Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would just like to address a few remarks to this report on the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008, if I may, and I note that I have only got a few minutes. As Chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts I would just like to thank all the people who participated in this inquiry, including opposition senators. It was a difficult inquiry. We heard from people who had criminal convictions recorded for fishing in that period 1 July to September 2006, as Senator Macdonald said. I have to say that the committee had some considerable sympathy for those persons. However, I urge people who are listening to this debate to read this report and in particular read the parts of the report that deal with that very difficult issue of how you go backwards and try to deal with people who have got convictions. It is not an easy thing to take to the parliament something that either legislates for pardons or legislates to spend a conviction. I urge people to have a look at those comments before they condemn the report out of hand.

I also caution people that this bill has been claimed by some senators to impose a definition of fishing on fisher people that will see them convicted for fishing illegally if they so much as have an echo sounder on their boat or look at a fish. I think that some of those suggestions are a little bit outrageous and a bit of moderation in this debate would go some way to allaying fisher people’s concerns about what may or may not be applied to them in terms of the legislation. It is important, though, that there is some clarification in the bill as to what a definition of fishing is and how it should be applied. All of us in this chamber, I am sure, would want to see legislation that is easy for people to interpret and difficult for people to misinterpret. So I am pleased with the recommendations in the report and I would seek leave to continue my remarks on this report at a later date.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.