what could be done on the high seas.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was to be reviewed this year. I must say that I have lost track of what exactly happened to it. I hope to be going to the UN in a couple of weeks time to see what happened with that. One of the things that I thought the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea—which I will refer to as UNCLOS hereafter—should look at were regulations and rules on the high seas insofar as the environment and fisheries management are concerned. People who understand the UN system tell me that changing UNCLOS will take something like 20 to 50 years, and that is why the High Seas Task Force was trying to find new, different and immediate ways of addressing those problems.

Both Senator Siewert and Senator Bartlett again mentioned concerns about incarcerations. This is a good measure. This is a step in the right direction. It was initiated just before Christmas, and instructions were given to the departmental people to address this by bringing in legislation to correct the problem. Curiously enough, the idea came to us from the Indonesians, who explained to us that this is what they did with their illegal fishing coming from the Philippines in the north. I have to say with some embarrassment that the penny dropped. It had never been suggested by us prior to that, but it became very obvious that we should introduce this measure, and I am pleased to see the bill before the parliament today. It will be a step in the right direction. It will not make a great deal of difference to incarceration. Already, we incarcerate for fishing penalties through a backdoor method. Fishermen are fined and they have little prospect of paying the fine, so they are jailed by the state courts for non-payment of the fine—for contempt of court—rather than for the fishing offence.

Regarding the problems that Senator Siewert and Senator Bartlett mentioned about where to house the incarcerated people and how to deal with them, over the last few years both the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Customs people have got that down to a very fine art. It works very well and very humanely, and there are processes in place which deal with the real culprits—the captains and the senior fishing masters. The junior crew are usually sent straight back. This bill will not make a great deal of difference there, but it does give us the laws to arrest at first instance in the three to 12 nautical mile area. Quite rightly, people say as I do that illegal fishers should not be getting into the 12 nautical mile area, because, if they are into the 12 nautical mile area, they are almost on the coast. We really have to protect our borders at the border of the exclusive economic zone, at the 200 nautical mile mark.

In the last four budgets—it might even be five—additional money each year has gone into the fight against illegal fishing. I am very proud. Senator Ellison and Senator Abetz have continued that work and money continues to flow to help in the fight against illegal fishing. Senator O’Brien continues to make political points without being terribly helpful with the problem. He keeps talking about this ridiculous idea of a coastguard. Obviously, he does not really understand it, although we have tried to explain it time and time again. The arrangement we have now maximises the resources that Australia puts into the fight. The Navy, the Army, the Air Force, Customs, Coastwatch and the states all combine in the fight against illegal fishing. You get the maximum bang for your buck with the maximum use of resources. Australia, quite obviously, does not have the resources of the United States or the United Kingdom, but we do very well.

Senator O’Brien continues to make the political point of there being 12,000 or 15,000 sightings. Sure, there are a lot of sightings, but do you know why? It is because there is a lot of activity out there looking for illegal fishing boats these days. Years ago, you did not have many sightings but you then had few people out there looking for them. The increase in surveillance that we have had in recent years has meant that there has been an increase in sightings. I continue to say, regarding the raw figure that Senator O’Brien quotes with some relish—you would think he is almost delighted that, because these people are coming in, he can make a political point—that many of the sightings are sightings of the same vessel two, three, four and even five times over. The real number is not quite that. But let us not argue about the figures; there are still a lot of illegal fishing vessels coming from Indonesia—far too many.

Bear in mind also that this has been happening for about 10,000 years. The Indonesians have always fished off the north-west coast of Western Australia and in the Gulf of Carpentaria, but it has become a real problem in the recent past to the extent that it is now affecting Australia’s very careful management of the fisheries in those areas. But we have to address the problem. The only way I can see that you will ever address the Indonesian fishing problem is not just by continuing to put money into our gunboats, not only putting money into increased surveillance and enforcement, not only empowering Aboriginal communities—which I am delighted to say we have worked on very closely in the last couple of years; that program is coming into place and it can be increased—but we also have to get the Indonesians on side.

Perhaps this is not the right time of the cycle to be saying this, but I have always thought that we need to be very close to the Indonesians. I know some in this chamber and in this parliament like to criticise the Indonesians, indirectly—if not directly. I think that is foolish. Indonesia is our biggest neighbour: some 200 million-plus people. I often make the point that I live closer to the Indonesian capital than I live to the Australian capital.