Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

These former treasurers turn up in strange places. Michael Egan was appointed by Minister Burke. He appointed the AFMA commission that is overseeing this entire process.

So is Minister Burke, in his rush to push this legislation through the parliament, expressing no confidence in his appointments on the AFMA commission? Perhaps.

Senator Collins might like to answer that question later on as to whether he was expressing no confidence, because Minister Burke tabled the management plan for the small pelagic fishery in this parliament. That plan incorporates the harbour strategy, which says that a large-scale freezer vessel may very well be the way to deal with this. Minister Burke's denials of his knowledge of or involvement in this process are completely unbelievable. He has absolutely no credibility in this debate, and this debate is now urgent and must be brought on because of his uncertainty, which he has made absolutely no effort to deal with. We now have to suspend debate on all other matters to bring this on.

It also trashes the reputation of our fisheries management system, which is globally benchmarked, as I have said in this place before, as the second best in the world for sustainability behind Germany. I do not think Germany is a huge fishing nation—needless to say, we give them credit for being there at the top of the tree—but we are at No. 2 on sustainability. That is what this argument is all about. Minister Burke, now the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities after presiding over the introduction of all the management systems as Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, is now talking about his uncertainty about those systems. I wonder whether Minister Burke has any confidence in his own decisions. That is probably the key question: are Minister Burke's actions now in trying to rush this piece of legislation through the parliament a motion of no-confidence in himself? I think that is probably correct.