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

Mr President, as you would be aware, less than a week ago Mr Burke produced maps of the marine bioregions that encompass Australia—3.1 million square kilometres that go right around Australia. Within the boundaries of those marine bioregions, there will be no-take zones, there will be banning of trawling on all zones and there will be no fishing in the green zones. As I predicted when the announcement was made, there have been no declarations of the bioregions yet; there are 60 days to go. I am pleased that Senator Faulkner is in the Senate, because he is an old warhorse and he will be able to pick up the danger signals straightaway. I predicted there would be a fight-back. Senator Faulkner made fun of me yesterday when I said the battle of the Coral Sea would begin.