Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Bioregional Plans) Bill 2011, reminding myself this morning that we only spoke about this same issue very recently. It is an issue that has been near and dear to my heart over the years—marine protected areas.

I have been involved with marine protected areas through my research at the University of Tasmania over the years, and I volunteered my time to consult with conservation groups such as the ACF and the Wilderness Society. In the rollout of marine protected areas in South Australia, I have briefed both the South Australian Liberal Party and Labor Party over the years on the economics of marine protected areas. And, of course, the economics are closely tied to the science of marine protected areas. But I will get back to that in a minute.

Essentially, what we are debating here this morning is the role of science: the importance of science in policy and decision making, and whether the government should be able to overturn good science for political reasons. Clearly, this has been a big issue in the chamber with the supertrawler debate over the last six months. I and other members of the Greens and, of course, recreational fishers and a large section of the environment movement have been accused of being anti-science in our questioning of the allocation of the quota for a very large fishing vessel with freezing capacity and the potential risks that poses to Australia's marine resources. In this case it was a small pelagic fishery.

The argument has been put very clearly by the Liberals, particularly by Senator Colbeck, who I expect is going to speak next, that the decision to allocate that quota was made on good science. There are a number of scientists from different agencies who were involved in those decision-making processes. It is interesting that the Greens moved to disallow that quota. The argument was very clearly put that parliament should not have the ability to interfere with the good science of that decision. Certainly, it was suggested that we were being populist and politicising a scientific debate.

I find it very hard to reconcile that logic with the Liberals doing exactly the same thing with marine protected areas, which is essentially what this bill is about, because marine protected areas have been based on years of scientific research. I will fill that detail in in a second, but there is over 30 years of research—not just in Australia, in places like South Australia, but all around the world. Thousands of scientific reports have looked at both the science—