Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will, Madam Acting Deputy President, but I will have to show it to the minister first. The government has had it since last August. It has not been publicly released and it has only recently been provided to a stakeholders advisory group which has very limited access to the government. The guts of the report is that it recommends against compensation or structural adjustment for the vast majority of fishermen and associated businesses that will be affected by the establishment of marine protected areas—right around the Australian coastline. The report suggests there may be a constitutional requirement, under the ‘just terms’ provisions, to provide compensation to native title holders and mining interests. But the only category of fishers likely to get any support—if the government accepts the consultants’ conclusions—are those who hold statutory fishing rights. That basically means compensation will be restricted to holders of quotas in Commonwealth fisheries. No other fishers or associated industries will get anything if the government accepts the advice.

If you compare that with the way that the former government supported fishers, associated businesses and communities in the wake of the extension of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, the meanness of the government is exposed. The bill for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park extension is in excess of $220 million. I know, because I worked very hard to get it. This mean-spirited and sneaky government looks set to provide very little, and to keep its meanness secret until after the election. And that is unconscionable. The government needs to come clean before the election. It needs to give the fishing industry—commercial and recreational—several key undertakings. It needs to tell fishers clearly that it will engage them in risk assessments to determine what the impact of fishing is in the areas the government is most interested in. It needs to guarantee fishers that once the risk assessments have been done it will then engage in consultation and negotiation about the form of compensation or structural adjustment that will be needed. Above all, it needs to be open and accountable before the election.

In Cairns recently I met a number of fishermen and people associated with the industry from the Queensland sector of the northern marine region, the gulf. The people I met highlighted that what the government is contemplating on this issue is going to have the same sort of flow-on impacts that its mining tax is having. Just as it is not only miners who are being hit by the government’s proposed profits tax, it is not only fishers who will be hit by no-take zones in marine protected areas. In Cairns I met a young mechanic. He employs 12 tradesmen and three apprentices. Eighty per cent of his work is in maintaining the fishing fleet. He does it locally; he flies to Karumba. Closures, no-take zones—even a reduction in effort—could cost his business jobs. I met another fisherman who distributes the mackerel that comes out of the gulf. He is supplying 150 outlets. You are very lucky in Cairns when you go to a fish and chip shop, because you are likely to get fresh Spanish mackerel with your chips. If the mackerel fishing in the gulf is curtailed or reduced significantly, there goes that fisherman, there goes the distributor and there goes the fish and chips. Then there is the fuel, the chandlers, the truck drivers. The multiplier effect is huge. In a city with a huge unemployment rate of 12 per cent—and I think that is conservative—Queensland and Cairns need that like a hole in the head.

There will be similar impacts in other areas that have been tagged for further assessment. In the eastern zone there is a 13,000 square kilometre area off Fraser Island in Queensland that is not only an important recreational fishery but also an important area for spanner crabs, trawling and line fishing. Going down the coast, there are large areas off the Clarence and Tweed rivers in New South Wales that will also impact on both recreational and commercial fishers. There are areas for further assessment in the northern region covering both Northern Territory and Western Australian fishing interests. The government has indicated that in marine protected areas there will be no-take zones.

A very minor set of amendments that provide an opportunity for continued recreational fishing of mako and porbeagle sharks is welcome, but it does not help the overall situation of the wider restrictions on both recreational and commercial fishing that would emerge after the rapidly approaching election if Labor were to win it. For many reasons, but particularly for the fate of fishers, their families and their communities, I sincerely hope that they do not. I support the very minor concession to recreational fishing in this bill, but I bell the cat on where this government really stands.