Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I am sure that my colleagues have discussed the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts at some length. I am still trying to get a copy of it so that I can make a useful contribution. By and large, the coalition members on the committee—and of course they all speak for themselves—thought that the broad thrust of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 was appropriate. The Great Barrier Reef is one of the very significant natural icons of Australia and needs to be well managed in changing circumstances and with new and more modern administrative arrangements. This bill is a complete look at the whole issue of management of the Great Barrier Reef. It is a bill that had its genesis in the days of the last government. There was a long consultation period in the time of the previous government. A lot of the material in the bill is material which the coalition guided through its formative stages. This does not mean to say that it is perfect; in fact, a number of issues have come up, which I am sure my colleagues have raised in the chamber.

In the brief time available to me, I want to concentrate on the two issues on which amendments have been submitted by the coalition and which were considered by the committee in its report. There was a third issue, the definition of ‘fishing’. Some of us in the coalition had some concerns about that; I know that Senator Boswell and Senator Joyce did. But I was relatively satisfied after hearing the explanations from the department and the lawyers that the term ‘fishing’ was not the term used for breaches of the green zones, if I could put it that way. The evidence given to the committee from the experts took us through how that was determined. The term ‘fishing’, so far as green zones are concerned, is contained not in this bill but in some regulations. Those regulations provide that ‘fishing’ means the actual taking of a marine animal or a fish or attempting to take fish. Some of my concerns about issues that senators rightly raised were to a degree allayed by the evidence before the committee.

The majority report does, however, clearly point out that the terminology and the placement of that term ‘fishing’ is rather convoluted and the majority committee has suggested at recommendation 2 that the government review the manner in which fishing is defined in the act. The coalition senators would certainly support that, and in fact we do in our dissenting report.

The other issue is the issue of representation on the board—and I should not say ‘representation on the board’ but rather ‘appointments to the board’. The board increases from three to five. There was always a provision for an Indigenous person to be on the board, but the previous government thought that it was not a representative board and therefore different people and different interests did not need to be represented as such and that the board would and should be appointed on merit. So the previous government removed the requirement to have an Indigenous person on the board. The current government put that back in. The opposition supports that.

But the opposition also thinks that it should be mandated that there be someone on the board who has some experience in either the tourism industry or another industry associated with the Great Barrier Reef, so we have put in an amendment that has been supported by many—and I particularly mention the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators—who think that that would be appropriate. I make the point again that it is not a representative board, so you are not there representing anyone; you are there looking after the best interests of the Great Barrier Reef and all of the many people and industries who have an interest in the Great Barrier Reef.

We would certainly be urging that the Senate include in the bill a requirement that one of the five appointees to the board be someone with experience. We do not want a board made up of, for example—lovely people though they are—Brisbane or Canberra bureaucrats. We do not want it made up of one particular sector that might have an interest in the reef. We want a broad based board to look after the interests of the reef, and that is why we think that there should be someone with experience in the industry on the board. So we will be moving that amendment, and that is referred to in the minority report, and I would take issue with the majority committee report insofar as they oppose that.

The other issue that I do want to dwell a little on is the amendment that we intend moving to try to bring some fairness and justice to those people who were convicted of offences between 1 July 2004 and 30 September 2006, who were penalised for fishing in the wrong zone or fishing illegally in the green zone and who were fined substantially and who have paid their fines. They found out as an almost unintended consequence that the conviction leaves them with a criminal record. This then makes it very difficult for them to get visas to enter some countries and it is on their records.

Before the last election Senator Boswell did a lot of good work on this and others argued the case so that the then Prime Minister, Mr Howard, made a commitment that if the then government was returned we would legislate to remove the criminal convictions from those who had been breached during that period. That period is significant because 1 July 2004 is when the new green zones came into being, and 30 September 2006 is the day when by regulation the then government provided that rather than criminal convictions, if you were doing the wrong thing and it was not a particularly serious thing, you would get an on-the-spot ticket, a breach notice. You would pay your fine just the same but you would not have the criminal record. We are thinking that, if those people who, subsequent to 30 September 2006, would have got a ticket but not a criminal record, then those who were convicted between 1 July 2004 and 30 September 2006 should be treated in the same way insofar as the recording of a criminal conviction.

It is very important to understand—and I want all senators to understand this—that the then opposition spokesman, Senator Kerry O’Brien, repeated the promise that John Howard had made, and quite rightly he should have because it was a fair arrangement: bring them all back into the same category. One of the troubles that the coalition members on the committee had was then working out how, legally, you arrange to remove those convictions after they have been through the court process. Relying on the Crimes Act, which is mentioned in our report, we are trying to legislatively treat those who were convicted in that period as having what is called technically ‘spent convictions’ and that means that the criminal record would no longer show. There are different elements of that that require some attention and explanation, and unfortunately I am not going to have time tonight to explain that because I only have 30 seconds left. We will have to do that during the moving of the amendments. (Time expired)