Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The European Union does. I do not know if you were here a bit earlier, Senator Feeney, when I was saying that whether it is being directly subsidised to operate in our waters or not—to exist—that boat has the potential to come into our waters. It is subsidised to do that. If it were not for European subsidies this super trawler would not be able to operate anywhere. It has to have that to exist.

We are talking about a game changer here. On Radio National this morning we heard that if this season is successful we can expect it to stay. This is not a once off; this is a game changer for the way we manage our fisheries in this country. We are saying that it is okay for massive, great big super trawlers to come into our waters and fish hundreds of tonnes of fish at a time. It is a super trawler that can go into a local area and scoop up all those fish. Not only are those fish important as far as recreational fishers are concerned but other industry players are also concerned that this will have an effect on our ecosystems and other fish species in those ecosystems. We need to think about what we are doing here.

We need to think about why there was a doubling of the quota to enable this super trawler to come into our waters. The background paper that was released yesterday by seven fisheries scientists concludes with this statement, 'It would be prudent to distribute catches to minimise the chance of local depletion'. We do not know what impact this is going to have on our fish species and we do not know what impact it is going to have on local depletions. We do know that fish stocks around the world are at risk and that we have tried hard to get an adequate and good management system in this country—and I am not about to stand here and say that I think it is perfect, because I have said on other occasions that it is not. But it is certainly better than in a lot of other countries. So instead of maintaining that standing and building on it, what we want to do is join the common denominator and let this sort of operation happen in our waters.

I have to say that it is a strange experience to be in the position where rec fishers are lobbying us to oppose something. I have not had that experience too often, I have to say, other than that there are a group of rec fishers who see the benefits of marine protected areas and the way that they operate to help fish stocks—and I am not going to go over that argument here. So I am not saying that we have not worked with rec fishers in the past, but it is fairly unusual for rec fishers to be lobbying us to oppose something like this. It is the same with the broader commercial industry; that is also unusual.

So there has to be something—and I will use it, pardon the pun—'fishy' about this particular proposal if there are so many stakeholders that are opposed to this particular proposal. We need to be operating under the precautionary principle in our management of our fisheries. Any definition of the precautionary principle would say that you do not allow this sort of massive fish-gathering implement to operate in our waters when it will lead to local depletions and when we do not have the science. We do not know what impact it will have.

The science report that people are now holding up as saying that it supports it does not. It does not say it is okay to go ahead. We should be operating under the precautionary principle. We should not allow this material—