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

Yes, all of them. So it would have got support from Mr Bandt in the other house and a couple of your left-wing colleagues if the Prime Minister had not had the fortitude to pull them into line. But it would not have mattered as that in itself was a blimp. Then suddenly Mr Kevin Rudd indicates publicly that he is going to support the private member's bill—oops, Mr Rudd is going to support Ms Parke's private member's bill and that brings a whole new complexity to the issue. Can you just see Mr Rudd and Ms Parke moving the motion sitting on one side of the green chamber over there and all of their colleagues sitting on the other side! That was never going to happen, was it, Minister? That was never going to happen. A Prime Minister who had some intestinal fortitude and who was a leader would have told her backbench members, Ms Parke and Mr Rudd, to toe the line, rely on the science and do what was right and do what Minister Burke had encouraged to happen when he was fisheries minister—and this would have gone through.

I have to say, Minister, that several months ago people rang me and said, 'We're seeking support.' I said, 'Well, don't come to me. I rely on the scientists. They have clearly said it's right. What's more, I know that the Labor Party is right behind you in your venture. So thanks for calling me but you need not waste your time or mine as it will go through. We know the Greens will be opposed to it.' The Labor Party, for once in their life, I suspect—although not once, as you have been right a couple of times—were firm on this.

I said to the people who rang me: 'Just have a look at what Mr Burke said as fisheries minister. He encouraged you to do it. There's no way in the world the Labor Party would backflip on this. They've backflipped on the carbon tax and on the mining tax—you name it—but they won't backflip on this, because science is on your side. You have a senior minister, Mr Burke, encouraging you to come there, so don't worry about it. You'll be right.' And they were right, and I was delighted, Minister, to hear your answer just last Monday, when you defended them appropriately on advice from the scientists and from the commission that your predecessor appointed.

So, Minister, my question in this committee stage of the bill is: what actually happened on Monday night? Forget the politics—I do not want to go into internal Labor Party factional deals—but what happened in a scientific fisheries management way on Monday night that caused you, on Tuesday morning, to have a completely different view to the view you expressed in this chamber on Monday at 2.20 pm? That is my first question: what happened? The second question is: which of those eminent scientists and fisheries managers that you or your predecessor as minister for fisheries appointed to the AFMA commission do you now not have confidence in? Which of those people are so incapable or ignorant that you no longer take the advice they have given you? They are two fairly simple questions.

Unfortunately, my time has run out. I do have another question. I will be much briefer on that, but I will just forewarn you on that so your advisers might be able to assist by getting some information. I want to briefly question you about the role of the ombudsman in this issue, but I will leave that to my next question if I may. But my first two questions are: what changed on Monday night and which members of that commission do you not have confidence in?