Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

There are a couple of areas that I would like to explore in relation to the aspects of this bill. Minister, could you please explain to me how on Monday of last week you were fulsome in your defence, if I might say, of the Abel Tasman and of the people who, as a result of the encouragement by your predecessor as fisheries minister, Mr Burke, brought this big fishing vessel to Tasmania? On Monday, 10 September, in the Senate in answer to a question from Senator Whish-Wilson you were fulsome in your praise of the big fishing vessel. Quite rightly, you indicated that this had been looked at for some time—in fact, I think you mentioned that it had been since 2004, without the date. The scientists and those people whom you appointed to assess the reports of the scientists came to the conclusion that this was a productive, efficient and environmentally friendly way of fishing. Minister, if you are looking for your answer from Monday, I can give it to you if you do not have it in front of you and do not recall what you said. But, clearly, you were right on the message.

My first question is what happened on the night of Monday, 10 September, in an issue of proper fisheries management—I am not interested in the politics of it, Minister. I do not care if Kevin Rudd was about to roll Julia Gillard as Prime Minister. I am not interested in those sorts of things. I would hope that ministers in the government of my country would be making decisions on the basis of science and on the basis of what is good for the fishery. Clearly, on Monday, 10 September you were confident—in fact I think your words were that you 'need to give confidence that the food impacts of the small pelagic fishery on predators and on small pelagic fishery species themselves, including through localised depletion, are unlikely'—that is, any adverse impact. I am not a scientist but may I say, with respect, that that has always been my understanding. So I want to know, if you could please tell the Senate, what it was, as a responsible minister in charge of Australia's fisheries and the sustainability of Australia's fisheries, that happened on Monday night that caused you to change your mind completely.

I would also like to know, Minister, if you would be so good, which of the AFMA commission that you have appointed you do not have confidence in or respect for. The chairman is the Hon. Michael Egan, a former Labor treasurer of New South Wales, as I recall. There is Dr James Findlay, the CEO, a man whose scientific credentials are impeccable. If you ever wanted anyone in the world, I can confidently say, to give you good advice on fisheries and fisheries management it would be Dr Findlay. You have appointed a deputy chairman, Mr Richard Stevens, who I am delighted to say has been on the predecessor of the AFMA commission since I was minister. I know firsthand that Mr Stevens is an exceptional administrator when it comes to the science of fisheries management. There is Mr Ian Cartwright, who I know has been involved in fisheries management for years. You and I, Minister, have been involved in fisheries management in different periods of time in the flick of an eye in our history. Mr Cartwright has been there for years: a qualified, exceptional fisheries management person. You clearly agree with me, Minister—that is why you appointed him.

I do not know Dr Glaister, Ms Jennifer Goddard, Ms Elizabeth Montano or Ms Denise North. Perhaps I have met them, but I do not know a lot about them. But, again, Minister, I am confident that, if you appointed them on advice from your department, on advice from the fisheries industry and from those people who know, they would be good people. The final member of the commission is Professor Keith Sainsbury, who I do know. Again, whilst you and I are involved in a blip in history, Professor Sainsbury has been around for a long time. And he is good! That is why you, Minister, appointed him to the commission. I would really like to know why you, Minister, having appointed these nine exceptionally well-qualified experts as commission members—I know half of them, and I know they are good fisheries management people—have decided that their advice is wrong. It is not as if they woke up one morning and said, 'Let's have a look at this small pelagic fishery.'

As you mentioned very generously in your answer to the question on 10 September, you would know that since 2004 these people and all of the best fisheries scientists and managers have been looking at the small pelagic fishery. They and you came to the conclusion, Minister, as did your predecessor, that getting a big trawler to get the same quantity of fish out of the same quota—no more fish being caught; exactly the same quota—was a good way to go. Your predecessor, Mr Burke, as fisheries minister, encouraged Tasmanian fishermen to do exactly what was being done. Minister, ask your advisers all you like, but the record is there of what Mr Burke said and how he did encourage these people to do exactly what they did.

Mr Burke, in that instance, was correct. He knows as much about fisheries management as you or I do but he clearly took advice from the experts that he had appointed, not experts that have any political persuasion at all but experts in the business of fisheries management and that is why Mr Burke appointed them. Mr Burke took their advice, as well he should, and you took their advice. I refer you again to your answer to Senator Whish-Wilson's question on Monday, 10 September, where you took the advice, you appropriately referred the questioner to the science and you defended the action that your predecessor, Mr Burke, had taken as the fisheries minister.

Suddenly, on the night, I assume, of Monday, 10 September something happened. I know that one of your Western Australian colleagues of the left faction had indicated they were going to move a private member's bill, which the Greens naturally would have supported because they want to shut down any resource industry in Australia and it does not matter what it is.