Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

The Fisheries Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fishing Offences) Bill 2006 is before the Senate and is part and parcel of a comprehensive suite of activities undertaken by this government to fight the scourge of illegal fishing. The contribution of honourable senators, for which I thank them, has highlighted the difficulty that Australia currently faces. Unfortunately, it seems that some senators opposite revel in the numbers and the difficulties that we as a nation face in that regard, and on occasions they misrepresent that which actually occurs. Just for the record: yes, there were 13,000 sightings last year, but it is accepted by most sensible commentators that the vast majority of those were double, treble and sometimes quadruple sightings.

Even if there were only 1,000 incursions, that would be 1,000 too many. There has been talk about the ‘catch and release’ suggestion, the legislative forfeiture that Senator Webber just referred to. She was at estimates, so she would have heard that the reason for that is largely operational. When you come across a couple of illegal fishing vessels and you only have one vessel to apprehend with, you have a choice. Do you apprehend one vessel and let the other one go, or do you undertake a legislative forfeiture on one and apprehend the other? I think most people would accept that doing the legislative forfeiture on one vessel and catching another is a better result than only catching one vessel. So far this calendar year, we have already apprehended 185 foreign fishing vessels and we have undertaken legislative forfeitures in numbers of, I think, the high 40s. That shows the resolve with which the government is approaching this issue—and that is before the new moneys become available from the budget announcements.

With regard to the MOU box, an area off Western Australia that has specific significance for traditional fishers from Indonesia, a memorandum of understanding exists between Australia and Indonesia. It is not legally binding, but I think we in this place would all agree that it is morally and politically binding. That memorandum of understanding specifically states that only traditional fishers are allowed in that area. ‘Traditional fishers’ means those without a motorised vessel. Therefore, motorised vessels in that area are apprehended and dealt with as though they were in any other part of the Australian fishing zone. This has been raised from time to time by fishers. I am delighted that the Western Australian Fishing Industry Council, after its meeting with Mr Downer, understood and accepted to a large extent that the abolition of the MOU box would, in practical terms, make no difference and the suggestion that the MOU box is being used as an avenue or a safe haven to make incursions into Australian water is incorrect.

Senator O’Brien once again raised the old hoary suggestion of the coastguard. I think the Labor Party are now on about version six of their coastguard. Each time they are challenged about the detail, they run away and decide on a different type of red to paint on the side of the vessels. Other than that, they do not really have much else to offer the Australian people. So the Labor Party decided on a task force to have a look around the country and make some suggestions. Mr Beazley, in his new aggressive, angry Beazley persona, had to indicate to the Australian people that the Labor Party’s policy on illegal fishing would be to sink them at sea. How hairy chested can you get? He said, ‘We would sink their boats at sea.’ When asked about it, he said, ‘Yes, we would take the people off.’ That is a good start. But would you take the fuel, the engines, the fishing nets and the fishing lines off the boats before sinking them? Had I been a journalist, with respect to that great profession, those are the sorts of questions I would have asked Mr Beazley. You would have seen him like a fish on deck, flip-flopping and floundering around, because he would not have known the answers.

If the nets go down with the boats, they will turn into ghost nets and turn our northern waters into a veritable junkyard. Sometimes we sink boats at sea—for safety and other reasons. But, if a boat is in a sufficient state, we try to destroy it on land. The reason for that is that, if you destroy at sea, bits and pieces can still float ashore and be a quarantine risk. We talk to the fishing industry, and they do not really appreciate getting their lines and nets caught up in bits and pieces of sunken Indonesian vessels. Even in the area of fisheries, Mr Beazley finds it difficult to come up with a sensible, comprehensive policy. No wonder he is struggling in other areas, such as workplace relations—but we will not go there this evening.

The package that Senator O’Brien sought to belittle has been welcomed overwhelmingly by the fishing industry, by the Northern Territory News, by the West Australian—what is it called? That is right, the West Australian!