Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Crossin for her question. It does bring me to addressing the important question for the marine bioregional planning process. The government has now announced the location of the proposed protected ocean regions, which does provide certainty for industry. It means that the job for government is now to join with industry to build an assistance package that meets their needs. It also means that we will now join with industry to develop the management plan arrangements for these new regions. These new marine reserves will not come into effect until the management plans are in place and the assistance package is flowing to fishers. We have designed the reserves to avoid impacts on fishers and regional communities as much as possible.

The fact is that these reserves are estimated to displace around one per cent of the annual value of wild-catch fishery production in Australia. To help industry manage this, the government will deliver an assistance package in the vicinity of $100 million that will be worked through on a case-by-case basis, and this adjustment will flow before the reserves are activated. The government will build with industry a tailored package to meet the needs of industry. We are going to work with those who want and are able to change their business model. They will also have an opportunity of changing where they fish, how they fish and the type of fish they catch. They may also want to exit the industry. We will build individual packages suited to the needs of those businesses. We will provide direct business assistance to those that will find that most of value and the Gillard Labor government will work with those impacted workers as well.

For those getting help, there will be extra research so that they can continue to fish but in more innovative and productive ways, and they will benefit from that research. We will work through those options with industry. (Time expired)