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

Mr Deputy President, I congratulate you, too. I am not going to respond to the Labor Party and the Greens. What I am going to say is that this needs to be debated, because there are four million blue-collar workers who normally vote for Labor. I will read one of the submissions to the committee again. It should be absolutely compulsory reading for everyone in the Labor Party. The Labor Party is getting ripped to pieces. This is just a classic example of why you have to listen to the people, and you do not. The vote is dividing now, at 27 per cent, and the people who want those bioregional zones, in the form that they are, are voting for the Greens. The four million people who fish and normally vote Labor are coming over to us, and that is why we won every seat down the east coast of Australia, in Queensland. You ignore this at your peril and you continue to ignore it.

This bill covers twice the land area of Australia—16 million square kilometres—and it is in the hands of only one person. The minister, Mr Burke, has the power of life and death over fishing, mining, boating and anything that happens in those zones, and he can do what he likes. This bill does not want to ban bioregions—not at all. It is saying: give the parliament a vote; let the parliament have the right of disallowance. It is the same in every declaration, bar this particular one.

We had a number of submissions to the inquiry, something like 31. Out of those 31 there would have been 28 that represented professional fishermen or boat users, such as the Cairns Professional Game Fishing Association and the Haines Group, which provides boats. The boating industry is worried; it is in the doldrums because of all the closures that are going on. I will read from Cameron Talbot's submission. It is an absolute cry in the wilderness from a Labor voter. He said:

I’m concerned that lobby groups like PEW WWF—

that is, the World Wildlife Fund—

and AMCS seem to get access to Ministers and control of what happens. The Department does not consult us or simply ignores what we have to say. I feel that democracy has been lost and further more my faith in the Labour party has gone with it. I along with all labour supporters that I know who also fish, are so disenfranchised with this government that at the next election we will do what I never thought we would and vote LNP. This is the last chance I will give labour, if this falls thru so does my vote—for good. Fishermen (and there are a lot of us) will not forget this if it is swept under the carpet.

Those are the people I am appealing for—the people who are voiceless. Yes, they have consultation: 'Sit down here. We'll tell you what we're going to do, and if you don't like it don't worry about it. But, if you're on the Pew group or if you're on a green group, you get the ear of the minister.' This is what the four million people are saying: 'We want the same rights as Pew. We want the same rights as the World Wildlife Fund. That is what we want and we're not getting it. We voted for the Labor Party, but we're not going to do it anymore.' You are going to be torn to pieces and you should understand this, but you keep walking into the fire.

We had a couple of submissions from recognised scientists who said that drawing lines on maps does not really help the fishing industry. I will read one to the Senate by Steve Oxley from the department. He said:

I think it would be fair to say that, relative to other parts of the marine environment—and bearing in mind that the marine environment is generally not well understood—we have a relative dearth of information about the biodiversity of the Coral Sea …

This will be the next cab off the rank to be declared a zone. The Labor Party have to realise this: how do you go when your vote goes below 27 per cent? (Time expired)