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

This extreme Greens motion we are debating today is to disallow regulations allowing the sustainable harvesting of southern bluefin tuna. The consequence of this Greens motion would be to throw thousands of people out of work and destroy the city of Port Lincoln, as my colleague Senator Bernardi knows so well. I note Senator Bernardi’s presence in the chamber. He is a very strong champion of the Eyre Peninsula, Port Lincoln and the southern bluefin tuna industry. The Greens motion demonstrates as much as anything why the Australian Greens should never be trusted in any capacity with the Australian economy or, for that matter, with the Australian environment or with issues of sustainability.

The regulation we are debating today is the result achieved by Australia at the most recent Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna, or CCSBT, and that was then translated into the Australian Fisheries Management Authority’s national catch allocation determination for southern bluefin tuna, which the Greens now seek to disallow. That determination is a landmark win for not only the Australian southern bluefin tuna industry but also southern bluefin tuna and international fisheries regimes. It is the culmination of many years hard work by the Australian government in documenting and exposing overcatch by the Japanese longline fleet and in working constructively through the CCSBT with other like-minded and responsible fishing nations to ensure the global sustainability of SBT stocks. It cements Australia’s reputation as a leading voice for the conservation and sustainable use of SBT and shows that when responsible fishing nations such as Australia are prepared to stand up and be counted great things can be achieved.

Rather than accept the kooky, nut bag, deep green, ideologically driven rhetoric of the Greens, let us instead look, as we on this side of the chamber like to do—and I know Senator Bernardi will join me in this—at the facts. And they are these: at the 13th meeting of the CCSBT the commission members agreed to reduce the total global catch from 14,925 tonnes to 11,810 tonnes, of which Australia would harvest up to 5,265 tonnes. In making its decision the commission took advice from its scientific committee comprised of independent international scientists respected in their fields. The catch level agreed upon by members is within the levels recommended by this independent scientific committee. Let me repeat that for the benefit of the Greens: it is within the level recommended by independent internationally renowned scientists. It is not a pie-in-the-sky figure, it is not a figure plucked out of thin air; it is a figure within the levels recommended by international experts.

Why should we as a parliament override their advice? Is there any better advice that has been put on the table for us to consider—other than extreme Greens rhetoric? There is no advice other than the gloom and doom that the Greens preach no matter what the topic is. There is no scientific evidence to back up the assertion that we should be disallowing these regulations. The simple fact is, as is so often the case, the Greens simply will not accept the verdict of the international scientists who are experts in this field. Why? The answer is simple: because it does not support their ideology. That is the simple reason. But make no mistake: the result that we were able to obtain at the commission is not only a win for the fish in that it puts them on a sound, sustainable footing; it is also a win for our Australian SBT industry.

Two other key agreements were also reached by the commission. Firstly, the reduction in the global catch would be largely borne by Japan, whose national catch allocation has been reduced from 6,065 tonnes to 3,000 tonnes—that is, a 50 per cent reduction—over the next five years. Why is that? This is in recognition of the gross overcatch of tuna, possibly up to 178,000 tonnes, by the Japanese over the past 20 years. At this point I record my appreciation of the Australian industry and the government officials who worked tirelessly to uncover the overcatch and also of the Japanese government for the very responsible way in which they approached the discussions on this critical but very sensitive point at the commission.

The second decision I want to refer to is that Australia would retain its existing national catch allocation of 5,265 tonnes for the next three years in recognition that its operations have been compliant with the rules of the commission. In short, this is a great win for the industry. It is an important recognition that their operations have been world’s best practice. It allows them to face the future with increased confidence and I am sure it is a great comfort to the 3,500 employees in Port Lincoln who are employed either directly or indirectly by the industry.

The good news does not end there. Additional proposed reductions agreed by the commission members will take the actual catch below 11,530 tonnes for the next three years. Remember, when you take into account Japanese overcatch the global total allowable catch is being reduced not from 14,925 tonnes to 11,530 tonnes but from somewhere in the order of 20,000 tonnes to no more than 11,530 tonnes.

The commission also agreed to implement measures to improve monitoring, control and surveillance in the fishery, including regulation of transhipping, 100 per cent observer coverage, a catch documentation scheme and a compulsory national vessel monitoring system. The commission also made a commitment to work on further measures including an independent observer program for fishing vessels, port state measures, boarding and inspection and a vessel register. Make no mistake, these outcomes were not easy to achieve. They were the result of tireless efforts by the Australian government and they are undoubtedly good for the industry and good for the fish.

Given that great record, what on earth are the Greens doing coming into this chamber seeking to move a disallowance motion? It is very disappointing and it does highlight a very important difference: the difference between the approach of the Howard government and the approach of the Greens to balancing jobs and the environment. I cannot put it more simply than to say: with the Greens it is either jobs or the environment, but with the Howard government it is jobs and the environment. We do not have to exclude ourselves from the environment, as the Greens would continually have us do. We believe that we are in fact part of nature and, just as much as other animals have the right to eat tuna, so do humans. It stands to reason that we harvest them sensibly and in a sustainable way and that is exactly what we were able to achieve in Japan just a few short months ago. On the back of that fantastic outcome for Australia that has got us credit all around the world, the Greens come in with their mantra of doom and gloom. They are not willing to recognise any of the expert scientific evidence or any of the advances that we were able to make and they just continue with the same old mantra of doom and gloom and say that this fish stock is going to become extinct. A lot more could be said about this motion but it is a matter of great regret that the Australian Greens are not willing to ever recognise the achievements that are made by any government anywhere in this country when it comes to matters of the environment.

It is a good occasion for us to also ask who would be running Labor’s fishing policy if they were to ever be elected to government, because that is a very important question that the Australian Labor Party needs to answer. For 10 years, the Australian Conservation Foundation had a policy of saying that wild fisheries were unsustainable, they should not be allowed and that exports of anything caught in the wild, in fisheries in particular, was not sustainable. Indeed, that same body said:

Tuna stocks have been devastated by Australian and international fishing fleets because of their high value in the Japanese ... markets. Tuna cages off Port Lincoln in South Australia, where wild caught tuna are fattened for later sale, are also controversial.

They said the groups—and that included the Australian Conservation Foundation—‘do not support the ongoing commercial targeting of southern bluefin tuna’. Who was the president of the Australian Conservation Foundation for that 10-year period? None other than the man who would be the environment minister in a Kevin Rudd led government. I say to the southern bluefin tuna industry of South Australia: beware, this is the man that may well be using an export licence or some other mechanism to put in train that which he actually believes and has put on the public record through his organisation, the ACF, for over a decade. The ACF actually said:

No existing commercial use of a wild stock, in particular those harvested for export, can be demonstrated to be ecologically sustainable.

The Labor Party have to come clean. Is this still Mr Garrett’s view or is it not? He has to tell the people of Australia, if it is not his view, why he misled the people for a decade. Was it simply to raise funds for his organisation that made him willing to mislead them or is he now willing to mislead the Australian people in the hope of getting elected, so he can then implement policies that he actually has believed in for the last decade? That is a very scary thought for every single fisherman and community reliant on our sustainably managed wild fisheries. It is hard to believe, but I think the Australian Greens might even take a slightly more extreme position than Mr Garrett.